How can someone change lanes into a rider wearing a bright HIGH VISIBILITY jacket?

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/2009/11/05/1105cellphoneaware.html

It's easy when you realize that  a person will change lanes into the side of a passing car, many times the size of a motorcycle.

I reported on an accident, one time, where an elderly man stopped at a stop sign and then pulled out into the path of an oncoming Greyhound bus.  It was moving highway speed, which was 65 mph.  Needless to say, the driver, nor his wife, survived the impact.

We think we are so cool and technically advanced that we spend our lives with a phone in our ear, thinking that we must be running our mouths all of the time and, as a result, life passes us by.

It's bad enough that we can travel from one point to the other and not remember any of the road in between.  Have you ever been there?  Now we encourage the lack of attention by doing menial task as we "aim" our vehicles down the road.

Remember when you were 14 and had just gotten your learners permit?  You held the steering wheel in a death grip with both hands, slowly pulled away from stops, coasted to stops with your foot on the brake, got annoyed when someone interupted your concentration by talking and actually had to make yourself leave the radio on so as not to make yourself look like an idiot to your peers?  Remember not being able to look in the rear view and then back at the road again because you couldn't get your mind to switch concentration fast enough?  Remember how narrow your lane of the road seemed? Remember how fast oncoming traffic appeared and how you would move toward the shoulder a bit?

Now we control the wheel with one finger, or our thighs, talk on the phone, listen to a radio, grab stuff that is sliding from one side of the dashboard to the other, kick coke bottles out from under out feet that keep sliding underneath the excelerator, close all of our windows and adjust the air conditioner, read maps, books, comb our hair, shave, look for police, tailgate, speed and wonder why we didn't see the clown.

 

 

So much of technology is aimed at solving problems we don't really have.....  as a result of 'astute' marketing, finding a car with a stick shift in the US is becoming much more difficult... try locating a new car on a lot that does not have power steering and power brakes. Even on cars that weigh less than 1800 lbs.

How many of the functions that you had to do manually in the 60's are now either automatic, or semi automatic? Climate control?  Like you said, that's now a button on the dash to regulate the interior atmosphere... complete with sub micron air filtration.  Speed regulation, braking, windshield wipers.... even how the mirrors react to lights... all of that is becoming more and more automated.

Now, people have time to become bored behind the wheel.......

I remember rehearsing my lines for a play that I was in.  Cromwell, in A Man for All Seasons.  I was saying all of the lines for all of the parts out loud as I drove north in I-5, many miles south of Sacramento, CA.  I already had them memorized and I wanted to figure out some nuances that the different rolls should have.  I finished saying the lines, and realized that I could not remember passing through Sacramento.  Ever since then, I know that talking to people in the car, singing with the radio, talking on a cell phone are distractions to my driving.  I try not to say much to people in the car when I am driving.