Monday, October 4, 2010
Eyes On The Road, Please.
As someone who honestly does NOT text (or even make phone calls) while driving (i absolutely hate it!), I think that this new texting ban law is a good one for MA. Texting and phone use behind the wheel really has gotten way out of control. However, as we have briefly talked about in class, I feel that it's seems like it is going to be hard to maintain effective and hard to enforce. Before, most people would just hold their phone up to the wheel level while texting and glance back and forth from the phone to the road. Now, people are probably going to just hide the phone even more; down on their lab below the wheel, instead of at wheel height. As a result, the person is now completely taking their eyes off of the road, looking down and is even more distracted; which clearly is NOT a good thing at all.
There ARE new devices out there that can allow you to text while remaining somewhat concentrated on the road. Some of these include things that connect with bluetooth. Some of the specific ones are: Got2bWireless and ZoomSafer. With the new MA law banning texting, one of my friends who is a reporter for 7News did a story about these few different devices that allow you to speak what you want to be texted to someone, open a text/reads the text aloud to you and the devices will automatically type and send what you want in your text. It's sort of like Bluetooth, but a little better. While you will still be distracted a bit, at least your eyes won't leave the road.
These are pretty cool and even allow you to listen to voicemails, phone calls and texts aloud so you don't really ever have to take your eyes off of the road. Everything you need to do is voice commanded. Even though you are still going to be distracted a little bit because you are trying to pay attention to what is being read/what you want the device to text, at least you won't be looking down away from the road significantly, as you would if you were texting.
Here is the link to the 7News story by Nicole Oliverio. I recommend that all of you "texters" check it out. Who knows, maybe this story will convince you to try them out.
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This law has completely changed the way I drive because I didn't realize how often I was texting behind the wheel and not looking at the road at all. I was driving at home one time with my brother and sent a long text to someone and when I looked up back at the road my brother just stared and said "You do realize you weren't looking at the road for at least 10 seconds...)
ReplyDeletePretty scary to think about what could have happened in those 10 seconds. I try not to text as much if at all but if I do I really doubt that I'm going to get pulled over for it. No police officer is going to want to go through the hassel of pulling up your phone records just to issue a ticket. They'd probably let you go with a warning.
My only problem with the bluetooth-like device is that even when I use push-to-talk on my phone, my phone doesn't register what I'm syaing and calls the wrong person. That's only one word. I can't imagine what they'd get wrong when sending a whole text.
The information in this story is great, and definitely a must read for any texters, my only problem is, why are people on the cell phone so much anyway? I really feel it has taken over our world in a ton of different ways, and honestly made our society more stupid. There is such a need for information at such a fast rate now, that honestly it puts people's lives in jeopardy, as this article covers. I just feel people should relax, half of the stuff people text and talk about is b.s. anyway and could probably wait till your off of route 24 in traffic, during a snowstorm, in which there is low visibility.
ReplyDeleteGood post, just really scared of where this world is going, as technology continues to advance.
I completely agree with this!
ReplyDeleteI also didn't realize how dangerous texting behind the wheel was until I looked at the stats/ videos/ pictures of crashes. It's scary how dangerous it is, and how many people do it. I know that this law has affected the way that I think about texting while driving, and I hope it allows others to stop as well!