I don’t text hardly at all…lucky to get one or two per week. I did receive a text this AM on the way to the bank from a buddy at the deer lease. He was just letting me know the amount of rain in the gauges. It was a very short text I was ‘reading’ and I still hit the striped lane reflectors bump deals as I drifted into the left lane.
I then ran across this when I got home. It’s 15mins but well worth the time. Someone posted it on a hunting forum I frequent and felt I needed to share with my amigos over here.
Yeah I was shocked when I heard that as well. I wonder if they would have even looked into his cell phone records if Reggie Shaw had not been seen doing this in the back of the Trooper’s car.
Most of you may have seen this already but this PSA about texting while driving from the UK is another eye opener…
A longtime and close friend of mine was killed in a head on collision at the age of 32 this summer. His father was with him in the truck and was VERY close to not making it himself. He will be suffering the affects of the accident for the rest of his life, a constant reminder of the accident that took the life of his son. The cause? A 16 year old girl text messaging that crossed the double yellow when my buddy and his dad were just on their way to work together.
So after watching that video completely, Reggie got 100hrs of community service and 30 days in jail for killing two men. And leaving two women widowed with children…:mad:
I struggled a little over the title but thought if I put text in there it might get skipped…my hope was for people to watch and share it. Many of us do not text but know someone who does & I know for sure folks are using these snazzy new phones to email / internet in the car too.
I’m a BIG TIME text’er. I started years ago, even before texting became popular. Sometimes I get up to 300 per day. I never thought driving + texting was a good idea. I had such a habit of picking up my phone (Blackberry) and reading/responding to a text that it was automatic. Text Ringer, Pick up, Read, Respond.
I forced myself to break that habit because I didn’t want to be behind the wheel and start reading/responding to text messages automatically just because the ringer went off.
The other day I was texting with one of my closest friends I asked what he was doing, he’s response was: “Driving to work.”
My response was: “Don’t text while driving. Bye.”
He’s response, “My girlfriend is driving.”
I usually get on someone’s case when they indicate to me that they are texting and driving. It’s just a bad idea. You wanna do it while at your desk, inline at the coffee shop, behing a shopping cart, that’s fine. But Driving an actual vehicle, NO. Bad Idea!
Anyway, I have dedicated myself to nearly 0 texting while driving. Maybe at stop lights, but anything else just seems to be asking for it. Only takes seconds for everything to change, especially when responding to something that is either upsetting or involved.
Was driving home one icy night around 2 am and saw a girl who had just plowed through the median and knocked over a traffic light, glass and engine oil all over the road. Slowed down to see if she was okay.
As I rolled down my window, her friends in another car pulled up and I heard them ask her what happened?
She replied sobbing with tears down her face, “I don’t know, I was texting!!!”
DUI = 2,500 dollar fine, 9 points against your DL, 2,000 minimum in Lawyer Fees, and who knows the increase in insurance.
Driving While Texting = 150 dollar fine. I think 2 points against the DL, and it’s a violation.
Which is safer? Driving under the influence according to a recent study, but most suggest that both are equally dangerous. Talking on a cell phone is the same fine as texting, and is as dangerous as driving drunk if not more.
Might not be the popular view of this thread but even with what we’ve been through I’m still not one to rush to more government control. I see just as many soccer mom’s putting on make-up or smacking their kids in the back seat as I’ve seen texters causing issues. The roads are dangerous and that’s part of it. If it wasn’t cell phones it would be eating or drinking or changing the radio station or looking for a song on an iPod or something. I was always very anti-laws prohibiting this and even after what happened I still am against government control. I mean, cars are dangerous objects even w/o people texting but we don’t make them illegal. Drinking and driving are illegal but the numbers of DUI related deaths are staggering. I just think that people getting tickets and crashing their cars (hopefully into inanimate objects) will eventually make it so they can’t afford to drive. The system is set up so that idiot drivers are slowly squeezed out.
If we were smart we would realize that driving is a privilege and NOT a right and increase the testing and requirements for getting a license. In other countries it’s very difficult and very expensive to get a driving permit and this means only skilled drivers will get their license and those that get them will respect them more, realize driving is a HUGE responsibility and take it more serious. People in the US just don’t seem to get it. Even pre-cell phones the highways are some of the most dangerous in the world and people just don’t seem to pay attention or generally give a shit. Once again. before cell phones it was something else. It will always be something else because that’s the society. If someone doesn’t respect cars as a whole then they will be distracted by something else because they just… don’t… get it.
No more laws to protect people from themselves. We can’t keep giving our freedom for safety because it’s a pipe dream unfortunately. If something happened to me I wouldn’t want a law created to prevent it because that’s the risk of life and I don’t want to see freedoms slowly chipped away at in my memory because that would be the LAST thing I believe in.
Again, I’m sure that’s not the popular stance of people in this topic given the title but that’s just the way I feel.
