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I’ve been in a couple of minor accidents, all of which were being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it has showed me how quickly a normal drive can change. It also makes me think how much worse it would have been if I was distracted during the accident. Last winter a lady ran a stop sign and pulled in front of me. I braked and slid into her, I also turned to avoid her. I probably would have hit her driver side door if I had not turned or braked.
I’m certainly guilty of texting at a stop light or eating a burger as I drive down the road. One way to keep myself from being distracted is to give someone else the phone and have them respond for me, usually my wife.
My rule of thumb for if its distracting is two fold. If it moves my eyes from the road, or if it moves my thoughts from the road. You always have to see and asses the situation around you that is constantly changing.
come on now eric sometimes a man sees a cute little lass on the side of the road and can’t help himself… either that or she ends up in the passenger seat and all of a sudden I have contracted lead foot.
another thing you should talk about is tailgaters if you haven’t already, nothing makes my blood boil more, as for distracted drivers, all the time its funny to watch people at stoplights go when its not there turn.
It’s an unavoidable fact that all of us at some point will be distracted by something while driving , be it fiddling with the radio , thinking ” ooh look at that interesting thing over there ” the most embarrassing thing though and this has happened to me while in my patrol car , a young lady sailed right into the back of me , she was distracted by , texting on her cell phone , too say she was a little embarrassed would be an under statement as this was in peak hour traffic
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At a defensive driving course I took the instructors did a little test. They measured our reaction times using a brake light mounted on the dash to signal when to brake and timed how long it took between light turning on and the student braking.
My best case reaction time was 0.5 seconds.
Minor distraction of typing the year I was born on a pocket calculator upped it to 1.6 seconds!!
Some students didn’t notice the lights for 3 or 4 seconds. Really opened my eyes to how much attention the road demands.
As for tailgating, another demonstration showed just how screwed one would be if they were at a typical highway tailgating distance and the car ahead did a panic stop. I second the idea for a video about tailgating and needlessly aggressive drivers.I learned my lesson the hard way. Fortunately no one was hurt, and only my ego and wallet were hurt. I made a wrong turn while driving to my first day at a new job. The area has a few one-way streets and some of the streets didn’t line up. Between the angle of the sun, the new fallen snow, and my attempt to regain my bearings, I didn’t notice that the road had a curbed section that stucked out into the road – I think it’s called a bumpout. It was the width of a car and about two or three feet long. Best of all, there was no warning sign. I nailed it, popped two tires and bent a suspension component.
While I was waiting for the tow truck, a neighbor came out to check if I was alright. She said that people hit that thing all the time. I asked her why it didn’t have a sign, and she said that someone hit the thing 2 days previously (New Year’s Eve) and taken out the sign, and the sign hadn’t been replaced.
I have a Bluetooth connection through the radio, and I rarely use it. For me, there is too much overhead in switching between driving and conversing, especially when details or questions are involved, and I don’t perform either task well. If something really needs my attention, I will pull over to take care of it.
not to long ago I was at a intersection, well sort of a intersection more like a four way stop, the person ahead of me stopped about at the same time I did, so I was contemplating who stopped first, so as he paused I took the opportunity to go, didn’t notice the car too the left of me who had stopped before me evidently. so I accelerated a few seconds after he did, noticed he was accelerating so I stopped, he noticed I was accelerating so he stopped, the guy in the truck in front of me waiting for me to turn so he could turn was waiting for us both now, now we all sat at the four way stop confused of who stopped first, so I simply took it and went first, kind of embarrassing, but it was kind of a weird moment when you aren’t exactly sure who stopped first and that became a distraction for the person who may have actually stopped first, I think… :silly:
I’ve been in two accidents due to distracted driving, one the was my fault, one that was not.
The one that was, happened around 1998 and I was messing around with one of those cassette tape adapters that allowed you to plug your CD player in and play CDs through your tape deck. I rear-ended a truck that was stopped to make a left turn. Thankfully it was relatively slow speed (20 mph or so), and nobody was injured. 95% of the damage was to my car (just a smashed in hood/radiator as I looked up at the last second and slammed on my brakes) and not the truck I hit.
Years later, I’m actually happy I got in the above accident, because I was very bad about not paying attention to the road, and it probably saved me from causing a worse accident down the line.
The one that wasn’t happened only a few years later in 2001 when I got rear-ended while sitting at a stop light. That one wasn’t so fun, as I had the pleasure of watching the guy drive off after hitting me. I did have the presence of mind to get his plate number, so the cops caught up to him at his house. He told the cops he was talking on his phone and didn’t see me at all until the collision. Totaled my new (Less than 6 months old) Cavalier.
I think we all get distracted from time to time behind the wheel and that is something we need to try to minimize. Given my past accidents (I’ve been on the receiving end of 3 DUI accidents) I tend to have my head on a swivel at all times in the car.
The one thing that bugs me is being “text-wacked” at stop lights (especially left turn lanes). You can see it coming, the car in front of you stops, the head goes down and you know what is going on. And it almost always turns out that that person who delayed you to send a text gets through the light and you don’t.
My state has a no texting while driving law. According to a cop I know, if you are sitting at a light you are still driving and subject to a ticket.
I’m not gonna lie. I am guilty of this, however I have never been in a reck or endangered anyone in the process. I have never texted and drove however I HAVE read text messages as I have driven. I also put the phone to my ear to talk when i get a call with aa passenger in the car.
I was almost in 2 T-Bone accidents at the SAME intersection 2 weeks apart due to 2 seperate drivers running a All-Way stop instersection. Bothe times the cars were going North however My direction or travel was East the 1st time West the second.
Around 9 years ago, I bumped into a taxi driving (or rather braking) in front of me because I was adjusting the volume on my stereo. Just a few seconds during which my eyes were not on the road were enough. Fortunately, nobody was injured.
I’ve tried to make it a habit since to always focus on the road and not let myself be distracted by anything. However, a few days ago I was driving down the highway with my spouse and (again) found myself adjusting something on the car’s stereo (which also includes controls for other stuff on board like the dashboard lighting level). She interrupted me, saying “let me do that, you focus on driving”. Needles to say, she was absolutely right. It is always very tempting to “just quickly adjust something”, even more so since I consider myself a rather experienced driver (600000+ miles so far). But I really need to constantly remind myself to keep my eyes on the road and not let my (would-be) experience blind me. A few seconds are enough.
One time on a motorcycle trip, I was traveling in the inside lane on the interstate, right beside the concrete barrier. All of a sudden a luxury sedan traveling in the lane beside me just started coming over. I locked the brakes, barely missing a collision by a split second. When I went to get around him to say a few choice words and leave him in the dust, I saw that he was working a laptop in the front passenger seat, steering with the other hand, and holding a cell phone with his shoulder. Talking about distracted driving!
I care too much about my car, clean driving record, low insurance payments, and good health to mess with my cell phone when driving. Any texting I need to do can wait until I am at work and bored.
I do not have that many people I talk to anyways so it is not like my phone is overloading with texts.When I drive, I tend to be completely focused on the road and listening for stuff acting weird on my car.
One fun time of seeing a distracted driver was when I had my car towed and the tow truck driver was trying to text and talk on the phone the whole time he was towing my car home. Do we need to talk about all the dangers imposed in THAT situation?
My worry on the road is what if I am at a light behind a stopped car and someone rams into the back of my car cause they are too busy trying to update their social website?
When you drive a car, the unwritten pact you make is – “I trust this machine, my driving skills, the other machines on the road, and the skills of those drivers with my life” Now I guess we need to trust their cell phones as well?
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