Driving Distractions: Devices Compromise Safety

Do you talk on the phone or text when you drive? Do you fiddle with your navigator or stereo or other devices? Driving distractions caused by cell phone calls and texting and by the increasing array of automotive gadgets have become a serious problem.

Recently, as I was waiting for a light at a busy Boston intersection, a huge mobile crane navigated a left turn past me. I looked up at the driver as the crane lumbered past and saw an otherwise competent looking guy talking on his cell phone. At first I was taken aback, but then I thought, well at least he's just talking and not texting.

A recent NY Times series on driving distractions showed the dangers of distracted driving, the failure of state legislators to respond, the withholding of cell phone safety data by a federal agency, and the results of a study on truck driver texting. Here are a few of the points made in the articles:

Drivers using cell phones are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers, with about the same likelihood as intoxicated drivers with an .08 percent blood alcohol level.

Research shows that using hands-free devices may be as dangerous as holding a phone because the conversation distracts drivers from focusing on the road.

A study of texting by truck drivers found that texting made their collision risk 23 times as great.

A Harvard study estimated that cell phone distractions caused 2,600 traffic deaths every year, and 330,000 accidents that result in moderate or severe injuries.

A 2007 NHTSA study estimated that at any time during daylight hours in 2007, 11 percent of drivers were using a cell phone.

A Nationwide Mutual Insurance survey found that 81 percent of cell phone owners talk on phones when driving but considered themselves safe drivers, although nearly half said they had been hit or nearly hit by a driver talking on a phone.

Although cars and roads have gotten much safer, car accident fatalities have stayed at the same level over recent years, apparently because of the distracting devices we use in our cars.

The articles:

• Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks
• U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving
• Cabbies Stay on Their Phones Despite Ban
• In Study, Texting Lifts Crash Risk by Large Margin

Ferrari Fever: The 458 Italia

Ferrari has announced the new 458 Italia. This two seater will be introduced in September at the Frankfurt Auto Show and is powered by a 4.5 liter, 562 hp V8 which will take it from zero to sixty in 3.4 seconds and to a top speed of 202 mph.

Price is not announced, but will probably approach $200k. (That's about $1000 for each mile per hour of top speed. What if a $25k Honda would only go 25 mph?

It's billed as a replacement for the F430, so I think I'd better go look in the garage and see if I've got one of those 430's that I'll want to trade up. (pause) No, nothing out there. I think I'll pass on it. I'd just get into trouble with something that fast. And expensive. Maybe you'll let me drive yours once in a while.

Running Latte: The Urban Dictionary

I subscribe to Word of the Day from dictionary.com. Every day I'm e-mailed an interesting word which varies from familiar to vaguely familiar to unknown . But, familiar or not, these daily e-mail messages give me the feeling that I'm maintaining my vocabulary. I like to write simply and concisely but, hey, I'm a writer, so more words must be better. Here's an example of a recent dictionary.com Word of the Day:

glabrous \GLAY-bruhs\, adjective:

Smooth; having a surface without hairs, projections, or any unevenness.

This species has a bluish-tinged body completely covered in white flecking in the typical species, though completely glabrous green variants are also seen without any of the body flecking. -- Kevin G. Belmonte, "The woolly Astrophytums", The Philippine Star, June 6, 2009

Glabrous is from Latin glaber, "smooth, bald."

And now I have, in glorious counterpoint (koun'tr-point', A contrasting but parallel element, item, or theme) the Urban Dictionary. Described recently in the NY Times as providing "unruly, unlexicographical but surprisingly useful offerings" and as the "online open-source dictionary of slang."

I signed up immediately, and I now get another daily e-mail containing the Urban Dictionary Word of the Day. The two daily words could hardly be more different, and here are a few examples of the urban variety:

running latte

Showing up late to work because you stopped for coffee along the way.

I told them I got stuck in traffic, but really I was running latte.

DWT

Driving While Texting. Operating a motor vehicle while texting friends on your cell.

"Gina almost killed us driving over here, she was DWT. I finally grabbed the phone out of her hand before we wrecked."

Note: The Urban Dictionary, while often amusing, is a collection of slang and street language which contains many off-color terms and definitions that I wouldn't include here, and which you might not find amusing.

The Urban Dictionary

Street Smart: Urban Dictionary

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects

Will Rogers was a famous vaudevillian, humorist, commentator, and actor who starred in 71 movies (the majority of them silent films) and had a syndicated newspaper column.

He was born in 1879 in Oklahoma Indian Territory, and was 1/4 Cherokee. He liked to joke that his ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat. He died in 1935 on a round-the-world trip when his small plane crashed near Barrow at the northern-most tip of Alaska.

I only know what I've read about him, but he seems like the best kind of comedian… the kind whose jokes are as wise as they are funny. Two of my favorite Will Rogers quotes, in addition to the one in the title of this post, are these two:

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.

Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.

I wish I'd said that. Thanks, Will.