Cage driver on cell ran my son-in-law off the road today

[burkbuilds]

We were celebrating my wife's birthday this afternoon and in walks my son-in-law covered in mud. "What happened to you?" we asked, he told us that a lady talking on her cell phone came around the curve towards him in his lane and he had to jump the curb and a ditch and landed in somebody's muddy yard to keep from becoming a hood ornament. When he hit the mud the bike started sliding and he layed her down in the muck. He was "pinned" under the right side but fortunately not against the exhaust and other than the brake pedal being bent up no damage to the bike. There were several witnesses and the lady stopped and called 911 telling them she had just killed somebody on a motorcycle. The man who's yard he landed in was sitting on the front porch when it happened and he helped get the bike off of him and then proceeded to chew out the girl driving the car. The cops cited her for driving while distracted, failure to maintain lane, 20mph over posted speed limit and I'm not sure what else, but they automatically suspended her license. Since he wasn't injured, the bike started up and he was able to bend the brake pedal back we are very thankful!
He said he saw her talking on the phone and looking down towards the passenger floor board, then she glanced up and looked at him, looked back down and then jerked her head back up really quickly with wide eyes but it was too late for her to avoid him so he just dropped a gear and gunned it over the curb to avoid getting hit. I don't know if I would have had the foresight to have taken that particular action but I'm glad he did.

[BusyWeb]

Wow, that's fortunate..
Thanks that nobody hurt.
I really hate that drivers(cagers ofcource, no bikers) do some phoning/texting while driving....
I tried myself, and felt really dangerous; i mean its really really dangerous...
(as i don't have multi-process power on my brain )

[Water Warrior 2]

Very glad your young man reacted so quickly. Thankfully there were witnesses and the driver did stop to take her lumps. What the hell did people do before cell phones ????????????????? Those things are a plague on the streets and cause so much carnage and injury to others.

Food for thought: cell phones should all have a built-in GPS. Will not work if cell is in motion unless you dial 911 for emergency services. And that includes hands free cells too, they are just as dangerous as they are a distraction too. The only exceptions would be emergency services, police and that sort of thing. Anyone caught circumventing these restrictions will automatically loose their cell and the vehicle it is in. Impounded property will be crushed and disposed of at owners expense. Sounds harsh and a hardship for an offender doesn't it. It should be, but not as bad as the hardship and suffering of an innocent young man on a bike having a head on with a cell driver.

[burkbuilds]

WW, great idea about having the phones unable to work while moving! Seems like that would be pretty easy to do and the speed could be set to anything above a fast walking pace. I think that DWD (driving while distracted) is just as dangerous as drunk driving. I heard that over 90% of all accidents happen because a driver looked away from the road for 3 seconds or more. I heard that the Feds proposed or passed a ruling last week that if States do not pass a law against Texting while driving a large amount of their Federal road funds will be cut off next year. I'm not a big fan of strong arm Federal legislation, but I do hope a lot of states realize the dangers involved in texting and cell phone use while driving and take responsible actions to curb this plague! I wish people would just think about what they are doing, placing lives at risk so they can have the convenience of talking or texting while they drive, it is ridiculous and no matter how good at "multi-tasking" someone thinks they are, the studies show that when your attention is divided between multiple tasks your ablility to do any of them as well as when you focus on one task (driving in this discussion) is severely impaired and you make mistakes. In this case, your mistakes put lives at risk and that is not acceptable!

[alantf]

In England, & Spain too, there IS a specific law banning the use of mobile phones (cell phones) while driving, so the police don't have to use the "distraction" clause. What is really alarming, to me, is that the police who enforce these laws seem to think that there is nothing wrong with themselves using their radios, with hand held mikes, while they are driving. It seems to be a case of "do as I say, not as I do" :??:

[dhgeyer]

BB,

Glad your son in law is OK. It could indeed have been much worse. Sounds like he is a skilled rider. Does he have, by any chance, dirt bike experience from when he was younger? From your description of how he responded, and how it came out, it sounds like he might.

Make cell phones inoperable while in motion? One little problem: there's nothing wrong with a passenger talking on the phone. When we are traveling, if I am driving I often have my wife take my calls as well as her own. I favor tough laws about distracted driving, especially if it causes an accident. Here in NH a woman was just charged with vehicular manslaughter for killing a motorcyclist. In her case she was distracted and drunk. A few years ago it would have been just the DWI charge. The AMA has been pushing for tougher punishments for killing/injuring motorcyclists for a few years now. It seems to be having some effect.

I saw a study in the newspaper a while back in which they determined the relative likelihood of various kinds of distraction causing accidents. Interestingly, cell phone usage was near the bottom, contrary to all the noise that's being made about it. The leading accident causer was reaching for something in the car. Sounds like the woman that caused this accident may have been doing that in addition to talking on the cell phone. So the laws should be about distracted driving, not just cell phone usage.

Oh, and the latest issue of American Motorcyclist has an article about a woman who killed a motorcyclist because she was painting her nails while driving. Her son has started something called the "Black Nails" movement to bring awareness to this whole issue.

[bonehead]

Probably dropped her make-up case.

[dannylightning]

my question is how does talking on a phone distract people, i dont get it. it dose not distract me at all but i have seen people all over the road and driving like idiots on cell phones. but i do believe it should be law since lots of people cant seem to drive for shit when on a phone.

[Water Warrior 2]

Originally Posted by dannylightning

my question is how does talking on a phone distract people, i dont get it. it dose not distract me at all but i have seen people all over the road and driving like idiots on cell phones. but i do believe it should be law since lots of people cant seem to drive for shit when on a phone.

First off, if the cell rings you must reach for it. You are distracted from driving. If you are calling some one you are thinking about the call, not about driving. You are distracted. While it is possible to multi-task it is best to multitask in controlled conditions where you can have a practiced routine. I did that for most of my working career. There is nothing routine about riding or driving which leads me to believe you just think you are safe. Please reconsider your habits for your own safety if not others.

[burkbuilds]

Danny,
I realize that the younger generation is very familiar with electronic devices and so used to using them that they may not even think that it makes a difference when they multitask but it does and when peoples are driving they need to do their very best to focus on driving! I know I'm an old guy compared to you but I've done some multitasking in my time to. I once worked in commercial sales at a Lowe's store and for 4 weeks my supervisor was out with major surgery and the other guy quit so guess what, it was just me M-F 7-5 and sometimes I would be talking to one customer on the phone, while checking prices for them on a computer terminal while waiting on a customer in front of my desk, checking out their purchases, writing delivery directions into the computer and charging it to their account and it wasn't unusual for the other line to ring and I'd have both phones on my shoulders while typing on two computer terminals and talking to 3-4 people. At times it got so comical that the customers in front of me who could see what I was doing would start to laugh. It was crazy for those 4 weeks, and I'm sure I probably screwed up stuff I will never know about, but nobody's life was on the line like it is when I'm driving a vehicle that weighs several tons in traffic. There have been several studies measuring people's accuracy and mistake rates when they are multitasking and although a lot of the people going into the study were convinced that they didn't lose their edge when multitasking, they all did, every single one of them, some more than others granted, but everybody's scores dropped when they started multitasking. You personally may still be a better than average driver even when you are talking on a cell phone, but you are not as good of a driver as you are when you are not talking or otherwise distracted while driving. Please don't take offense at this post, but please do consider that even a professional driver like yourself looses an edge when they are trying to drive and do something else at the same time. This is one habit I hope you will consider changing.

Your friend,

John