Woman busy texting walks straight into canal

[TornadoWoman]

 Remember the video from a couple years ago of a girl falling into a shopping mall fountain because she was texting?

Well, it happened again...and once again was caught on a security camera.  But this time it happened in Birmingham, England to a woman named "Laura Safe" and she fell into an icy CANAL.  (--The high in Birmingham on the day it happened was only 27 degrees.)

Luckily, someone pulled her out, and she's okay.  She later admitted that she was texting her boyfriend.   She also happens to be a reporter for a radio station over there, and had a pretty good sense of humor about it when the morning show chatted with her about it.

I wonder how many times I've had to move aside while someone walking towards me is texting and would walk right into me if I didn't get out of the way??

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UAFBMRgJkl4

[oldmike]

I have a friend who is almost 50 years old. One day when we were at a restaurant having lunch, I noticed he was looking down into his lap quite often -- I finally figured it out, he was carrying on a text conversation with his girlfriend. I just stopped talking, he apologized and put his phone away and didn't text again during our lunch. People just don't know how rude that it!

It used to be that people talked on their phones in restaurants, or worse yet, answered their phones while you were talking to them as if you weren't there! Now it seems that people talk a lot less on their phones but the texting has taken over. People who receive texts while you're talking to them often are immediately drawn to their phones regardless of what you're saying. I find that very rude and will voice my objection whenever it happens! I'm a lot of things, but I'm not shy!

[oldmike]

I posted a video a while ago about texting and driving -- the fact that is so important is that most texts only take a few seconds to read or even respond to, but those few seconds will interrupt a conversation or take a life! So sad.

[mercerquietman]

[carol machulski]

I guess I'm old fashioned but I can't see what is so important that you can't stop walking, driving, etc and then text. People are being injured or killed for this nonsense! Besides texting is limiting interpersonal contact and you really can't be sure that the person texting is who they say they are. Man is a social animal and that socialization seem to me to require some regular face to face interaction.

[mercerquietman]

I'm with you, I don't get this need to text, or for that matter, constantly yak on the phone while driving. I admit I will very rarely place a call while driving, but its to a number stored in the system so I am not dialing and it has to be in a situation I consider very safe, like on a freeway miles from the nearest town with hardly any cars around. I may do that just to let someone know my estimated time of arrival then I end the call. And I have a car phone paired with my cell phone. my eyes never leave the road nor my hands the steering wheel. When I see these idiots behind me for twenty or thirty minutes all the while talking on their damn phone I think to myself "what the hell is so damn important that you have to be yakking like that while you are maneuvering hundreds of pounds of steel and glass?" This can't wait? I also can't begin to tell you the number of times I am behind some idiot going five to ten under the limit, wandering close to the next lane(s), still being stopped at a light five seconds after it turned green, suddenly cutting accross two lanes to take an exit ramp they almost missed, etc. etc.... When I pull up alongside of them, sure as shit, they're on the damn phone. I just know they are; I can tell by their driving.

[oldmike]

Although the message with that photo is a good one, the car doesn't have a backseat! I'm not so sure the caption is true to the photo.

Talking on a cell phone while driving is distracting, I know, but not nearly as bad as texting. I used to try to find tunes on my iPhone while driving (it plays through the car stereo) but now I just talk to the phone "Play some Beatles" and it plays what I ask for. With my limited reading vision, I need to put on my reading glasses to see my phone's screen, but then I'm not able to see out the windshield, so I prefer to NOT wear my glasses while driving, even slipped down on my nose.

We all do distracting things while driving, and we can't outlaw all of them (although they're all outlawed by outlawing distracted driving!). I'm up in the air about outlawing texting while driving, but I have no problem with stiff penalties when it's proven that the driver was texting.

Short story -- a young girl of 17 was driving home one afternoon when she paused to turn left at an intersection that is controlled (stop and go lights). When she saw there was no on-coming traffic, she proceeded into the intersection and was hit by a motorcyclist coming from the opposite direction. She was hit so hard that it pushed her car sideways about 50 feet! She was cited for improper left turn (failure to yield right of way). The motorcyclist died at the scene. As soon as the report was put on line by the local newspaper, readers jumped to the conclusion that she was texting while driving, or at least talking on her cellphone. Telephone records proved that she wasn't doing either. Drug tests proved that the motorcyclist was on cocaine. Accident investigators determined the motorcyclist speed to be between 60 and 80 mph, the speed limit was 35 mph. Even with all these facts, the cop still cited the girl. The family of the motorcyclist hired a top-rate law firm to sue the girl for wrongful death. The girl's family spent many thousands of dollars to clear her name -- the girl ended up winning the traffic ticket case since the law in Florida says that if the on-coming driver was speeding, then the person turning in front of them isn't necessarily at fault, so long as it can be proven that the person turning wouldn't have hit the other person if that person had been going the speed limit. The insurance companies settled the wrongful death action -- the girl's family had no say in that matter.

As it turned out, the motorcyclist had a pending DUI, and had been recently stopped on a local street driving in excess of 100 mph -- none of that was admissible in the girl's ticket case -- but, if she had been texting, that would've been admissible!

All I'm trying to say is this -- there are many explanations for accidents. Texting is the current "flavor of the day" for blaming the driver for causing the accident. I'm pretty sure that this accident is in the "statistics" as a death caused by texting since that's the way the original police report reads, but that's just plain not true.

I'm waiting for the "next thing" to cause an accident -- then we'll outlaw that, too. Remember, there used to be a lot of noise about banning cell phone TALKING while driving but that died down a bit. Now it's TEXTING while driving that's the big thing.

Times change.

[oldmike]

What would happen if the cell phone companies stopped offering texting? Hmmmm! If there really are thousands of people dying every year because of texting and driving, it seems like the responsible thing to do. At least figure out a way to disable texting while in a motor vehicle -- one argument against that is how do you disable texting only for the driver and only when the car is moving? I see nothing wrong with sending a quick text while at a stop light, so long as you're able to start up when the light turns green!

I'm surprised that car rental companies don't have devices installed that would disable texting while driving. Since those types of devices are available or could be very easily, it seems as if some smart ass atty is going to figure out how to hold rental companies responsible when a driver causes an accident while texting. Just a thought...

[mercerquietman]

There I disagree; I don't think they should text at all unless parked in a legal spot out of traffic with the shifter in park. If you are in traffic at all, even at a light, you have no business texting. Even if the car is stopped, you always need to be aware of your surroundings. The problem is, they don't start up when the light is green; they don't see a car thirty yards away bearing down on them anticipating they will be moving now that the light is green, they are not aware of the ambulance coming up on the light and trying to proceed in the lane they are blocking. Sure some of the harzards I described are at least somewhat the fault of the other driver but the fact remains inattentiveness by a texter is a contributing factor.

A couple years ago I went golfing with my brother, his nephew (on his wife's side) and a friend of his nephew's. His nephew drove. I was in the backseat and could see the driver's eyes in the rear view mirror. He was not texting constantly, but if he had messages coming in (and at that age, they always have messages coming in) he'd glance at his phone to read them and sometimes texted back. It was really something to watch how often his eyes were looking down. Two seconds here, three seconds there... On a busy road it was insane; shit can happen in an instant. I agonized over whether to tell him to put that effin phone down and drive or shut up and not make waves. I chose the latter and luckliy I lived to tell about it. I told my brother under no circumstances will I ever be in a car with that guy driving again. I seriously think that is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The guy's job? A bigwig for a major insurance company which has auto policies. You'd think he'd know better, but it's the old thing, I know he must realize that distracted driving can be dangerous, but figures it won't happen to him because he is "careful" when he does it. So far it's not been an issue, but sooner or later I know a situation will arise where this guy will offer to drive. No way am I getting in that car.

[oldmike]

First off, MQM, I have completely agree about texters not being ready to go when the light is green, however so many drivers do things when stopped at traffic lights, such as put on make-up, change the music (iPad, radio, etc.), look at a map, make a quick phone call, etc. etc. etc. I don't think those things are any less distracting than texting while being stopped. The number of people who don't notice the green light is amazing (I drive in rush hour traffic everyday) -- and I'd bet that most of them are women putting on makeup (ok, women -- sorry 'bout that but it's my first-hand observations that led me to that conclusion). What is really dangerous is that these drivers, when they notice the light is green and there's no one in front of them, step on it and speed up as if to make up for the delay - it would be all too easy to get hit by that ambulance you're talking about, or an inattentive driver, etc. I was taught (and I'm sure the rest of you were taught this, too) to look both ways before proceeding through an intersection, even if you have a green light! That's a lost "art." Texting isn't any worse than any of the other things people do at red lights, in my opinion.

Secondly, I am surprised that you didn't speak up when the driver was texting -- I would've. Your life, and the lives of everyone in the car were in danger. A split second and all of you could've been toast. Speak up next time - save a life or two.

And finally (just for this post, ha ha) -- multi-tasking is a bunch of BS. Too many people, lots of them kids, think they can multitask, but the reality is you might be able to do two things "at one time" but what you are really doing is (1) task one while task two is on hold, (2) stop task one, do task two while task one is on hold, (2) stop task two, do task one while task two is on hold, and so on. So when task one is driving and task two is texting, well... you get the picture.

[mercerquietman]

I chuckled at your putting on make-up crack. When I was working, I had a ten mile commute of which about 90% was on a freeway like road. I'm being totally honest about what I witnessed about once a month. I'd see some woman behind the wheel putting on eye make-up while using her rear view mirror as a make-up mirror. Normally I'd see this when she was stopped at a light, but I had seen it a few times when the car was moving. Yikes!

I don't disagree that drivers tend to do other distracting things, I just don't think that fact makes texting okay under the logic it's no worse of a distraction. I don't think people ought to be doing any of these distracting behaviors at all.

[TornadoWoman]

This video is just one more grim reminder about texting, and it's from 2009.  Doesn't seem that texting has  diminished at all does it, even with all of the videos about the dangers; it seems that it just keeps increasing - everyone involved seems to think they are totally in control when h/she is texting....

Texting While Driving - Very Graphic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_9UoiYb8VI