(June 26, 2017 at 9:23 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Let's not gang pile m89 to much. You understand that she was the only one to reply with yes.
True enough and a very good point. While I can't say yes I text while driving, I can say that I most definitely have texted while driving. I don't know that I ever did it regularly, I have definitely done it. I never had an accident or even a close call because of it. Like m89, I knew that it distracted me somewhat, but I never felt it distracted me that much. Kept my eyes on the road and all that. I felt pretty comfortable about doing it.
But then I started seeing accident stats. Lots of accidents are caused by it. It didn't take a genius to realize that most of those people who were getting into accidents while texting probably felt they weren't all that distracted exactly like I did. So if all those people thought they could handle it and obviously couldn't, what kind of arrogant prick would I have to be to go yeah, but I'm different, I'm better than those assholes. I'm a prick for lots of reasons, but I didn't like the idea of being an arrogant prick so I stopped.
Along the way I became the safety person at work and part of my job ramming it into the heads of our truck drivers that texting while driving for any reason was unacceptable and grounds for termination. I don't like being an arrogant prick and I don't like being a hypocritical one either which is also what motivated me to stop. If I get a text while I'm driving, I ignore it. If its urgent, they'll call. If they call, I can answer by pushing one button on the steering wheel. If that call or any other situation requires me to send someone a text, I pull over, no exceptions. I won't use voice to text because the technology isn't to the point where I trust it enough to send without proofreading. Faster for me just to pull over and type.
Side note: After I drew my line in the sand and stopped we installed cameras in all our trucks. The cameras face out and in. If I hadn't already quit, I would have once I started watching the video we got from the trucks. I've got so many clips on my computer of guys not even texting but just looking at their phones. Either reading texts, or checking notifications or futzing with apps for a few seconds. The system puts video on one side of the screen that shows what their seeing on the road ahead and video on the other side of the screen showing them. Its amazing how many clips we get showing no significant situation ahead and instant the drivers focus is off the road, something changes and they don't see it and then 2 or 4 seconds later, what would have been a completely non-event is now a close call. Its surprising how much can change in 4 seconds.
