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Text-Messaging Behind the Wheel
theodp writes "TIME interviews 21-year-old Taylor Leming, creator of the 600-member Facebook group I Text Message People While Driving and I Haven't Crashed Yet! While Alaska and Louisiana just became the latest states to pass laws banning text-messaging behind the wheel, Virginia resident Leming is still happily texting away while driving despite some near-accidents. 'Sometimes it just seems easier to text 'Be there in 5' instead of calling,' explains Taylor."
Why is it important to text that you'll be there in 5 minutes anyway? You can also wait 5 minutes.
And I hope when he crashes and kills himself he doesn't take others with him. Driving and calling (even hands free), texting, or doing anything else (tuning the radio, setting up your nav system) for that matter is just dangerous.
despite some near-accidents
Enough said.
Also, just because someone hasn't had an accident in the past, it doesn't mean they won't have an accident in the future.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
I also hope her insurance company reads time.com.
the really effective way to make people drive more careful is to replace the airbag in all cars with a big pointy spike aimed at the driver's head.
I would like to make organ donation compulsory for these people. At least they can be of some use after they crash.
I like the idea of compulsory organ donation, but why wait until after they crash, when the organs might get damaged?
I nearly got killed a few years ago by a "distracted" driver who was happily chatting on his cell phone while running a traffic light. It took me over a year to recover and be able to work again and I'll feel the secondary effects of this accident for the rest of my life (definitely NOT a nice thing, trust me).
In most European countries, using a cell phone while driving is considered impaired driving and you basically face the same consequences as if you were drunk in case of an accident, meaning your insurance will happily run away from you and you'll be declared responsible for the accident even if it's not initially your fault.
I'm looking forward to the day it'll be the same here in Ontario as a lot of people don't seem to be able to distract themselves from their crackberries while driving. Maybe a $1000 ticket and a license suspension will teach them a lesson before they get to injure or kill someone.
I for one hope this moron eliminates himself from the human gene pool without injuring or killing someone first.
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
I agree. I just don't have time for text messages. It can take an hour of back and forth to have a two minute conversation. I can barely put up with IM, but it is required in our office so that people can interrupt your train of thought if you accidentally get on a productive streak.
I have no "text plan" on my phone, so incoming texts that I didn't ask to receive cost me 15 cents. Outgoing don't cost me anything because I don't do them. I don't have time. Life is too short for text messaging. Call up, get your conversation done and move on.
As you honestly don't seem to understand the use of text messages, I'll explain why I find them useful: for communicating small amounts of information that don't require conversation, and out of respect for the other person's time.
Let's face it, most people don't want to be interrupted whenever they're doing something. You might be out shopping for groceries, visiting a friend's house, or eating a restaurant, and you probably have your phone with you in case there's an emergency and/or you need to call somebody, but you don't want somebody to call you and suddenly want to have a conversation. Heck, at least in those situations you can talk if you want to; you can't exactly answer your phone and have a conversation at all if, say, you're watching a presentation at work, or if you're already on the phone with somebody else.
When you get a text message, rather than answering your phone immediately, you can view it at your leisure, and it only takes a second of your time to read it. I can tell my girlfriend, "working late tonight, I'll be home in an hour," or my D&D buddies, "On my way, be there 30 minutes," or a couple of my coworkers, "Meet for lunch at Rudy's BBQ", and it only takes ten seconds of my time and effectively none of theirs. I can even send the same message to half a dozen people at once, and that's much faster than calling half a dozen people and repeating the same conversation every time. If, for some reason, they need to answer the message, they can also do so without disturbing any people around them who don't want to listen to somebody chatting on their cell phone.
Does that make more sense? Yes, text messages are a horribly inefficient way of having a conversation, but they're not for conversing, they're for disseminating information.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Higher cognitive load.
Carrying on a conversation is more mentally taxing than turning a radio dial, and isn't as interruptable, since you're only in control of half of it. See, for example, this research:
"the Carnegie Mellon study, for the first time, used brain imaging to document that listening alone reduces by 37 percent the amount of brain activity associated with driving. This can cause drivers to weave out of their lane, based on the performance of subjects using a driving simulator."
I drive a motorcycle in NYC, which is already really dangerous even when people are running only one machine, their car. It's even worse now that people are in their SUVs, sealed from the rest of the world and throwing their weight around in traffic - especially when they're not really NYC residents, but drive those trucks mostly in the suburbs where there's room for them to drive like fools. It's even worse than that with them talking to their phones pressed to their heads, distracted by what's in their hands rather than concentrating with their hands on the wheel. The worst are the SUV drivers with phones in their hands, and of course the very worst are the ones with both hands on a phone, looking at it while they text someone. It's totally insane, though they don't care since they feel like their giant truck will protect them in a collision.
A month ago, one of these assholes cut me off downtown, almost driving me into a parked car (except I'm a very good driver, so I barely recovered to save my life). They raced to the next red light, which was only a block away anyway. I drove up next to their window and waved at them. I wanted to tell them to watch out, as most of them just aren't aware of motorcycles at all, which don't register in their vision like cars do. They were busy texting someone, as they'd clearly been while they cut me off, and they ignored me. So I knocked on their window. They ignored me. I knocked harder, angrily now. They glanced up at me, obviously having seen me the entire time, and waved one hand, mockingly making an "oh, I'm scared" face (even though I wasn't threatening them or anything). They laughed silently inside their big truck, and bent back down to resume texting.
So I bashed off their side rearview mirror. I ripped it from the truck, and smashed at their truck over and over again while they watched in shock.
Then I drove away and got lost among NYC's millions of other cars. Fixing that mirror's got to cost hundreds of dollars and days off the road. If only I could have smashed their window and grabbed their phone, I'd call to check in on how it's going. Maybe next time. If they haven't learned to just shut up and drive already.
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make install -not war