Near Accident

You have to understand that the police or some other driver or a passenger in another car will see the person talking on the phone while driving. And if the passenger in the other car will see the licence, they would call the police. Now the police have the licence number and all they need to do is to wait until the driver does the same mistake the next time.

How would the cell phone company know if a person were talking while driving unless it was a smart phone with GPS and they could see the phone was moving faster than a person could walk? Since they say a distracted driver is just as dangerous as a drunk, maybe the penalties should be the same. In some ways, driving whle talking is worse. Sometimes the drunk is so out of it he may not realize what he's doing. But a cell phone user knows exactly what he is doing.

I see no harm in it in hospitals. Sometimes it helps patients families to be able to contact them. It also helps make patients less miserable if they can talk to a friend, play a game, or check email. Cell phones are used for a lot these days besides talking. I've been in the place where I had to spend hours visiting in the hospital when my husband had had surgery and it wasn't that easy to leave and use a pay phone. Sometimes family members need to make important calls. If a patient is being disturbed in one of the rooms, a nurse can always tell someone to put the phone away.

Yeah I think being consistent with implementing laws and fine systems will force hard-headed people to follow. There must be many traffic enforcers who will be strict in making sure rules are followed. It is for the safety of everyone to obey such rules. Sometimes I feel like going back to Makati City because where I am now, many people don't have much regard for rules and the traffic enforcers are not so serious about their jobs.

I wish more pedestrians and bikers would follow traffic rules. Maybe they should send those traffic officers to Chinatown in San Francisco. I remember going there one time to eat when we were there for a workshop Hubby had to attend. Everyone ignored red lights -- especially pedestrians. They would even cross the streets diagonally. Intersections were mad scrambles. Scary.

Hello, now I am all rested, but it is time to go night-night again. But what I had written before it got eaten was that BF and I had a very close call, also, when someone started through an intersection after we were already in it (our right of way) and almost ran us over. We have to drive for everyone.

I am very sorry. When I do a long one I try to remember to make a copy before hitting the "post" button. Sometimes, though, I forget. But it's the thought that counts. I hope you get a good night's sleep.

You are right about that. But getting your husband one of those hands free set ups is a good idea. Anything to take the danger out of a situation.

I'm going to have to insist my husband get one of those. I don't need one because I don't even turn on my phone unless I'm expecting a call or I need to call out. I will not answer it when I'm driving because I know I'd find it distracting.

My brother is a truck driver, too, and usually calls me when he's on the road, but he doesn't use a hand-held phone.

I think that's a good school activity! Safe driving should be taught to students so they themselves can spread the good practice and teach those stubborn adults.

Well, the problem is, he lives in the bedroom, he is hardly ever in the house where everyone else is, like he is a recluse in his own home. I figure at least he can walk the few steps, (because our home isn't large) to ask me something instead of calling me..

I wish my husband would call me when I'm upstairs working and he is downstairs. Instead he tries to yell at me from downstairs around the corner and I have to leap up and run down the hall to learn if he's trying to say something important. Guess what. 95% of the time he isn't saying anything that couldn't wait until the next time I come downstairs. He's just afraid he'll forget about it by then.

Texting is really bad. We had a train wreck here near Los Angeles because the person driving the train was texting at the time of the accident. Twenty-five people, including the driver and a dear friend of mine were killed. People can watch the road and talk. I see no way they can watch the road while texting. I have trouble understanding the attraction of texting anyway. Why is it more popular than actually talking?

Cell phones do not seem to be an enforcement priority here. You see at least one driver on a cell phone any time you drive anywhere. I understand in another county near mine they will have strict enforcement with lots of officers near the high school before and after school for a week. They really shouldn't announce it ahead of time. They might catch more of them. Not to worry. We have more than our share of lawbreakers here.

You must visit India and drive here and when you do it you will realise what a pleasure it is to drive in your own country. I know cell phones do increase accidents but atleast you have good roads and disciplined drivers otherwise.

I agree completely. It could even happen to them. I suppose each of these people believes he's got things under control and won't be distracted -- that it's the other guy that the law is written for -- if they think about the law at all.

I would love to see that! Just imagine how many people would walk around like that.

That's a good one. Maybe they would get sick of it after a couple of days trying to sleep with it on. Of course, they wouldn't be able to recharge it.

I don't know if I would go that far if no accident had yet occurred, but I would make the first offense stiff enough not to be forgotten. Seat belts are another matter. Some people have been trapped in cars because they had them on. I certainly wouldn't restrict the driving privilege over that because on other cars are endangered. In our area, to take away the drivers license in to take away a person's ability to get to and from work and earn a living. That's pretty several for not wearing a seat belt. A stiff fine would probably be as effective.

Here in California we've had this law for at least a year, but it isn't taken very seriously. People have their phones to their ears in parking lots, on freeways, anywhere. They just don't enforce it very well. I can't remember the fine. But it might not matter even if they raised it. People just don't expect to get caught.

I think a lot of people just don't like their own company enough and can't stand being alone. If they have someone on the phone, they feel they are not alone.

I think texting is even worse, since you can't watch two places at once. I'm afraid people will continue to do it as long as they think they can get by with it or until they are the fatality in an accident.

Yes. And if we try to call and report them, we have to talk while driving -- unless there is a passenger with us to do the job. It's just hard to get the license number sometimes because when we see it, we don't always have something out to write with.

Our first accident was in a rural area. We were coming out of our driveway onto the highway we live on. About half a mile to the left of our driveway, is a slight downward slope so that cars coming up the slope are invisible to us until they get to the top. We are also invisible to them. The woman who hit us was driving a pick-up to the beach and also had friends in the car. The speed limit is 55mph. My husband looked both ways and started across and had not seen the truck. When we were halfway into lane we saw her about to hit us and Hubby tried to get out of her way, but he couldn't move fast enough. We were knocked to the other side of the street and she went over the embankment in front of our property. She told the policeman she had only been doing 45mph, but a witness said she was going much faster than that. The officer said she had been using a cell phone when the accident happened. That was just before the law forbidding cell phone use here was passed. Fortunately no people were hurt -- just cars. A couple of weeks later, when I was about to leave my driveway, I saw a Highway Patrol car come over that hill. I sat there and counted the seconds and saw I would have had enough time to cross safely. In our area, the patrol cars are faster than most other traffic when the road is clear. So the woman who hit us must have been going much faster than the patrol car, which is normally faster than the speed limit.