Text 36172, 67 rader
Skriven 2007-08-17 15:06:08 av Jeff Guerdat
     Kommentar till en text av Charles Scaglione
Ärende: Re: Handfree ?
======================
Charles Scaglione wrote:

>  JP>         I swore off. I have a 2m ham set in my car and once talking, I
>  JP>    missed an exit. So easily done, I never do this anymore.
> 
> I think we all have been distracted one time or another while driving.
Nowadays
> most cell phones offer Blue Tooth which at least allows a hands off method of
> communicating.  Also handy if you have Blue Tooth available on your computer.

Unfortunately, as I will admit to, the Blue Tooth capability is little 
better than using the phone itself.  We've entered in our most-called 
numbers into the car (I'd rather that we just be able to use the phone 
book in the phone but that's another day) so we can call without needing 
to fiddle with the keypad but it's still some key presses on the 
steering wheel to work with the system and a sequence of commands to 
think about and use.  With more use we could become more proficient and, 
hopefully, less reliant on attention-grabbing procedures but my goal is 
to not carry on calls that often in the first place.  I generally just 
let my wife handle it (she's usually the passenger anyways) and I listen 
so my attention doesn't drift.

That said, I find that it's the conversation itself that's most 
problematic.  Yeah, I've seen flaming, err, JERKS that hold their phones 
even with another car bearing down on them at great speed, too afraid to 
interrupt their call by dropping the phone and handling the situation 
but the sad fact is that most folks don't pay enough attention to their 
driving in the first place, not to mention be carrying on a 
conversation.  At least with a passenger you have a second pair of eyes 
and, peraps, a gasp as that car nearly hits them.  Problem is, how do 
you legislate out conversations?  Not gonna happen.  What's really 
needed, of course, is laws and *peer pressure* to actually drive 
intelligently, rather than relaxing in their rolling living room.  What 
with A/C, radios/CDs/iPods, etc., there's no effort involved in pushing 
a 2-3 ton vehicle over the top of someone else and barely realizing it.

Perhaps you heard the news stories about an SUV-load of 5 teenage girls, 
all due to graduation in a week or two, that were killed on their way to 
a family cottage for a relaxing weekend.  That happened here.  The 
driver was driving illegally (NYS Jr. license which doesn't allow such 
nighttime travel), using her cell phone and likely IM'ing all at the 
same time that she was on a country road, passing cars and, fatally, 
over-correcting when she pulled back into her lane.  The SUV nearly had 
a total frontal crash with a semi and both vehicle burst into flames. 
The carload of friends behind them (was this also part of the problem?) 
were unable to do anything other than to watch their friends burn.

Teens are only part of the problem, of course - I'll wager most teens 
and adults that talk on cell phones while driving exhibit much of the 
same behavior (I've watched 'em so I'm fairly confident of the results). 
  Every damned one of them will insist that they're not part of the 
problem yet an untrained eye will readily disagree.  Until we all grow 
up and get with the program, tragedies such as the above will occur far 
too frequently.  It's an easy fix - we just have to have the cajones to 
admit that we're at fault and do something serious about it.

Ah, so it goes.  Just be glad that you don't need to reboot your 
XP-driven car right when you need to avoid one of these scenarios (was 
that a save, Alan?)...

-- 
Jeff Guerdat

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high
and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. - Michaelangelo
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5a
 * Origin: FidoTel & QWK on the Web! www.fidotel.com (1:275/311)