A blogger seeking a richer life... in a wasteland called the suburbs... for my family, myself, and anyone who will listen!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Text & Burn

Did you know there's a new game in town... not a virtual game, but a live game played with humans, cars and cell phones... texting and driving... it's not new it's just EPIDEMIC!
Sarcasm aside... A few weeks ago I was the victim.  While driving my son to his tennis lesson, we were waiting at a light, when I looked in my rear view mirror and saw he was coming straight at me... the man was texting while driving, not stopping until he made contact with my car... we humans were physically alright, but the car had about $2,000 in damages and we were hassled for a week with a rental car.
Now a few weeks later brings us to yesterday, when I saw 3 (!) people within a 2 mile distance driving erratically only to find they were also texting.  I managed to avoid them this time... is it me or has distracted driving become a force to be reckoned with in 2011?


Here's my plea to the Moms... we spend so much of our time in the car driving our kids to activities which increases our chances of being a victim... speak out NOW!

Thanksgiving tops the list for the most dangerous time of the year for driving... please be careful and have a great Thanksgiving!

1 comment:

  1. Yes...its a major force that statistics are just now being compiled on. I do know that for every 6 seconds a driver spends texting, 4.6 of those seconds are with their eyes off the road, which makes texting the most dangerous cell phone activity anyone can engage in while operating a 5,000 pound piece of steel and glass.

    I just read that 72% of teens text daily - many text more 4000 times a month. New college students no longer have email addresses! They use texting and Facebook - even with their professors. This text and drive issue is in its infancy and its not going away. If technology is going to help, it should get the driver's eyes back on the road where they belong.

    I decided to do something about it after my three year old daughter was nearly run down right in front of me by a texting driver last fall. Instead of an expensive shackle that locks down phones and alienates the user (especially teens) I built a tool called OTTER that is a simple GPS based, texting auto reply app for smartphones. Its an easy way to manage that text and drive temptation.

    Erik Wood, owner
    OTTER LLC

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