Driving.....

[Mynock]

5:30 rolls around punch the clock and head for my truck. I stop in the parking lot to let and 18 wheeler go through the gate.
*BAM*
Jeep rocks sideways. Look to my right and the gothapottamus from accounting just backed right into the side of my Jeep. She gets out and says (for the love of God, she actually said) "Oh no, did I just hit your car?" Bent my nerf bar all to hell but luckily it didn't get into the bodywork. I'm still pissed as hell though. We trade insurace info and by the time I should be pulling into my driveway I finally leave work....
5 minutes later I'm 3 miles down the road, stopped at a stop light.
*SSSSSCCCCRREEEEEEEECCCCHHHHH*
I look in my mirror and there sits this little POS car in a cloud of tire smoke. Dumbass behind the wheel was too busy talking on his cell phone to notice the bright red light that people of normal intelligence know means stop. His bumper is maybe 6" away from mine. I flip the retard off and he looks at me with these big innocent eyes like "What? What'd I Do?".
20 minutes later I'm almost home. Two blocks from my driveway this douchbag pulls out of his driveway without bothering to notice the 3000lbs of truck that's almost on top of him. I slam the brakes. Wheels lock up. Douchbag looks at my truck the way a cow must look at an oncoming train and proceeds to slam on the brakes intead of gunning it and trying to get out of my way. Douchbag is driving some little lowered POS rice burner (the preferred ride of douchbags everywhere) so instead of hitting his door my bumper shatters his drivers side window. A few more inches and the idiot would've had "Smittybilt" tatooed backwords in his left temple. I back the truck up and get out. My foglights are hanging by the wires, douchebag is covered in glass but otherwise unhurt. Douchebag gets out of his car, and, apparently thinking it's my fault that his mother didn't have any kids that lived, proceeds yell at me for breaking his window....cops show up and make us trade insurance info....
Count em. That's 2 accidents and a close call in less then 45 minutes. My truck is busted and I fucking hate people.
--<edit>--
Guess what I'm trying to get at here is, is it just me, or are people just flat out turning their brains off when they get behind the wheel these days?

[Duncan Edwards]

Common sense died some years ago. It was a victim of personal responsibility and that was lost when the "do your own thing" crowd took over the world. Once the courts legitimized the notion that nothing is anybody's fault this nation's fate was sealed. Over the course of the next few decades we will have to repeat the evolutionary process in order to relearn how to look after your own stupid ass.

A pertinent example -

Folks chide me for running long distances to keep my body fit. Then they drive sixty miles an hour with their brain switched off while yammering on the phone, tear something up, blame someone else, and now expect the government to pick up the bill for it.

Without common sense and personal responsibility we are doomed. Your experiences on the way home are examples of human de-evolution.

Eat, drink, and be merry. We're doomed.

[nachtjaeger]

I remember when I first got my cell phone, I tried to make a call while driving (on a practically empty 4-lane controlled access.) I couldn't do it! I could not force my attention away from the road enough to dial the phone. I drive with what George Carlin called "a certain dark efficiency." No fancy moves, no stupidity- I just know the traffic patterns, and what lane to be in when, and I keep a visual 360 around me as much as possible. On the other extreme was the driver I encountered today- poking along at between 65 (the speed limit) and 55 in the hammer lane. At rush hour. That one car (and the left-hand exit at Thruway exit 24) turned a really good commute into a NASCAR event, with the maniacs (tr: anybody who drives faster than I do) trying every stupid trick in the book to get around this idiot (tr: anybody driving slower than me) and the NYC trash trucks tying up the center and left lanes. I am patient, play the traffic pattern, and bide my time. I am finally in position where the extra lane opens up on the left at the exit 24 split. I check my blind spot (and the shoulder- can't be too careful) signal, make my move- and the car in front of me just whips over, no signal, didn't even look. Had to take the shoulder to keep from getting PITted.

They're all out there. One guy the other morning was yakking on an old-fashioned cell phone, smoking a cigarette- and talking with his hands. Needless to say, his driving was sub-optimal. I could go on and on- nobody thinks, and any skills they have at driving aren't used.

I propose making everybody get run through a driving simulator when they renew their license. Fail the simulator check ride, you have to re-take your road test to keep your license- and your license is restricted (to work and back) until you do. Fail the road test, and your license is suspended until you do pass.

[bbjohn]

Where I live in Arizona, we have two interesting species of bad drivers: the usually elderly Arizona Snowbirds (AKA winter visitors) who migrate to the area in the wintertime and return north before summer, and weekend and summer visitors from California who think speed limits and other traffic laws are for wimps. Dealing with either of them is bad enough. I often have to deal with both at the same time.

A couple of years ago, I was driving on a local highway on a summer holiday weekend and some nut was riding my bumper at 50 mph. It was a curvy, two-lane road; the sort where you didn't want to go any faster than that. I'm doing all I can just to stay ahead of this guy because it was clear he was not going to slow down. Finally, he passed me on a straight section and accelerated so quickly he was blur and a tiny spot down the road. I lost him after he went around a curve. When I got around that same curve, he was there. A cop had pulled him over.

It looks like there still is some justice in this world.

I believe people who use cell phone or text messages while driving are just plain stupid. Driving is a full-time activity which requires your full attention. A study in Great Britain showed people who text while driving are far more likely to be involved in an accident than even drivers impaired by alcohol or drugs.

I'll pass along the advice a state cop I know gives to anyone he sees talking on a cell phone while driving: "Hang up and drive!"

Big Bad John

[newtothis2]

I know I'll probably get lots of grief for this but what the hell. I DO use my cell when driving, texting NEVER, that's just nuts. I do own (and use) a hands free set. I have phone set to auto answer when driving and using said hands free set. If I forget hands free device I don't use the phone, simple as that. That's not to say that every time I get into the car I break out the phone and start yakking, hardly. Usually I'm connecting with my kids and figuring out where everybody is and when I pick them up. I'm lucky, I live outside Denver and we have an excellent 24/7 jazz station here so when I'm driving I am almost always chillin with great tunes while in my car.

[Fred588]

I've actually had several students do research on very simplified but related things, mainly measuring reaction time while holding a cell phone to the ear with one hand or while listening to and then repeating random sequences of numbers read over a cell phone. The cell phone slows down reaction time. However, just holding the phone to the ear actually improved reaction time in one experiment. The number-sequence experiment required a division of attention, so the result was very predictable. The phone to ear experiment did not require a division of attention, just the use of one hand. The "bracing" of the hand/phone to the ear may explain the improvement. I suspect that occupying one hand in combination with division of attention would be worse than just the division of attention. I do not see any real difference between talking on a hand-free phone and carrying on a conversation with a passenger.