Please don't text and drive - I almost hit a kid today

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My mom hit a young girl many years ago(before cell phones had even been thought of) in front of a school many years ago in similar circumstances. The girl just darted out from the sidewalk, headed to the school across the street, and not more than a few feet in front of her. Fortunately, my mom was already slowing down for a red light and was probably only going ~5mph, but as she describes it even though she slammed on the brakes and stopped within a few feet, it was still a few feet too late.

The girl was banged up pretty badly, but fortunately did recover fully. She ended up on my mom's hood, which was also probably somewhat better than going under the car.
 
"Driving is a full time job" was one thing I remember from Driver's Ed.....might just be some truth to that.
On the other side...the completely oblivious, "heads down" street crossers' side....They're the largest reason I'm getting a dash cam.
 
When I had my Cherokee XJ I almost hit a college kid on campus. It was a dark rainy night and I was going slowly through campus behind some other cars. A kid wearing all black clothes and a hoodie on just darted out between the car in front of me and my Jeep. I missed him by probably an inch or two. The person who was with me thought it was an insurance scam attempt that's how close it was.
 
Getting off the train today for my morning commute to work in Chicago, there's always the same girl watching a video on her cellphone, headphones in, while she's walking and crossing the street. Same with people walking around reading a friggin' book. They're going to get hit one day and I won't feel sorry for them at all.
 
Its Illegal in Ma and NH to touch your phone while driving unless you are dialing 911.

I drive at their drivers door and lay on the horn when I see a driver playing on their Apple Death device, head down.

Usually scares them for 10 seconds.

Seen many morons going down the 75mph interstate at 50 MPH in the middle lane with head down plating with these moronic devices.

I got to get a freight train horn for more effect

In The old days its was tuning the AM Radio or that sandwich on you lap that was the problem.

Or something interesting walking down the sidewalk ...
 
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OP - Good thing you were paying attention.
Although, it probably still made you a better driver.

There's an intersection in Town where a person was killed crossing the street.
The D.O.T. added a different Signal-Light to make it safer to cross. (drivers can NOT always turn on 'red')
But, I still see people crossing and looking at their smartphones, or wearing hoodies.
 
This reminds me of the train engineer that kicked the kid back from a train because he was taking a selfie on the tracks.

You did good by honking. Hopefully he learned something.
 
I don't text and drive, but the massive A pillars on vehicles have almost caused me to get a pedestrian before. My Subaru isn't terrible, but the Leaseon Sentra we have is really bad. And my focus was even worse
 
Every Android cell phone that I've ever had, had a feature that would automatically reply to any texts received while driving.
I enable it as soon as I get a phone and never turn it off unless I am a passenger.

My auto reply says: "I'm driving right now, I will get back to you later"

Every driver should have this feature enabled in my opinion.
 
Originally Posted by dlundblad
This reminds me of the train engineer that kicked the kid back from a train because he was taking a selfie on the tracks.

You did good by honking. Hopefully he learned something.


Last year my train going into the city had to pull an emergency stop because some high school kid was standing right next to the tracks, facing down at his phone, back to the tracks and we missed him by less than a foot. He looked up only when the wall of air hit him as we passed him. The train horn was blaring for at least 20 seconds but the kid didn't hear because he had his headphones in. 45MPH to zero takes a long time in a fully loaded passenger train and you could smell the brakes heating up. I really hoped the conductor kicked that kid's behind.
 
I don't know which is more dangerous, people who won't put their phones down while they're driving, or people who won't look away from their phones while they're walking...
 
I find it even more disturbing that the thought process of the kid was to bolt in front of the car after you honked your horn to make it across the street instead of taking the 1 step back to the curb.
Maybe it was just a coincidence and he did not hear the horn.
Either way, I will be having a little refresher discussion with my 12 year old tonight. We have taught him from a very young age the importance of stopping and looking to make sure the way is clear before crossing, but I will share this video with him.
 
Originally Posted by grampi
I don't know which is more dangerous, people who won't put their phones down while they're driving, or people who won't look away from their phones while they're walking...


Sitting at a red light in Jakarta ... dude was in his own galaxy (Samsung) ... knew he would walk into the door of our van ... figured it was best to let him since we were not moving.
Only regret is not getting a video.
(and of the LoL in the van).
 
I see this all the time with pedestrians, bicyclists and even skateboarders. It has nothing to do with texting. Usually they're not even texting; they simply dart across the road without looking for traffic. I've seen some people start to cross a 6-lane road just as their light turned yellow and either they didn't notice or didn't care. Guess how far they got before nearly getting hit. I've seen this multiple times. The stupidity is mind boggling.
 
Originally Posted by xfactor9
I see this all the time with pedestrians, bicyclists and even skateboarders. It has nothing to do with texting. Usually they're not even texting; they simply dart across the road without looking for traffic. I've seen some people start to cross a 6-lane road just as their light turned yellow and either they didn't notice or didn't care. Guess how far they got before nearly getting hit. I've seen this multiple times. The stupidity is mind boggling.





Nearly saw a bicyclist get run over when I was in a line of cars turning left on a green at a T intersection. Bicyclist comes flying through from the right, blatantly ignoring the red light. After people braked quickly and leaned on the horns, biker just shrugged like we were clearly in the wrong. Would not have ended well for him, he wasn't even wearing a helmet.
 
Originally Posted by ZeeOSix
Guess they don't teach this in school anymore, or it's in one ear and out the other.





They must have stopped teaching that 20-30 years ago. Kids from that point on have been walking out on crosswalks and into traffic with the ASSumption that vehicles will stop. It's only getting worse.

Probably the reason for emergency braking on newer cars.
 
Originally Posted by grampi
I don't know which is more dangerous, people who won't put their phones down while they're driving, or people who won't look away from their phones while they're walking...


Could be along the lines of peanut butter colliding with chocolate, but won't result in a Resse's Peanut Butter Cup.
 
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