<p>My boss is always on her phone in the car. She calls me on her way in to work and leaves me long voicemails (this morning it was 2 voicemails), often dictating emails she wants me to send. Today she had to leave for an appointment and said, “I need to go to this appt but I’ll call you from the road to discuss this project.” She also asked me to text her the phone number of our contractor. I did, thinking she’d call him when she arrived where she was going. A minute later she texted back, “Thats fax #.” I texted back the correct number followed by “and its illegal to text and drive!”</p>
<p>I’ve seen a guy on the DC Beltway reading the Washington Post (folded over the steering column so it was hands-free) AND using an electric razor.</p>
<p>I was hit by a personal injury attorney who was driving a borrowed vehicle and talking on a cell phone (and ran the red light by 13 seconds as he t-boned my car).</p>
<p>Idiots. Plain and simple.</p>
<p>blocking phones wouldn’t help, and might even cause additional problems. this is a social problem that requires a social and not a technological solution. as others have mentioned before, people do all kinds of distracting things behind the wheel and I doubt there’s a machine or a piece of software that can stop people from applying their makeup or reading a newspaper when they’re behind the wheel.</p>
<p>H and I were driving on a freeway in San Francisco, looked over at the car in the lane next to us and saw that the driver was PLAYING HIS FLUTE–the kind of flute you’d play in a marching band!</p>
<p>Maryland has passed laws over the past two years that ban texting and talking (except hands free) on cells.</p>
<p>I am beyond steamed up at people’s use of their phones while driving (admission: I use a blue-tooth enabled cell phone with voice commands occasionally).</p>
<p>I have seen my brother (50-something) pick up his phone and start looking at it to find and dial a number. I stopped him immediately (bossy older sister here). DH drove with a friend (over 60!) who was texting while driving.</p>
<p>Why do some people NOT GET IT? (I’m shouting; it’s my only way to vent)</p>
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<p>Unless it’s an emergency, there is no reason to pull off onto the shoulder when a driver can simply wait for the next exit and get off the highway. That’s what we taught our son.</p>
<p>Agree that exiting the highway is the way to go. I made the original comment assuming that one was driving on a city street (with, of course, a curb lane that one can park in).</p>
<p>California passed a no talking on your cell phone unless you are using a hands free headset. Didn’t make much of a dent in the number of idiots on their phones while driving. And I still believe it is the lack of attention and not the fact you are holding a phone to your ear that is bad. Therefore, the hands free part makes no sense. Should be just no cell phone usage.</p>
<p>I agree that the hands free part is nonsensical. IMO, the problem is much more the quick (or extended, god forbid) eye distraction - just that split second to look at your keyboard/device to punch a number, scroll to a name. That is all it can take for disaster.</p>
<p>I know that attention is now going toward all sorts of distractions (eating, talking). Heck, couldn’t listening to the radio be distracting? Yes, imo… but not in the same way that fiddling with the dial would be. I don’t dispute these other distractions, but I don’t think they are nearly the issue of that momentary diversion of one’s eyes.</p>
<p>And I despair of people getting it. Younger people have always felt immortal… but if 50-something and 60-something adults are doing this nonsense…</p>
<p>California now posts a minimum fine of (I think) $159 for texting while driving. I hope they enforce the heck out of that. It’s the only hope I have the people will stop.</p>
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<p>So has California, and I see people violating them every single day.</p>
<p>There’s a young woman where I work who texts obsessively. The accuracy of her work naturally suffers, and she has been told that if it doesn’t improve, she’ll be fired. And yet the texting continues. I think for some, it’s an addiction. Thank God she doesn’t drive because I really don’t think she could resist the temptation.</p>
<p>It slowed them down here in Maryland–for about a week. People can’t be stopped for that, but they can be cited for it if they are caught doing somethng else.</p>
<p>In Maryland, texting while driving is a primary offense, but talking on a cell phone while driving is a secondary offense.</p>
<p>idiot in the OP deserves about 30 years, IMO.</p>
<p>I have no tolerance for people that have such little regard for the safety of others. It is ridiculous and there is no excuse.</p>
<p>Remember the woman in Florida last year who crashed her car while shaving down below. She had her ex steering the car but I guess he wasn’t looking out the windshield.</p>
<p>DUI used to be a much bigger problem until organizations like MADD got vocally involved and started pushing for more severe consequences. It’s time to do the same for texting while driving. Make the penalties severe, not just a ticket, but suspend the license and mandatory counseling for the first offense. That will get people’s attention, and the sooner the better.</p>
<p>The law in Maryland was helped along by a tragic story…A young woman and her fiance (both from my county here in Maryland) were on their way to plan their wedding at Disney World, where they were employed. They were on one of those four-lane divided highways that has stoplights. The light had changed to red and there was a line of about eight cars stopped. A semi-trailer truck driver was texting and didn’t see the stopped line of traffic. He hit them going full speed. The young woman and her fiance were in the next-to-last car, which was hit by the car behind them, and turned sideways. The passenger side of the car took a direct hit. At least two people died: one was the bride-to-be. The groom-to-be grew up across the street from me. It has been a long recovery for him and many others.</p>
<p>No one thinks that it will happen to them, but it does.</p>
<p>I, too, have a voice activated blue-tooth device in my car, so I can make and take phone calls without my hands leaving the steering wheel, nor my eyes leaving the road.</p>
<p>I will fess up, though, that if I’m at a traffic light with a prolonged red signal, I have used that opportunity to text or check email. But the second I see the light turn green, the phone goes in the passenger seat, no matter whether or not the message is finished or not, or whether I’ve finished reading the email or not.</p>
<p>^^ You’d be ticketed for that in California. Here, the car must be pulled out of traffic and into a legal parking spot.</p>
<p>Many studies have shown that people are just as distracted talking on hands free devices as they are on hand held because the distraction is a mental one. The driver is just as likely to miss key visual and audio keys that help avoid accidents.</p>
<p>LasMa - I think I can get ticketed for it here, too. If it happens to me, I will have no one to blame but myself.</p>
<p>cartera45 - How does that differ from having a conversation with a passenger in the car?</p>