Americans can and will do anything while behind the wheel other than, say, driving. We’ll put on makeup, shave, eat, sleep, drink, talk, flirt, fart and beat our children with leather belts. We’ll reload our automatic weapon using two hands and a chin while steering with our left knee. Now with the advent of mobile devices that do more than merely make telephone calls, we have a wonderful new distraction.
Texting.
Texting is the tedious, stupid version of making a voice call. One texts by pushing little tiny buttons, or brushing a flat screen showing images of little tiny buttons, on a phone all the while butchering the English language. We go from…
Hello, Richard. How are you today?
To…
Hi Dick HRU2day?
Children are writing term papers in this new text-speak. And apparently they are doing it while driving. Indeed, many people of all ages are punching little tiny buttons while allegedly driving. Car and Driver magazine has recently done some testing and discovered texting while driving is more dangerous than slurping down bloody marys behind the wheel. Yikes!
Car and Driver tested drivers in four circumstances: sober, legally drunk at .08%, while reading an email and when sending a text message. They rigged a test car with a red light that illuminated to indicate the time to brake. The reaction time results:
- Sober: .54 seconds to brake
- Drunk: add 4 feet
- Reading email: add 36 feet
- Sending a text: add 70 feet
The best part is although 14 US states have banned texting while driving, there is little if any public outcry against it. While we can argue the .08% number’s validity, we can all agree drinking and driving is bad. Sadly it will take more people dying from texting while driving to really rouse the ire of the common American soccer mom because, well, a lot of them do it.
[ CNBC ]