Cellphones and Driving

Just wanted to bump this thread to ask if anybody has seen that British PSA about texting and driving? It's available on Youtube if you haven't seen it. The version I saw was a 4-minute video taken from a 30-minute short film, and let me tell you, I cried like a little girl. Not at the teenage girl who caused the accident, or the loss of her friends - but the other victims' car, with the children in the back. Pay special attention to the baby in the backseat. Watch it a couple of times if you don't get it the first time. As a mother... I can't tell you how that felt.

What I can tell you, is that despite the bad acting, I want that video to be viewed by as many people as possible, in the hope that it drives home the message nobody seems to be getting - which is that texting while driving is DEADLY. If not to the person doing the texting, then maybe to a car full of innocent people.

One of my friends texts and drives. If she's going straight, she texts with two hands. It's rather frightening to be in the same car when she's driving. She hasn't caused an accident, yet. She also goes way over the speed limit too and doesn't slow down for corners or speed bumps. She must have some kind of deathwish or something.

Oh, and it's definitely illegal to text and drive here... When you're reading texts, you're not looking at the road. It's a stupid and dangerous thing to do. And why do people think they're so important that they can't possibly be out of contact for the time it takes them to drive somewhere?

Talking is ok with me, as long as you can keep both hands on the wheel. Texting on the other hand, is about the worst thing that you can do. You look away from the road, then remove a hand from the wheel and drive onehanded while looking away, it is begging to get killed.

http://www.break.com/index/dont-text-and-drive.html



That is a link to the PSA mentioned above.

sam winchester:

And that PSA. wow. that was like completely over exaggerating.

I don't think it was.

People who text and drive are idiots who shouldn't even be driving in the first place, because they clearly have little common sense. There is no excuse for not;
a) waiting until you get to your destination to text someone back or
b) pulling over to the side of the road to text someone.

sam winchester.:

i drive and talk on my cell.
i sometimes text too.
but only at like intersections...

And that PSA. wow. that was like completely over exaggerating.
for one, when you're injured, you can't be moving around like she was. just wow.
it was ridiculous. but it does get a point across.

Actually, it's almost close to reality. Except reality is worse.

Pictured is a fire dept. special service truck, a rescue squad, an engine, and the ambulance is in the background.

This was after the corpse was removed from the vehicle, which required the windshield to be pulled back and the door removed. The white thing to the right is a body bag. Inside is a teenage girl who had just left her boyfriends house.

The truck that she struck (crossed the center line while texting according to eyewitnesses and later, backed up by the phone, which i later found in the field on the side of the road) was carrying a fully loaded trailer, the contents of which were now scattered for about 200 feet along the road. After striking the truck she took out a few mailboxes, one of those green electric company things (I cant remember the proper name for them), and snapped a telephone pole completely in half, and then came to rest apprx. 25-50 yards later on the other side of the road against an embankment.
The two occupants of the truck were unharmed physically but had to be comforted for about an hour by personnel inside of the ambulance, until they could stop crying. They were both grown men.

All the red you see is blood. There are also some things you cannot see, such as brain matter.

When personnel returned to the station, because of the time of day, went straight to either school or work and try to have a normal day. The next day the county's crisis debriefing team for fire and ems came down and talked to the medics and firefighters who were on the scene.

A memorial now stands at the site of the wreck, which the owner of the property, the family, and the fire department all contribute too around the year.

But this was just one wreck. One incident. Luckily, only one family and three other peoples lives were permanently affected this time, not including rescue personnel who will see this scene repeated time after time, except often times worse. Most of them, if asked, can recall fatal accidents involving entire families or a car full of teenagers, down to the exact time it was dispatched, what time they got their, how they were dressed, the victim's names, t
he type of car(s) or even the color of their eyes.

There are people at the firehouse who have nightmares about calls that happened 25 years ago.

The PSA isn't even as graphic as most horror movies. It's not bad enough to even consider being called exaggerated.

Repeat offenders of distracted driving of any kind should be made to ride along at a rescue company or ambulance until they get a call like that.
Then they can say it was too real.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/LVFDghosthunter/516Fatal2.jpg

I think that driving while talking on your cell is stupid. I mean if you can't get off the phone long enough to go somewhere then you don't really have to go there all that bad do you?

i don't think that people should use cellphones when they are driving. When you are driving a car you already doing like 10 things at one time. Why add something more to it? You're just making things harder for yourself and the people around you.