Maybe I'm just stupid but I can't imagine having the coordination and attention span to pay attention to driving and text people.
You're at a red light. You get a text message. You start responding to it. The light turns green. You pause the texting until the traffic stops, but then it's kind of heavy, "crawling". You resume texting. And then you're in the middle of typing a large word when you realize too late that the car in front of you stopped "crawling" and came to a complete stop. You smack into their rear bumper. But this is nothing...
The real problem is that people get very good at texting and driving at the same time. Many are actually
proud of their skill. And then they get over confident, texting while on the highway and then *BAM!* they're in a major accident.
^ Exactly. It's the conversation, not the act of holding the phone. If that were the case, you wouldn't be allowed to hold a banana up to the side of your head either. Studies have shown that whether you are holding the phone or not makes no difference, and that talking on the phone while driving impairs driving about as much as having a blood alcohol content of 0.08.
That is highly exaggerated. What about talking with people in the car, traveling with you? I can't see that being any less distracting than talking on the phone. It must also be qualified by the traffic and road conditions, which can vary considerably.
The REAL problem is training. Yes,
training. In the USA, you take a single driving test and then that's it. You are not tested again, until you're elderly. Our private automotive transportation system is reactively corrective. The expectation is that you'll get into accidents if you're a bad driver, and rack up a lot of points against your license. But no... this doesn't take into consideration that people can get
very good at driving offensively. There is no self correcting mechanism here. No periodic tests to make sure you still know how to drive properly. And how to manage your conversations with passengers or on the phone.
When I talk with people while I'm driving, I'm not as attentive to the conversation, because I'm devoting my primary attention to driving. There are times when your attention is highly taxed, like in heavy traffic or on complicated unfamiliar roadways, and other times when it's a breeze, like cruising on a very long straight stretch of highway with little to no traffic. Based on these varying conditions, your skill and experience helps you adjust your ability to carry on a conversation. If I'm on the phone (hands free) and traffic gets dense, I tell the person I'm talking to that I'll have to call them back. It's THAT SIMPLE. But there are plenty of people completely ignorant of this. I've seen some glaringly bad driving habits in other people, not just strangers I witness but acquaintances and some friends, where driving is not considered the primary focus. It's a very dangerous mindset to take.
Another major issue is tailgating. People generally drive much too close to the car in front of them. When both cars are traveling, the relative speed between the vehicles is negligible. The eye doesn't sense much movement, so the brain relaxes, ignoring the fact that higher speed makes that "slightly changing gap" an illusion. It has been discovered that the old "2 second rule" is actually insufficient. It should be at least 3 seconds. But many people don't even make a 2 second clearance. Add a phone distraction into the mix, and the chances for an accident escalates considerably. This is why there has been an increasing number of multi-car accidents over the years. The average driver keeps an unsafe gap between them and the car in front.
