DISTRACTED DRIVING

Driving under the influence of Cell Phone!

I watched a program about calling and testing while driving on Oprah the other day and it was an eye opener. Fortunately I had already come to the conclusion that I didn’t want or need to do it any longer. I used my cell as a time killer when I used to work downtown in Houston. The long traffic delays I would catch up with friends during my sometimes 45- an hour drive or, worse if I came upon a wreck, drive to and from work.

This is the link to the Oprah show watch it with your kids especially those that are driving age or about to be and take the pledge not to do it. If you have to put your phone in the truck so you don’t hear it ring.

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Watch-the-Full-Hour-Americas-New-Deadly-Obsession-Video

What brought me to my senses about cell phone use in cars was when I started working closer to home I still have a 20 minute drive over a big bridge but I started noticing other drivers. Seems practically everyone I go past or that passes me is on the phone. The chances of having an accident while under the influence of alcohol are 4 times as high as when you’re sober. When talking on a cell phone, headset or not, it makes you 4 times more likely to have an accident. Say you had a beer or two and get in your car and call call someone on the way home? You are at least 8 times more likely to be in an accident. I can tell when someone is texting or emailing. They drive below the speed limit and go in an out of their lanes of traffic just like a drunken person does.

I was walking into my work twice in the last month and people leaving the parking lot backing out of slots have almost hit me on foot because they were on cell phones while backing out and not looking. I had to slap the truck of one person it was that close. I have had people walk in from of vehicle from within the building exits with a cell phone to their ear and never look in my direction while I am slamming on my brakes to keep from killing them. This is what started me leaving my cell phone in my bag while driving. I thought Lord if they are on the phone and I am too in at least one of this incident someone including myself could have been killed or seriously injured.

Now texting I am going to say I was guilty of it not in a big way but I would look and try to read a text I received. I was also bad about texting my husband while he was in route somewhere to pick up this or that. It hit me one day in a restaurant when he was pulling out his “cheaters” the over the counter eye glasses you buy at a drug store to read, how much danger I was putting him in by texting him while he was driving. If he has to have glasses to read a menu them fumbling for glasses and trying to read and drive what was I thinking? The answer is I wasn’t.

How many times have I spoken to my daughter with the grandkids in the background and her driving them to ballgames extra, running in a hundred directions at once? When the gentleman on Oprah talked about he called his son while he was driving and the phone when dead, his son was killed fumbling for the phone, my heart hurt and I felt physically sick. Can you imagine living with that forever? I believe I would have to be committed to an institution.
Texting while driving in the mix, a person under the influence of alcohol has a 4 times greater chance of an accident, while texting you are 8 times more likely. Throw in two or three kids pulling at you a list a mile long of things to do, the fact that so many people are addicted to update every single factor of their lives on Facebook, Twitter etc. and you have a recipe for disaster. But for the grace of God I could have killed someone or caused someone to. I do not answer my phone in the car anymore; I do not text anymore in the car. If accept or make a call from or to someone my first question to them will be where are you? If they are in a car I am hanging up and they can call me when they arrive SAFELY at their destination I don’t care who it is.

I am taking the pledge to not drive under the influence of cell phones and I also would like to see a complete ban of the practice. Folks we lived millions of years without them, since cars came into being we did with out them for a couple of hundred years we can now. NOTHING is more important than human life. Not a stupid email, joke and especially an update from Facebook or other site telling you want someone just had for dinner.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, turn off the phone this week, and watch carefully around you, notice how many are driving with phones to their ears. If you are at a red light just look at the drivers coming at you. Count them

28 percent of accidents on the highway are now being cause by cell phones that is the ones they are sure of, I think it is higher. The first thing in a accident that should happen is the officer ask to see your cell phone for last call or see if you were texting and charge you for reckless driving! No way that would be a violation of rights to privacy, but what about the right not to get killed by someone passing a stupid joke on a cell phone?

I am going to jump on the bandwagon and start a campaign in my state and others to ban them all together in vehicles. You can pull into a parking lot and stop to make a call, we used to have to go to a pay phone to do it for Pete’s sake at least you don’t have to get out of your car now!

Say no to cells in cars!! The life you save may be mine, my daughters, my son, my mom my siblings, my grandkids, my husband and friends or yours.
If the chance of killing someone does not move you then think of this. How much more