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http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/texting-driving/
I always thought there would only be a small minority of idiots who would text while driving, the same group that would watch TV, play videogames, make popcorn, or read the newspaper while driving. I've seen a lot of inattentive idiots doing stupid things while talking on a cell phone (saw a guy nearly run his Cayenne into a ditch the other day) but I've never seen anyone texting while driving. Have you?
GameboyRMH wrote:http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/texting-driving/
I always thought there would only be a small minority of idiots who would text while driving, the same group that would watch TV, play videogames, make popcorn, or read the newspaper while driving. I've seen a lot of inattentive idiots doing stupid things while talking on a cell phone (saw a guy nearly run his Cayenne into a ditch the other day) but I've never seen anyone texting while driving. Have you?
At least twice a day, and I live in a rural area. Craziness.
I live just outside of DC and I see this constantly on the DC Beltway and I270 into surburban Maryland. It's even crazier than the idiots I see reading a book or the newspaper while they're driving.
Only when I'm drunk
I see people texting every day. Cops might be the #1 texters.
I've watched people writing in notebooks (paper types). Seen them doing crossword puzzles. Surfing the net. Reading novels. Preparing a meal. Making a cup of coffee. Shaving. Makeup. Getting dressed, undressed or changing. Trimming nose hairs. Painting their toe nails. Painting their passengers toe nails.
Rarely do I see one simply driving. Wish that were a sarcastic comment.
A couple days a week a Police officer is posted at my corner to enforce various laws since it is a high accident spot. In the half hour he's there he usually writes two or three texting tickets, often combined with turning from the wrong lane (a right from the left lane) or turning into the bike lane. When they stop they almost always tell him to wait while they finish typing.
foxtrapper wrote:I see people texting every day. Cops might be the #1 texters.
They may be getting important messages from their supervisors. If our drivers get caught looking at the time on their phones they get 2 or more days suspension, but for a while we were testing a tracking system that sent them information like street closures as text messages on a screen that was half way across the dashboard. It would often send out urgent messages on its own that they had ventured off route or something, and the screen would flash red until they leaned over to read and answered it.
foxtrapper wrote:I see people texting every day. Cops might be the #1 texters.
I've watched people writing in notebooks (paper types). Seen them doing crossword puzzles. Surfing the net. Reading novels. Preparing a meal. Making a cup of coffee. Shaving. Makeup. Getting dressed, undressed or changing. Trimming nose hairs. Painting their toe nails. Painting their passengers toe nails.
Rarely do I see one simply driving. Wish that were a sarcastic comment.
There's a cop here that watches Family Guy on his laptop while he cruises the main drag.
In reply to 93celicaGT2:
the cops here and in austin when i lived there were the worst, always talking on their cellphones. a buddy of mine in another town used to work for a cell phone company and the cops would always call and bitch about their bill when the talked too much, too
Yes, I see it all the time. In fact, just the other day...hold on I have to merge....
I see it all the time too and in many cases by people who seem to be old enough to know better.
If one of these self important jackoffs hits me, there will definitely be an ambulance needed because I'm sure a BlackBerry is much harder to remove from the anus that it would first appear. 
"million to one shot, Doc!"
Cops are the #1 cell phone yappers. Not sure if they are #1 on texting. If they aren't, they are top flight.
And honestly, I was thinking of their playing on their laptops while they drive. And at that, now surfing the web and such. Just the constant searching of the tag number from the car in front of them and such.
If there's any drivers group that could use a heads up display, it's cops. And voice recognition.
This practice assures my continued employment as an insurance adjuster. And yes, it's a frequent cause of my check writing.
yeah I text while I drive as flamed for in previous posts and I see people doing it all the time. I do lots of interstate driving and I'd say like one out of every 5 cars I pass are texting.
We have banned exceeding the speed limit and that still seems to happen.
What about typing an address into your GPS unit. Is that texting?
I would like to see some kind of rule on mounting a gps screen. It seems like most people here have them front and center and look around them to see the road. more frightening is that I see some of these people everyday driving to the train station. If you can't remember where it is one day to the next maybe you should seek some kind of help.
Wally wrote:more frightening is that I see some of these people everyday driving to the train station. If you can't remember where it is one day to the next maybe you should seek some kind of help.
Some of them have traffic updates that might suggest different routes. I hear there are sometimes problems with excessive traffic around large cities.
Up here we have one road to the station, it runs along the tracks.
Dear Abby in today's paper some woman wrote in cranking about her daughter talking and texting while driving. Grandma told the daughter to knock it off as the kiddies in the back seat are jeopardized. It was the only free time the daughter had. OK, don't call me if you're driving. Daughter doesn't call her mother at all anymore.
Nice.
And Wally, I agree there should be some rule (common sense doesn't apply?) to GPS placement. It lights up the inside of cars I pass, what does it do to your night vision?
Dan
What ever happend to just pulling over to read a map?
ddavidv wrote:This practice assures my continued employment as an insurance adjuster. And yes, it's a frequent cause of my check writing.
I'm really surprised that the insurance industry hasn't said that if they can prove that you were texting at the time of the accident, no payout.
I can barely figure out how to make a call on my phone, much less text and drive.
daughter of a women I work with is so "good" at texting she can text without even looking at the keyboard..... thinks that gives her the "right" to text any time she wants 
.... doesn't seem to realize that she isn't concentrating on her driving ,..... doesn't even understand the concept (won't even address the attention she gives an incoming text)
Gearheadotaku wrote:I can barely figure out how to make a call on my phone, much less text and drive.
I'm with you. Most of the time I just let it go until I get to a place to stop. I see no reason to punch in addresses in the GPS while driving, I do that before I leave so I won't have to touch it while driving. Most of these devices are smarter than I am so it takes me a little while to correctly input things into them and I have to think when I do that so I stop to do that. I will tell whoever tried to contact me that I was driving and couldn't respond till I pulled over someplace.
