Automotive Blog

This morning as I was pedaling away on a bicycle going nowhere (a bid to get on top of my entirely too sedentary lifestyle), I ran across an article in The New York Times entitled, “More High-Tech Invitations to Take Your Mind Off Road.” (Link may require free subscription.) My own mind instantly flashed back to a week ago when I was in the car with a friend on the way to dinner and confiscated his iPhone. “You dictate, I’ll type,” I said. “I don’t intend to die by SMS.”

As the article rightly points out, however, there’s a lot more in modern cars to distract our attention that just talking on or texting with our cellphones. Add GPS navigation screens, DVD players front and back, iPod jacks, and even computers with keyboards and the number of potential disasters multiply rapidly. But let me just say this; blaming the gadgets is the easy way out. I can personally point to two wrecks that were caused by fairly low-tech factors — one a fatality to a casette tape that fell in the floorboard, the other a spectacular fender bender involving a woman with big hair, a light post, and an errant limeade.

According to the NYT article that cites figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 80 percent of wrecks and 65 percent of close calls are due to driver distraction. The article makes a strong case for mandating handsfree controls (something I favor, by the way) and making it illegal to text behind the wheel (also a good idea and one so obvious it’s ridiculous we have to have a law.)

I’m not ready to throw the technology out with the bathwater and neither are most drivers faced with long commutes and boring hours sitting in traffic. But for cripes sake people, there’s a right and wrong time. I remember the good old days before remote controls when my father would watch PBS for 45 minutes rather than get up out of his recliner and walk over to the set to change the channel. The principle is similar:

- Get things set up the way you want them before you get on the road.

- Don’t make changes to your gadgety set-up unless the car is stopped or you have a passenger to punch the buttons.

- And go handsfree. The number one causes of driver distraction are dialing a cell phone and texting. Isn’t at $50 bluetooth headset and voice recognition cheaper than a funeral?

Posted on February 12th, 2008 by Shorty
Filed under: lifestyle |

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