Cell Phone Activity and Texting

[biker art]

It was rough back in the early 60s when a new car was ordered they asked if you wanted a heater,am radio, carpet. Today
I can't even figure out how to change channels on my radio. I wonder how much more the cars cost today with all the junk in them. I know when buying a new car you don't have much choice any more. My new 64 1/2 mustang had a radio, heater and AC.

[jondrew55]

Originally Posted by Old Car Nut

This may come off as harsh in text form, but I'm a direct, plain spoken kinda guy. It's not directed at any one person.

You can say the same things about distraction when it comes to GPS or a cup of coffee. Eating, makeup, talking to the passenger (worse then talking on the phone since we tend to LOOK AT the folks we are talking to removing eyes from the road). The list can go on for days. Some folks just can't chew gum and walk at the same time.



Next up we will ban radios and passengers.

I'm with you. Way back I used to work out at Edwards AFB and when we would drive back from Lancaster to LA to fly home in the morning it was an amazing show of people eating, shaving, reading, putting make up on etc. This is before cell phones were in everyone's hands. That said, I saw a young lady texting in traffic the other day and at a light just gently rolled into the car in front of her. She barely glanced up from her phone. I think the person in front of her must have been playing with their phone too because they apparently didn't even notice the bump and just kept driving.

[Bigd9]

Originally Posted by biker art

It was rough back in the early 60s when a new car was ordered they asked if you wanted a heater,am radio, carpet. Today
I can't even figure out how to change channels on my radio. I wonder how much more the cars cost today with all the junk in them. I know when buying a new car you don't have much choice any more. My new 64 1/2 mustang had a radio, heater and AC.

You got air conditioning in your 64 n half mustang? I believe that was a dealer installed option, right? Did she have the V-8? Still have her?

[Daveinet]

I need to design a horn that sounds like wheel screech. No one responds to horns, a threatening wheel screech usually wakes people up.

[bulldog2]

Originally Posted by Daveinet

I need to design a horn that sounds like wheel screech. No one responds to horns, a threatening wheel screech usually wakes people up.

I LIKE IT

[Old Car Nut]

Originally Posted by jondrew

I'm with you. Way back I used to work out at Edwards AFB and when we would drive back from Lancaster to LA to fly home in the morning it was an amazing show of people eating, shaving, reading, putting make up on etc. This is before cell phones were in everyone's hands. That said, I saw a young lady texting in traffic the other day and at a light just gently rolled into the car in front of her. She barely glanced up from her phone. I think the person in front of her must have been playing with their phone too because they apparently didn't even notice the bump and just kept driving.

First time I saw a guy reading the newspaper I was in an F150 4x4 with 38" tires and an 8" lift. He was in the car ahead and to the right of me. At the next stop I got out and went over to him and said that if I saw him reading that paper again I was going to run my truck (pointing to it) right over his car. The look on his face was priceless. He handed me the newspaper. I guess he liked his Bimmer.

[biker art]

Originally Posted by Bigd9

You got air conditioning in your 64 n half mustang? I believe that was a dealer installed option, right? Did she have the V-8? Still have her?

I got rid of that car in early 66 and traded it in for a 63 ford XL500 convertible with the 390 engine. The poor Mustang was red and a target for anybody looking to have an accident. I think it was rear ended three times. It was a six cyl and I may have been wrong about the AC, it's been a long time. I did buy a 66 Mustang in 02 with a ford dealer installed ford AC. It worked good when the radiator didn't overheat. It was also a six which I changed out to a 250 ci six from a later Mustang. It barely fit because it was a longer block. That engine had the torque of a small V8. But back to cell phones , I never use them while driving. I always pull over and stop or have my wife ans. I could not forgive myself If I ran into a biker being one myself.

[JDKelley]

Heh. HUGE pet peeve for me! (Or, as George Carlin can be quoted as saying: "I don't have 'pet peeves'. I have 'major psychotic [ moderator edit ]hatreds', and it makes the world a lot easier to sort out.") In the entire time that CMT has been available (Cellular Mobile Telephony, the "modern" version of mobile telephones,) I have been on the phone while driving precisely THREE times. In EACH case, a medical emergency was involved, and in EACH case, I had a medical practitioner or facility on the other end (to get a lot of the preadmission crap out of the way.) While this didn't impair my driving, I will also state that I have put a lot of time and effort into my own driver training - as has the Department of Defense and the Department of the Air Force. Considering I had a pilot's ticket for two years before I had a driver's license, I already had all of the SA drilled into me (in THREE dimensions, not two!) instrument monitoring, equipment monitoring, control response monitoring, &c, &c, for a couple of years before I started to drive legally (and, I'd been driving since I was twelve anyhow. I grew up in Indiana, knew most of the cops, and I broke six feet in height when I was 12 years old. Didn't even get "carded" for the first time until I was 33...) Having used two-way radios while driving and flying, I will concur that the mentality is different. VERY different. Most people are able to "split their intellect" on the radio - those /same/ /people/ will get on the mobe and act like a twelve-year-old girl as far as the outside world is concerned, you could almost swear they were sitting on a still in the kitchen, yakking away, twirling the handset cord around their fingers, gawping at everything, like nothing else requires their attention. I don't understand it. California passed a law a couple of years ago - so what? I don't see as it's made a difference. At least, not in the drivers around me. Makes me want to build a HERF gun and zap anyone I see DWY (Driving While Yapping) or DWT (Driving While Texting.) Just brick the phone into uselessness... Because, as far as /I'm/ concerned, these people aren't an "infraction". They're a "public hazzard" - and bloody well should be treated accordingly! (Curiously, I note that while I seem to be broadly regarded as cranky, a large number of people also tend to agree with me. Hmm...)

[Bigd9]

JDKelley and I'm glad you chimed in here!

So reading your post I couldn't figure out if you were for or against cell phone use while driving.........

Just kidding, Just kidding

[Triker56]

Originally Posted by biker art

Today I can't even figure out how to change channels on my radio.

On my new toad. I just press a button on the steering wheel and then ask the lady to change to a different channel I tell her too.

In my MH I don't have time to do any texting as I am too busy watching the laptop on the dash running VMSpc, or the laptop beside me running MS Street & Trips or the iPad mounted on side window running CoPilot.

Plus checking the road ahead once in a while or a quick glance to the overhead TV. In between a check with the Smart phone for any messages.

So as I said I don't have any time to do any texting.
But I may try the voice messaging my new iPhone 6 has.

[wa8yxm]

It is not always cell phones though... i recall one 9-1-1 caller who called in to report the car in front of him was all over the road,, Clearly Drunk.

Well, troopers were able to intercept,, and the car was still in front of the caller (who was in a pick up truck) and the troopers did make an arrest for OUI.... The Caller in the pick up truck.

You see, the car was going straight down the road, it was the pick up that was weaving all over....

Life as a police dispatcher was fun (NOTE I can safely tell you this story because if you ask me when it happened, I can narrow it down to about a deacade,, Where, 3 counties, and who, I can not tell you at all, since I never heard the names).

[JDKelley]

Originally Posted by Bigd9

JDKelley and I'm glad you chimed in here!

So reading your post I couldn't figure out if you were for or against cell phone use while driving.........

Just kidding, Just kidding

Against it. Hard.

(And apparently, I got my wrist slapped for quoting Carlin - sorry to everyone for that. But, it is a sore subject for me anyhow - the next in-duh-vidual who misses me by an interval that may be measured in centimetres, then holds up his mobe like it's a valid reason, will be chased down and caught, then will have the mobe jammed into some random orifice that is FAR too small for it with a needlessly excessive amount of force, right after I summon EMS to the slightly incorrect location (just incorrect enough that they /should/ see him when they get there, but still incorrect that they don't get there straight away.)

It's bad enough that so many people are allowed to drive out here - the typical California "driver" suffers from delusions of adequacy. (Most of them can't think past the end of their own noses, and fully 85% of them subscribe to solipsism as a personal philosophy!)

Call me "provincial" if you like, but I still can't figure out why driver literature and testing out here is offered in 30-odd languages, nor can I figure out why the test was actually EASIER when taken in Greek, Arabic, and Farsi - than the three times I took it in English! (/Nota/ /Bene/ - I wasn't "cold" when I took it the first time. California is the FOURTH jurisdiction to issue me a driver's license, the prior three being (in order) Indiana, the Department of Defense, and Interpol. I was essentially licensed - eventually - to drive anything with two or more wheels. This may sound a bit egocentric, but I like to think I might have had some idea of what I was about.)

The closest that most of the people on the roadways out here in this sort of pseudo-Brownian motion should get to control of a motor vehicle is putting a dollar in the farebox as they go by to their seat. That's why I wanted to keep our motorhome/RV small - it's not that I couldn't handle it, I wouldn't have cared if it had been 40' long, with air brakes and a trailer (I'd just have to get a non-commercial Class B or N-C A again.) No, I just don't trust most of the rest of these yo-yos running about on the pavement here. Seriously - these people put snow chains on the REAR tyres of a FRONT-wheel-drive vehicle! What?!?)

WA8XYM - I can understand what you mean about working PD dispatch. I'd applied for FD dispatch (bummer - I wasn't hired) some years ago. I /am/ a hobbyist scannist - follows from being an Air Force radioman for about ten years. Some of the stuff I've heard while listening... Ranged from "huh - whuzzat?" to "full-on belly laughs" to "how do you fit that much stupid into just one person?" So, I can imagine.

[Bigd9]

Originally Posted by Triker56

On my new toad. I just press a button on the steering wheel and then ask the lady to change to a different channel I tell her too.

In my MH I don't have time to do any texting as I am too busy watching the laptop on the dash running VMSpc, or the laptop beside me running MS Street & Trips or the iPad mounted on side window running CoPilot.

Plus checking the road ahead once in a while or a quick glance to the overhead TV. In between a check with the Smart phone for any messages.

So as I said I don't have any time to do any texting.
But I may try the voice messaging my new iPhone 6 has.

Larry, you have it all....well almost. Where is the lane guidance radar? Or the automatically applied braking system? You would think someone who almost has it all would go for the top. Like, why don't you have all of your "toys" project their images onto the windshield for a heads-up display like they have in fighter jets? Or better yet, combine all of the voices that are telling you "where to go" into one voice. Barbara Eden's I Dream of Jeannie voice would be perfect. I can hear it now. "Master, oh master if it pleases you would you mind turning right at the next corner please?""If not, no problem, I can just blink/nod and we will be there faster". I mean if I had all of those "helpers" plus my wife telling me where to go I would be in the nut house before I finished the trip! You see my life is so much simplier. She says "turn right" and I say "yes dear" I don't need all of that extra guidance in my coach.

[slanted]

As has been stated, it is not just cell phones. Many years ago I was was a BMW/HD/Honda motorcycle mechanic. While on a test ride I had a cad drift over the line into my lane. I did not have much room, but was able to avoid the light blue mid-90s Ford Taurus. Looking at the driver, I was AMAZED to see he was playing a trumpet while driving. I am a pretty easy going guy, but it was all I could to to not kick his door!!!!