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Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > September > 22 > Entry
Digital Contrarian: texting while driving
A few years ago, a tech company sent me a new phone to try out for a review. It was shiny and new, with some of the next-gen features we take for granted today like the ability to play video and surf the Web.
I was so excited to try the phone out that I pulled it out of the box and started playing with it even as I was getting ready for my long commute home. I reversed my car out of its parking space in the American-Statesman lot and began rolling toward the Riverside Drive exit.
I don’t remember if I was logging in to Gmail or trying to get to a Web site on the tiny screen’s Web browser, but I do remember my hand locked in that digital/numerical clutch, punching up letters on the keypad. My eyes were firmly fixed on the screen as I typed on the unfamiliar interface. My driving slowed and slowed until I suddenly stopped; something caught my attention as it appeared my peripheral vision.
A black car’s bumper was inches from mine. My Prius was wedged awkwardly in a unnatural diagonal, having drifted from my unmarked side of the road. The driver in the black car was staring at me angrily, jaw dropped. They obviously couldn’t believe what had almost happened. Neither could I. I put the phone down in the passenger seat and drove away, my hands shaking all the way home.
I learned my lesson, but I wish I could say it was the last time I ever used a cell phone while driving. I have an iPhone now and on my nearly one-hour commute I’ve given in to the temptation to glance at the screen when the phone buzzed an incoming text message or e-mail subject line. But I don’t text and drive; I like to think I’m pretty coordinated, but even the time it takes to open up an iPhone app is long enough to drift out of your lane when you’re driving at 70 mph down IH-35. It’s hard, sitting for so long, disconnected, when the entire world of Twitter and RSS feeds is right at your fingertips. But it’s one of the rare instances where the risks are truly life or death.
Texting and driving is dumb, pure and simple. It’s a hard thing to rationalize, especially when you’ve already had a near-miss like I have.
When the City of Austin moved to ban texting while driving, it was surprising to see people arguing against it not because it’s dangerous (clearly, it is), but on a principle of supposed civil liberties, as if the Founding Fathers someone wanted us to crash into each other at high speeds as an expression of our hard-earned freedoms.
One Statesman story commenter wrote:
“If its not texting then the people who are irresponsible drivers will do something else thats (sic) dangerous, maybe they will cook pankakes (sic) on a portable cooker on the way to work, are we going to ban Portable cookers?”
Right. Because if we ban texting, a good substitute for information gratification will be the emerging craze of making ham and eggs lighter-adapter-powered car griddles. Good argument.
The parallel argument that applying makeup, fiddling with the radio or arguing with your kids is just as distracting as texting has a certain logic to it. But when I’m driving on 35 and see someone drifting off their lane, invariably it’s someone with a cell phone stuck to the side of their face or with the phone in their hand, not someone with a mascara tube or a hand stretched out to adjust a volume knob.
A more stunning point represented in two other Statesman story comments was that only the untalented pose a danger and that texting could actually improve your driving because driving texters are concentrating harder on what they’re doing:
“For those of us who can use our phones and you would never know because it does not affect our driving, we might represent the minority. But we will be punished along with all of the mindless masses out there who can not use their phones and drive.”
“Well, here’s one way - studies have shown that people that are talking on their cell phone while driving, drive slower and change lanes less often. Who knows, maybe DWT actually makes us drive safer???”
Right study, wrong conclusion. The University of Utah study from last year actually says that cell phone users can actually cause traffic congestion, which is another danger they pose.
One popular Austin blog, Grits for Breakfast, expressed not only skepticism about the the proposed Austin law, but the idea that because the practice has become part of “People’s routine life habits” that a law against it is unenforceable. The blog’s author Scott Henson wrote:
“Though I’m lucky enough to live close to downtown, I know a lot of Austin commuters who use their Blackberry that way, and it’s not as though the city has provided adequate mass transit to give those folks other options.”
Excusing people’s dangerous driving habits because there’s a lack of mass transit is like saying that neglecting a child is permissible because the state doesn’t provide affordable childcare programs.
I’m usually happy to argue the opposing view on a tech policy topic and play devil’s advocate, but I spend enough time on the road every week to see how things are actually playing out. People are driving erratically and putting us all in danger, cell phone in hand, fingers texting.
If there’s to be any debate, it should be about ways to make it stop, not whether it should be stopped at all.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Phones
Comments
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By Omar Gallaga
September 28, 2009 4:06 PM | Link to this
That Guy -- if it was just my anecdotal experiences, you certainly wouldn't need a law.
But there are studies and increasing numbers of texting-related fatalities that clearly signal it's a growing problem. You can misdirect and set up straw arguments all you want -- it won't make the problem go away. Pulling out the "radio is distracting" or whatever you were trying to say (and failed) about sunglasses doesn't address that this is a new problem that is getting worse and worse.
(Good info chart here.
Driving without a seat belt used to be legal, too.
By jessica
September 28, 2009 3:39 PM | Link to this
I'm a self-defined geek. I have gadgets. I twitter. I text. I email. I CAN WAIT THE TIME IT TAKES TO DRIVE SOMEWHERE TO DO THESE THINGS. I mean c'mon people - what is so friggin' urgent that you can't wait for a red light or until you get where you're going or until you can pull over and park for a second?
The overreaction to banning texting while driving is what perplexes me. I KNOW drivers are distracted - I'm sure you can find lots of anecdotal evidence AND scientific evidence. A woman who admitted to texting while driving plowed into and totalled my neighbor's PARKED car one night - thank goodness no one was hurt.
It seems that many who like to play the "civil liberties" card forget - driving is a *privilege* not a *right* and there are rules and responsibilities that go along with that privilege.
By adam807
September 28, 2009 3:22 PM | Link to this
It's not that I don't think there should be a law, it's that I'm baffled that we NEED one. Is there a specific law against reading while driving? That's basically what texting is. Isn't that already illegal? It just seems self-evident. I'm sad that it's not.
By ex-texter
September 28, 2009 3:09 PM | Link to this
Must be some really popular people out there that can't put the phone down for the drive to and from work.
By @shelz
September 28, 2009 3:02 PM | Link to this
It's illegal in Tennessee! It should be illegal everywhere. Yay for Austin!
By Shannon J.
September 28, 2009 3:00 PM | Link to this
It's about the volume of people using cell phones while driving. Yeah, there are a million dangerous things that people do while driving, but there are far more drivers texting or talking on phones than putting on make-up or eating. Plus, there are numerous studies showing the negative effects of talking and texting while driving. You can't enforce bans on all distracting activities, but you can pick and choose those to outlaw that will have the greatest impact.
By carri
September 23, 2009 8:49 AM | Link to this
Your article is right on point. Texting, and all talking on phones & use of devices like ipods & blackberries, while driving is a special danger because it's dangerous & it has become a widespread practice. Like drinking & driving once was. We ban certain things because they represent a significant threat due to (1) the level of distraction it creates and(2) the number of people who seem to be thinking it's perfectly OK to do it. Sorry folks, just because you are capable of doing it with dexterity and ease, does not make it right or safe.
Driving takes 2 hands & your undivided attention. An Easy Rule to Live By: No one should do anything while they are driving that they would not have done on their driver's test with the DPS officer in the car.
By That Guy
September 22, 2009 11:25 PM | Link to this
"But when I�m driving on 35 and see someone drifting off their lane, invariably it�s someone with a cell phone stuck to the side of their face or with the phone in their hand, not someone with a mascara tube or a hand stretched out to adjust a volume knob."
Gee, I hope we make more laws based on purely antecdotal evidence. Whenever I see somebody going the wrong way down a one-way street, they're always wearing sunglasses. I think I have a dynamite new law to stop people from going the wrong way!
About a million things can distract people while driving. Which is why the overreaction to texting is so perplexing.