Driving attitudes - April 15, 2010

In recent months a lot of media attention has been given to cell phone and computer use while driving. In fact, both state and federal governments have passed laws prohibiting some uses of both.

Have you ever wondered why they pass such ridiculous laws? The reason is because a certain number of fools are foolish enough to behave in such a manner as to endanger everyone else!

I don’t mean to infer cell phones and text messaging should be OK! What I do mean is that anything that distracts a driver’s concentration should be illegal. In case you didn’t know, the State of Washington has had a “Distracted or Inattentive driving” clause in place for over forty years!

Now I know that most everybody (excluding me) is really into High-tech gadgets and gizmos. My wife is the “Techy” in our household. She’s got a cordless phone with answering machine, remote control TV, a Radar-Range, a Salad Shooter, a Dust Buster and Gin-su knives, just to name a few of her gadgets! None of the gizmos mentioned above happen to be in her car!

Unlike other behaviors that seem to be associated with a particular group of people, distracted driving seems to have no boundaries. Old and young, male and female, all colors of skin and hair, all descriptions of vehicles appear to be “multi-tasking” while driving down the highway. They may be driving a Cadillac Escalade or a Honda Element. Maybe a motor home, a Dodge pick-up with a goose-neck travel trailer, a Suzuki or VW, a Peterbilt or Freightliner, or even a Mercury Gran Marquis! Everyone’s doing it so it must be OK, right? Wrong!

I know there are those who sincerely believe they have the brain power to do several things at once. (I’m still working on walking and chewing gum at the same time.)

You see ads on TV for big screen TV that can show up to 8 basketball games at one time. Is there anyone who can give a detailed run down of any one of those games when the final buzzer sounds?

To me, this is a fair analogy with one major exception, if you are driving and miss a “play,” you may be dead! I have seen first-hand some results from distracted driving. To be brief I’ll describe only one - an infant in a car seat—with a piece of glass through his head, temple to temple.

Please don’t think that because a person is driving a particular vehicle that he or she is exempt from bad behavior. I have seen men in semi’s going down the interstate at 60+ mph, reading a hard-cover book draped over the steering wheel! You see more than most perched in the pilot house of a Kenworth! I used to honk my KW air horn at people who passed me while text messaging. I quit doing that! I realized that some of those drivers didn’t seem to notice that they were passing anyone until the sound blast practically scared them into the weeds!

Where do we go from here? I only see it getting worse. These newer mini-vans and such with rear-seat video screens to keep our children entertained work well as babysitters, but I doubt that those passengers, even the 14 and 15 year olds, can tell you what the name of the last town you went by was ( unless, of course, you’re in your hometown), what is the speed limit there, and what a mile post means, how far to the next town, what state are you in?

Distracted driving can include many activities not associated with technology, such as drinking a soft drink, changing radio stations, pick things up off the floor, eating a burger, and so on. Anything that draws your attention away from the task at hand -driving.

Pay attention. When you meet someone going 60 mph you are only inches from death. Is there a text message or burger worth that price? I think not!

May the good Lord be with us and all who share the asphalt.

Jerry C. Martin

Jerry Martin lives in LaCrosse and has been a commercial truck driver for over 30 years. He is currently a driver with Empire Disposal in Colfax.