Things you wish the other driver could hear, v3.0

That’s awful. Last week the police did an “unsafe driving” operation. In four hours they ticketed 43 people for being on their cell phones while driving. They got another 16 tickets for no seatbelts and a few more for general unsafe driving. Hopefully one or two of those ticketed got their wakeup call before they kill someone. Unlike this local girl. :frowning:

When driving, my phone doesn’t get answered, neither do I text.

I have found that even texting at a red light doesn’t work, you’re not aware of what is happening.

People just have to be patient and wait till I have the time (and it is safe enough) for me to respond.

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Who’s a good Ook? YOU are! Yes, you are!

I do the same. If I have to use the direction program, I set it up before I put the car in drive, and plug it into the stereo so I get the instructions over the speakers. I get to listen to MY music that way, too. If I have to look at the visual directions, the screen is right there on the side.

Nobody ever calls me, so that isn’t a problem.

Using your phone, even at a light, will get you a ticket here.

Which is part of an over-policed state. I get fines for distracted driving. I don’t get the obsessive obsession about cell phone usage. Are they pulling over the guy popping a zit in the mirror, the woman doing he makeup, the couple fighting, the dude yelling at his kids in the backseat, digging in a handbag, the one with the burger in one hand and the drink in the other, or the one fiddling with the radio?

I’d rather see people get pulled over for crossing the yellow line/speeding/tailgating/not signaling/whatever, and then get the fine doubled because they were doing something besides driving. But I feel the same way about drunk drivers sometimes.

A cop ticketing someone sitting at a stoplight looking at their phone just seems like fundraising. I swear the focus on phones is because they can prove it without a doubt, when other reasons come down to he said she said.

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Umm… yes, they do get tickets for ‘distracted driving’, which cell phone usage is under. Okay, they’re not getting tickets for fiddling with the radio. The girl in the article I linked to was texting at a stop sign and forgot to look up and didn’t see the mother with her baby.

The police aren’t ticketing people for looking at their phones, they’re ticketing them for holding them up to their heads instead of watching the road.

The worst distracted driving I’ve ever seen was a guy driving 70 mph on the freeway with a laptop precariously balanced over his steering wheel. The second worst was also on the freeway. He had an open novel in one hand and was reading while he drove. These people scare me.

That’s my point though, if distracted driving is already a crime then what do these laws do besides clutter up the law? I just don’t like taking the cause of the day, and writing a specific law to counter it when one on the books already covers it.

Especially laws covering transitional tech. In ten years, at most, this will be like the laws about having a flagman ahead of your horseless carriage.

Can’t give tickets for stupid. Though seriously, it looked like they’ve been switching the blame back and forth on that one, but I didn’t see in the article what actually happened.

From what I can find it sounds like this girl is taking it upon herself to take the punishment because it might have been the mother’s fault. That’s a very brave decision, it would be easy to take it to court and get absolution that way. Even if you lose you could tell yourself it was the court that did it.

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Fair enough. We don’t need a separate cell phone law. Distracted driving is distracted driving.

Yeah. Some people think the punishment she received was light, but from everything I read, there was fault on both sides, and the driver has shown plenty of sincere remorse. There is evidence that she learned her lesson the incredibly hard way. The horrible thing is, a child is dead no matter whose fault it was. It was a death that could have been avoided by either/both sides paying attention.

I use the GPS function on my phone very seldom, but when I do it is the same - listen to the instructions with the occasional glance at the screen without fiddling with the thing.

Heh, it served a good purpose too. I’m using HERE maps (from Nokia) to remind me about the speed limit when doing a long roadtrip, I can just concentrate on the road ahead, and when it goes “bong bong bong” due to exceeding the speed limit, then I just ease up on the gas pedal a little…

People who are totally dependent on a GPS… I dunno how they would’ve managed with a paper map. You know, the book-based map, or the fold-open map… in my days we haven’t had the luxury of a GPS, and before tootling off to your destination, you would peruse the map carefully and note where to go… a good excercise for your memory! :smile:

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What? You mean taking your eyes off of the road in order to read the intricate details of a paper map and orient yourself that way? That’s crazy talk! You’d be a DISTRACTED DRIVER! Won’t someone think of the children? OMG THE CHILDREN!!!

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WHY THE HELL ARE CHILDREN DRIVING IN YOUR MESSED UP COUNTRY?!?!?!?!!!1!!1Eleven?

Here in Murica we make them read the map.(Speaking of which it’s about time I get Sprout doing that on trips)

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hehehe, nice sarcasm there :smiley:

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I drink, and I use sarcasm.
That’s what I do.

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Do you drink sarcastically?

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Only with my first scotch of the morning.

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I had resigned myself to enduring the commute home from a town I’m not normally in because I realized there wasn’t a good alternate way of getting home. I was playing some music, not hurrying because I knew there wasn’t any point. And even though it took about 40 minutes to go 10 miles, I didn’t mind.

And then I get within 3 miles of my house while driving through the city and I’m almost involved in three accidents, including almost being rear-ended right in front of my house because I had to wait to turn into the driveway.

I don’t need that kind of stress.

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Ugh I hear you there. Our street is an immediate right turn after a roundabout, so usually I have to wait to turn (same problem as turning left for most of you guys) which means I have to stop about 15 yards past the roundabout. The number of people who have flown off the roundabout and had to slam on the brakes to avoid me is terrifying.

Geez, that sounds like poor road planning. Would it be horribly inconvenient to reroute and come in from the other direction?

Also, sorry @RRabbit42, that would be stressful.

To whomever is in charge of the traffic lights:

STOP MESSING WITH THE TIMING OF THE LIGHTS AT THAT INTERSECTION!

So far, I’ve seen the lights do this:

  1. Allow the center turn lanes to go first on both sides of one of the streets, then the lanes that are going straight.

  2. Allow the lanes that are going straight to go first on both sides of one of the streets, then the center turn lanes.

  3. Allow one side of an intersection to go first, which is both the center turn lane and the lanes going straight. Then when the center lane is done, allow the opposite side to go through for the lanes that are going straight. Then on the other side again, turn the light red for the traffic going straight so that the center turn lane on the opposite side can go.

  4. Change the amount of time those lanes going straight have before the light turns red again. Sometimes its 30 seconds, sometimes its 45 seconds and sometimes its 90 seconds.

There is a traffic camera on that corner. I won’t be the only one who slams on their breaks because the light turns yellow and red sooner than they’re expecting and they don’t want to risk getting a ticket. Normally the guy who rear-ends another vehicle is at fault, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they sued the city.

Are you sure it isn’t set by the time of day? I know there are some lights near me that go by traffic patterns.

We’ve also added the blinking yellow arrow for turning. It’s a left turn yield.

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[quote=“RoadRunner, post:209, topic:686, full:true”]
Geez, that sounds like poor road planning. Would it be horribly inconvenient to reroute and come in from the other direction?[/quote]

Yeah, our little road is at a 60 degree angle so it’s either turn and stop on the roundabout or attempt a 30 degree turn in a four yard wide space… Not very good for modern cars!

Re: turning lanes; Time-of-day adjusted filter lights are the bane of my existence! You can be sat in the turning lane waiting for the arrow to come on but it won’t because it’s off-peak. Or you’ll be expecting it not to come on and it’ll come on by itself and you’re stuck behind an Audi straddling both the ahead and turn lanes. Or it’ll come on at the same time as opposing traffic gets their turning arrow and you’ll get a car driving straight towards you.

Blinking yellow for turning is something I’ve only seen in Ireland and holy crap do we need it in England too!