Dear Straight Talk: Your recent column about “Mr. Social” who drives while talking and texting on his cell phone was exactly how I used to be. Then one day I was texting on an on-ramp. It was raining and I was concentrating on the text and didn’t realize how fast I was going. As I hit the freeway I had to brake hard to merge and the back of my car swerved and I spun in three circles right there on the freeway.
Another time my phone rang and it was on the floor. I drove into a ditch while looking for it. At that point I figured I didn’t want my life to end because of a telephone. I still put 5000 text messages on my cell a month, but in the car I draw the line. Texting is out of the question and if I need to make a call, I wait. If I can’t wait, I pull over.
Plus, it’s not just my life—what if I killed somebody else?
I’ve never ridden with a driver who is texting, but if they wouldn’t stop, I’d ask to be let out and I’d call a friend to come get me. If it was an impossible situation, I’d suck it up but I’d never ride with them again. A lot of my friends talk on the phone while driving, and though it’s safer than texting, it’s still not that safe. I think there should be an all-out ban on cell phones while driving.—Rachel, 18, Colfax
Dear Rachel: I hope your message sinks into every teen driver out there, not to mention a few trillion adults. (I wonder where teens learn their behavior…)
Personally, I would like to see hands-free phone laws put into place. Cell phone use has been the leading cause of distracted-driver accidents since 2001 and a recent breakdown by the California Highway Patrol shows that for every 25 such accidents only one involves hands-free use. One hand on the wheel and one hand on the phone just isn’t working.
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