Posted on 11/02/2011 4:53:12 AM PDT by grundle
A teenage girl died Tuesday night in a one-vehicle accident in Butler County that state police said involved texting while driving.
Alexis Summers, 17, of Saxonburg, was killed when the 2003 Subaru Legacy she was driving hit a tree after 10 p.m. off Hannastown Road in Jefferson.
Her vehicle veered to the right berm of the roadway and onto a slight grass embankment, police said. Ms. Summers then apparently overcompensated while steering back onto the road. Her car spun around and hit the tree. She was pronounced dead at the scene by the Butler County deputy coroner.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Audiobooks - great use of time.
If your wheels are turning, you better be learnin’.
Those of us who remember longer than a generation
recall times when cell phones did not exist
Home phones may be used sporadically, or not at all
Party lines were the norm, or none
I do not buy this argument
Texting has become an addiction in this country. My Wife uses her cell phone a lot in her business, and tells me people won’t answer or return a “call”, but Will respond to a text, no matter where they are.
I came close to having a rider report a DUI going home one day. The car in front of us was ALL over the road. Crossing the center line, coming into our lane, almost into the ditch and not maintaining a steady speed.
We caught up with her at a traffic light. She finished texting as we waited for the light to change. After she took off, she drove normally. She stayed in her lane the rest of the ten miles we were behind her.
Not **just as dangerous**
Study after study has shown that handheld devices are TWENTY TIMES MORE DANGEROUS than having a .08 while driving.
I’m sorry, but the numbers don’t lie.
And while I would not do anything to pick on grieving parents, I’m not gonna get all heartbroke and riddled with angst over this. It was distracted/reckless driving.
She would have been far better off if she had been pulled over and ticketed and had her phone seized, eh?
IMHO anyone using one of these devices while driving needs to get pulled over, ticketed, and their insurance company notified ASAP!!
And you were taking pictures while driving?
Thanks for clearing it up commish. I just wanted to make sure that people who saw death as a tragedy wasn’t being portrayed as weak or liberal. Liberals would rejoice in the death of a human.
I did not mean to excuse the stupid practice of texting while driving, only meant to point out that so many people who are killed or injured in accidents involving driving off the edge of the road, could have saved themselves if they had known the proper way to come back on the road.
Inattention while driving is a deadly mistake. Whether texting or just daydreaming.
My 18 y/o daughter lost control of her boyfriend's truck (while doing something stupid), ran off the road, hit a fire hydrant, and then smacked a tree.
The conversation we had about the accident was short. I asked her to think about the moments she had NO control over the vehicle, just before hitting the hydrant. Then I said...imagine the hydrant was a Mom pushing a baby stroller.
Depends where you live, Hangnjudge. Where we live, there is no way on God’s green earth that I would let my kids drive without one, especially my girls. If they got a flat tire... who knows who would show up to help. When I was a teen driving, my county was very different. There wasn’t such a thing as MS 13, the Blood, the Crypts, or the Latino Kings. When I was a teen, if you broke down on the side of the road, a car with a family would pull up and offer help. Not anymore... read the FR post where in Bethesda, Apple employees heard a woman struggling (beaten and stabbed to death) and did nothing. This store is about 20 minutes from us and it is located IN A NICE AREA OF MONKEY COUNTY.
Perhaps a consequence other than death might help wake them up. Getting a big fat fine usually changes peoples behavior. Do your oppose laws against drunk driving too? Laws like drinking and driving and texting while driving are because some people lack common sense.
OK, “at least as dangerous” -
my point was that those who don’t want laws against this behavior are arguing that someone has a right to do something more dangerous than driving drunk.
That's BS and you know it. That was also a very stupid thing to say.
Pennsylvania is in the process of passing a law making texting while driving a primary offense, meaning a police officer can stop you for that in itself.
Which, given the contempt that most people have for petty laws that criminalize ordinary behavior (at least that is how it is perceived), will actually make things worse.
The primary reason why texters are a potential danger to others is that they are driving distracted. Whether it is looking for a CD, farding, swatting a misbehaving child in the backseat, or foraging around for a dropped french fry in the lap, people will ultimately drive distracted.
What will make this sin worse than it is now, is that prior to a law being passed, one could at least openly text by having the phone up and at eye level so that maybe the danger could be seen in the peripheral vision - now that will change as the head is bowed staring at the phone below window level so as not to be seen by the code enforcement agent.
The question remains, will Apple's voice activated Siri be criminalized as technically "texting".
Yes, it wasn't easy though. I had to put my coffee down and put out my cigarette
then pull my head back in the window.
>>Pennsylvania is in the process of passing a law making texting while driving a primary offense, meaning a police officer can stop you for that in itself<<
We don’t need a law. We need parents with a lick of common sense. Don’t give the kid a 2 ton machine that can kill them and a phone that can text.
I have an emergency phone in the car. I have all passwords on phones and computers. I monitor what they do. When they begin to drive I will tell them, no texting. If they do, I pull the car.
Darwin strikes again.
Maybe not “rejoice”,
but they certainly, due to their worldview,
place less value on human life than conservatives that believe humans are Imageo Dei.
Liberals are simply on the spectrum of Statists,
and Statists believe that the State, which exists in relative perpetuity, is superior to the individual human life.
"Liberals would rejoice in the death of a human."
That's BS and you know it. That was also a very stupid thing to say.
You wouldn't think that if you ever heard a liberal talking about Sarah Palin, Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Koch brothers, any TEA party member, or for that matter - an infant in the womb.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.