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It's time to hang up and drive!
Driving around Hastings (and the Twin Cities metro area), it seems that about half of the drivers out there are on their phones behind the wheel. These phone conversations (I'm sure they are all emergency situations) take place regardless of speed, traffic congestion, pedestrians, weather, or time of day. In other words, there are a ton of drivers talking on their phones (or worse yet, texting) while moving down the road in a two-ton vehicle.
Before I continue, let me admit that yes, I have talked on the phone while driving in the past, and I have resolved to stop doing so because I have seen this end badly too many times (both in the news and in near-accidents I have witnessed).
While I don't fully agree with this week's call by the National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB) to ban all cell phone use of any kind in vehicles, I believe there needs to be some type of awareness campaign to alert drivers to the dangers this presents. We need to convince people to make up their own minds about this unsafe practice, rather than pass a federal law that is unenforceable.
Also, did you know that Minnesota law states that you can't even text someone when your car is stopped at a red light, much less in motion? That might go a bit too far in my opinion, but for now, that's the law.
So, what are the alternatives to talking on your phone while driving? Well, for one thing, a hands-free device is a possibility if you absolutely need to make a call while on the road. Many newer model cars have Bluetooth technology built in, so you can synch up your cell phone and talk as you cruise down Interstate 94 or take Highway 61.
And while this technology offers an opportunity to talk without using your hands, it might be a good policy to start cutting back on in-car phone calls entirely, hands-free or not. You can't deny that you are distracted when talking on a hands-free device, or even when you are discussing something with a passenger or your child in the backseat.
What do you think? Should we ban in-car phone calls altogether? Only allow hands-free devices? Or keep things the way they are today?
Please contribute to the blog by offering your comments below. Thanks very much, and drive safely!
Tom Bullington
HastingsHappenings.com
651-402-6356
tom@HastingsHappenings.com
Tags: Hastings, Minnesota, cell, dangerous, law, mobile, phones, texting, vehicle
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lisa Chavis on -
I don't think banning cell phone calls is going to solve much of anything. If you are having a conversation with someone riding in the car with you, it's the same or worse than if you are on the phone (because then you may be looking at that person more than the road). Also, if they are going to do that then they may as well ban radios too, because they can be just as much of a distraction.
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Permalink Reply by Hastings Happenings on -
I agree, Lisa, that having a conversation in the car is distracting. But I think having one hand on the phone that's up to your ear is not good either. I would agree with a compromise of allowing hands-free phones, but strongly recommending that people not dial unless they are stopped.
As for texting and surfing the web while driving, well, I think it's just common sense to disallow that. If they make a law against it, they can actually prosecute someone.
Thanks for your thoughts!
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Permalink Reply by STEVE'S PHOTOGRAPHY on -
If it's not cell phones you have guys doing vlogs from a car.........
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Permalink Reply by Hastings Happenings on
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With a hands-free mounted camera :-)
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Permalink Reply by Hastings Happenings on
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And now...you can check on available parking spaces at the Mall of America - by checking your mobile phone - while you're driving around in the parking garage on site. Nice in theory, but I would imagine you'd need to keep driving around to increase your chances of nabbing an open spot.
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Permalink Reply by Ken Larson on -
Autos, Entitlement and "The Technology Monkey"
We are getting all types of new gadgets in our autos and on our person these days, but common sense is not being programmed into them. We become different creatures in our cars - financed to the hilt, full of ourselves and distracted. We feel entitled, tending our technologies and our powerful machines.
I am a pedestrian, now retired, who has walked the last 5 years by choice from the Veterans Home to a volunteer job daily at the Hastings Library. The journey is 3 miles one way. Some of my journey takes me through city traffic. I have found myself sprawled across the hood of a car after the driver turned right without looking to a green light crosswalk because she was talking on a cell phone. I have been cursed for being in the middle of the road in a clearly marked pedestrian right of way by a speeder late to work running a red light who had to brake to avoid killing me. I could recount other similar near- miss incidents, too numerous to mention.
Having driven for 36 years both in the US and abroad, and having spent 2 hours a day in an automobile on the D.C. Beltway at the end of my aerospace career, I am very familiar with the driving experience. I saw it all in Washington; from cars driving down in the ditch avoiding traffic jams to people late for a meeting running wildly around their auto, screaming at the world in general. During the sniper episode in Washington, I observed a man pull into a gas station, laying a loaded high powered rifle across the top of his car while he filled up. The hammer on that 30/30 lever action was cocked. No one was going to hurt his chariot.
There is a new kind of monkey these days - the technology monkey. That sucker will bury us if we don't learn to deal with him. We are so busy tending our gadgets and feeling entitled that we lose site of priorities, get wound up in minutia and end up in a meaningless zoo. Road rage is becoming a certifiable illness. Perhaps we should slow down, assess what is important, savor the time we have and consider respect for others. It is not difficult. It can become habit forming. And it just might feel good.
Ken Larson
http://about.me/smalltofeds
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Permalink Reply by Carmen Quarford on
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I agree, I think we need to convince people to make up their own minds about this unsafe practice. I don't answer my phone if I am driving, and I don't make call's while driving. It is a distraction and people just need to be responsible and hang up trying to talk and text while driving. It is very unsafe!
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