Welcome to my niece, Britanny, a writer/reporter and also Wednesday’s guest blogger:
Hello, my name is Brittany, and I am a distracted driver. I like looking at the pretty colors in the leaves of the trees while driving down a scenic highway where a deer could jump out at any moment. I like singing the lyrics to my favorite song with the music too loud while an ambulance pulls up behind me with its lights on. I like holding conversations with my passengers, using my hands to gesture instead of holding the wheel. I am guilty of liking all of these things, but I will tell you one thing I am not guilty of, DWTM.
DWTM (driving while text messaging) is the newest craze. It has swept the nation faster than you can say “lol”. Girls who once chatted with their phones attached to their ears now have their eyes glued to their keypads as they hurl down the highway at 75 mph. Businessmen (and women) who until recently had to use their laptops for email purposes are typing messages on their Blackberries with one hand, holding coffee with the other, and steering with God-knows-what. Scary, right? You have no idea. I have witnessed the consequences of DWTM and I can tell you, they aren’t pretty.
There I was, in the middle of downtown Louisville, KY, when traffic at a green light came to an abrupt halt. Necks were craning out of driver’s side windows, horns were honking, and select curse words were spat from the mouths of many an angered driver. What was the cause of this ruckus? Some girl, who looked like she was around my age, was in the middle of the intersection, TEXT-MESSAGING. I don’t know how she came to be in the middle of the intersection, but she was blocking traffic from several directions. What makes matters worse is that by the time she finally realized that she was blocking traffic, cars had started going around her. I watched in horror as she stomped on the gas pedal and was almost sideswiped by another car. If you think that this would knock her back to her senses, you are sadly mistaken. The girl, in a fit of rage, accelerated to catch up to the driver who allegedly “cut her off” and in doing so, smashed into the back of his car. I didn’t have time to rubberneck, but I seriously considered pulling over and watching the spectacle that was sure to unfold.
The next day, I was pulling up to work and noticed that a co-worker’s car looked like the automobile version of Two-face. The entire passenger’s side looked like a giant Freddy Krueger hand had been taken to it. Upon asking my co-worker what happened, I received this reply: “Well, I was kinda drunk and it was reallllly late and I was text messaging Jethro (the name doesn’t matter), and I drove off the road and skidded against a guard rail!”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not only were people driving drunk, they were TEXT MESSAGING WHILE DRIVING DRUNK! This was insane! Had common sense become uncool? Was it now officially “hip” to drive around under the influence, looking anywhere BUT the road? I had to restrain myself from shaking my co-worker half to death. The only consolation I received is that she had broken her phone and couldn’t afford a new one. There was at least one less idiot driver on the road texting, for now.
Sadly, Kentucky is not the only place where people are guilty of DWTM. In Rochester, N.Y., 5 girls were killed when their car hit a tractor-trailer. What was the driver doing moments before impact? You got it, texting. A 17-year-old boy will be facing charges in California after losing control of his car while texting and hitting a bicyclist, who died 2 days later. In the UK, a 19 year-old-girl who had only held her license for 8 months hit a 64 year-old-grandmother. The elderly woman was killed when her car hit the guardrail. I assume you know by now what the 19-year-old was doing.
States such as Washington and New Jersey have banned DWTM. Other states, including Kentucky, are trying to follow suit. This seems a necessary measure, given that the number of deaths from DWTM rises every day. Driving safely is difficult enough for some people; DWTM safely is downright impossible for everyone.
–Brittany Tracy
Minnesota now has the law in place as well, but the driver has to be doing something else wrong while driving to get pulled over, which unless the driver is caught red handed while being pulled over, is going to be hard to prove the driver was texting in the first place, unless they go into the text logs of the cell phone, and then wouldnt they need some sort of search and seize order (ok I cant think of what the order is called right now, too much Swedish and internet protocol homework already tonight)
I have to say I have texted while driving before, and even though the law is now in place in MN I am sure I will not stop reading my texts if they come in and replying a simple yes or no, or whatever it may be. Now dont get me wrong, I dont live in my car and the text messages are far and few that I do receive while driving, and I do not live in a big city or travel on busy highways, and if there is a car coming when I hear my phone chime at me, I wait till the car PASSES. I have been in far to many accidents in my life to worry over glancing at my phone for less than 2 seconds. I’ll keep my worries to the Semi’s and big trucks that scare the crap out of me everytime they pass me. So with this I say to each their own.
seriously… this is just ridiculous. I get calling in an emergency even without bluetooth or a headset, but otherwise, hands on wheel at all times.
TEXTING!! omg… pull over and text…
I think the only solution to this may be voice-activated text… talk to your phone to get it to text.
or us sensible folk gathering up a bunch of pitchforks and torches and going after each and every offender.
They WHAT??? AAAAAHHH! That scares me. I’ve never seen it and I hope I never do!
I sent this blog to a friend of mine who’s always texting while driving, he drives me nuts!!!! I hope people get the message that this is a totally dangerous and stupid thing to do before a lot more people die 🙁
Well said Brittany, and thanks for bringing everyone’s attention to this. I live in the text messaging dark ages so would never have thought that people do this. It’s no small surprise that they can’t drive while doing it, hopefully more people stop and think after reading this.
I did it once too. It was kinda scary, but I just HAD to send that message, whatever it was. Apparently not important enough for me to remember.
Great job, Brittany! I admit to DWTM, I do. I tried it on my Blackberry once when no one else was on the street with me to see how people could do it. Well, they’re certainly more talented than I am, because I was all over the road! People are crazy.
thanks, Brittany! It’s sad that states actually have to take steps to make it illegal, because really- DWTM is one of my best time saving devices. er, I mean so ridiculously unsafe.
Bravo, Brittany. DWTM is definitely a growing menace that needs to be addressed. I hope we’ll be seeing more from you through the blog.