Posted on 06/19/2016 6:40:54 AM PDT by upchuck
We are, it seems, long past the moment where there’s nothing worth doing unless we’re on the phone — photographing it, uploading it, texting it, tweeting it.
And it’s killing us...
In 2009, Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced to six years in prison for texting while driving — more specifically, she was paying bills online — and smashing into another vehicle, which burst into flames and killed the driver inside.
Just months after the crash, while awaiting trial, California Highway Patrol spotted Matis-Engle texting while driving on two separate occasions.
“This collision had absolutely no impact on her,” the prosecutor said...
According to the CDC, over 8 people are killed and 1,161 are injured each day in the US by distracted driving. Texting while driving is now the leading cause of teenage deaths in this country. Anecdotally, emergency rooms are seeing an uptick of injuries to “petextrians” — people who text while walking and have, say: run into a 300-pound bear (California, 2012), fallen into a fountain at the mall (Pennsylvania, 2011), or fallen on to train tracks (Pennsylvania, 2012)...
According to a 2012 Time magazine study, 84 percent of people around the world said they couldn’t go a single day without their cellphones. Clearly, they mean it...
Collectively, Americans check their phones 8 billion times a day. For the average person, that shakes out to 46 times a day. A July 2015 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans check their phones a few times an hour. A Baylor University study found that the average female college student spends ten hours per day on the phone.
“That’s astounding,” said Baylor’s lead researcher James Roberts, Ph.D. “As cellphone functions increase, addictions to this seemingly indispensable piece of technology becomes an increasingly realistic possibility.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
‘Our cellphones are killing us’
Again with the blaming of objects instead of focusing on individual responsibility.
You could have ribbed me for writing “you’re buddy” instead of “your”.
I call my cell phone from work once a month, just to ensure it still works.
For the most part , people don’t care. We’re a nation of children who do what we want.
I don’t own one either .
My wish is that drivers who chronically text would somehow permanently lose the use of their thumbs.
Pardon me for my ignorance, but wouldn’t that be true only if the gasoline available was already pumped out of tanks before losing power? Say stored in 5 gallon cans or whatever?
Don’t know why I concern myself with hypothethicals but I find the subject frightening and certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. I’m not likely to understand your answer anyway but thanks.
“”My wish is that drivers who chronically text would somehow permanently lose the use of their thumbs.””
I would imagine that’s going to be a very serious ailment in a few more years. We’ll have a whole generation whose hands will be crippled - or at least their thumbs or whatever they use will be. Never have done it but I have watched others. It will probably have to be added to the Americans with Disabilities list....
Where were you stationed in CA? I ran into a gal in GA DDS when my husband was renewing his driver’s license last week and she was stationed at 29 Palms 30+ years ago. She loved it; at least she said she did and I thought that odd as it’s sooooo desert! You have everything there; desert, beach, mountains, cities, millions of people and cars and high costs!
Nah, I’m not one of those “Sheldon Coopers” correcting everybody’s grammar, besides I am not spell two gud mysef...
I guess that my experience is different from yours.
I almost always drive myself, with nobody else in the car. Occasionally (rarely) I have another person in the car with me, in the front passenger seat.
I have found that talking to her while driving (it is almost invariably a ‘her’) is quite similar in its distraction potential to talking to someone else on the phone while driving.
I was doing some training in San Diego...I was there in ‘68...
Just siphon it out of the vehicles. Use the inert vehicles as the storage tank for whatever gasoline is left in them at the time of the EMP.
Well in medicine I can understand an “All Hands on Deck” call, I was a NASA programmer, no damn need for me to be on call.
Heck, I certainly can’t claim my hypothesis as fact...it is just a gut feeling I have, its ubiquity borne out by years of driving in cars (as both passenger and driver) and seeing people able to function perfectly well while carrying on a conversation, while at the other extreme, now seeing a couple of decades of cell phone use in which it is clear that people speaking on phones are compromised.
I have personal experience as well-I have made it a rule not to talk and drive, because I don’t seem to be able to do it, making exceptions only if work calls and I cannot safely pull over.
One morning, I was driving on a two lane country road into work, trying to avoid the congested highway, and this road was backed up as well. My phone rang, and the ring the indicated it was work.
Traffic was creeping along at round 3 mph, not even really moving, and I thought “Geez. How much damage could I cause going 3 mph in this bumper to bumper traffic?”
So I pulled out the phone and began dialing. Almost immediately, I heard a shouted curse and saw a bicycle streak by on my right.
While I was dialing, my car had drifted ever so slightly to the right, and this guy went zipping along at about 20 mph bypassing all the cars.
Whether that guy was right or wrong makes no difference to me-if he had run into me, I would have held myself responsible. I would have had to live with it.
From that day on, I vowed not to get in that position again. Now, I have all hands free stuff so I don’t have to take my eyes off the road, but...I still only talk as a last resort.
In the case of talking to someone else in the car while driving, I don’t doubt for a second that some people do have a problem with it, as you sound like you do.
I am lucky...my wife is completely not a phone talking person either, and she never calls just to engage in idle conversation. When she does, it is straight to the point, and vice versa.
I fully admit to preferring texting. The person receiving the text can determine if they want to answer at that time or not, so I don’t feel like I am invading someone’s space, which you never know if you are when you call someone. It might not be a good time for them.
LOL, of course, I am a stickler, and I cannot engage in the “hw r u?” stuff. For me, I have to spell it out exactly as I would say it...”Hey John, how are you? Do you have a minute to answer a question for me?” etc.
The other thing I really, REALLY like is the timers and alarms. Thank God for them. I use all of them, timers, alarms, and reminders.
I love putting some wild rice on the stove and saying “Set timer for 25 minutes” and I forget about it, knowing I won’t burn it.
For traveling or meeting someone, I use Glympse and send them a text with a URL they click on and can see a map of where I am, as well as my calculated arrival time at their location. It is a great way to keep people up to date with my progress, and they don’t have to pace back and forth wondering where I am.
LOL, I heard someone say that the Japanese call pagers “Electronic dog collars”!
I guess they would know...:)
Gotcha. Now that makes sense... Thanks. Now let’s hope it never comes to that but in obozo’s world, it doesn’t look good, does it? Even if he has to supply the weapons to the enemy. I don’t trust that man as far as I can spit.
“”I was doing some training in San Diego...””
I’m surprised that you didn’t look favorably on San Diego. In ‘68 it had to be a lot nicer than it is now but even now with all the other problems, you can’t discount the perfect weather there. One reason we hated to leave CA was the weather. Everyone says, “But what about the earthquakes?” Forget the earthquakes. I prefer those to sleeping in my clothes, listening to weather alerts all night worrying about getting wiped out in a tornado or hurricane in GA. I guess I prefer being surprised. We had survival supplies ready in CA in case of earthquake but have no idea how to prepare for being blown away. I have a bag to throw meds, wallets etc., in for grabbing here but how long would anyone be able to hang onto a bag? Oh! well, what the heck!
They had an earthquake while I was there...I was in a gun store and looking at a handgun...All of a sudden people started running out of the store...The guy who was waiting on me jumped the counter and headed out...He stopped, came back, grabbed the gun from me...Threw it under the counter and it locked when he slid the door...He then jumped back over and ran...
I walked out the door and people were all over the streets...
I asked what is going on????
Somebody said, “We just had an earthquake!!!!”
I never felt anything...
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