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Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Blame longer commutes on cellphones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Readers of my blog (all five of you - thanks, Mom and Dad - the rest of you, the check’s in the mail) have read about my “reluctance” to join the cell phone culture.
My Mom got me a cell phone for Christmas 2006 - my first one. Because of my stroke, she felt that I would have access to a communication device if I needed assistance.
I see the benefit of a cell phone, but I’m not a slave to it. Only a few people (maybe the aforementioned five) know my number. I forget about it more than I use it, which is no surprise to people who know me.
My biggest complaint about cell phone users is their rudeness. Talking loudly in public areas, not paying attention in checkout lines, interrupting conversations to “take this call” (I mean, come on. What does it say about me when you interrupt my conversation to start another one with someone else?), and holding up traffic are a few of my beefs.
It turns out I have some vindication. Drivers talking on cell phones are making our commute even longer, concludes a new study as reported by Seth Borenstein for The Associated Press.
Motorists yakking away, even with hands-free devices, crawl about 2 mph slower on commuter-clogged roads than people not on the phone, and they don’t keep up with the flow of traffic, said study author David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah.
“The distracted driver tends to drive slower and have delayed reactions,” said Strayer, People kind of get stuck behind that person, and it makes everyone pay the price of that distracted driver.”
Strayer’s study found that drivers on cell phones are far more likely to stick behind a slow car and change lanes about 20 percent less often than drivers not on the phone. They took about 3 percent longer to drive the same highly clogged route (and about 2 percent longer to drive a medium-congested route) than people who were not on the phone.
Friends and neighbors, any of you driving on the streets of our fair community have experienced this. My informal survey found about 6 out of every 10 drivers talking on their cell phone while I was driving home. Many cell phone users drove between 10-15 mph slower, in the left lane, than their fellow commuters.
Turn signals are used infrequently enough among commuters, but are nonexistent among cell phone users. My favorites are the talkers who are evidently lost, first wanting to turn left at the intersection, then right, then left again. They changed lanes regardless of whether or not they had an opening to do so.
Turn left at a traffic light? Not if a cell phone gabber is in front of you. They are oblivious to traffic movement, to when the light changes, even to whether or not they are blocking an intersection. And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The cell phone is an accessory; I am not. There has to be a way to put these thoughtless cads in their place. So I ask you, my good readers: What can we do to regain respect from rude cell phone users?
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