Texting while driving

jlgurr · May 19, 2016

Howling said:
Distracted driving has been around before cell phones and texting. Late '90s I had an hour commute on busy highway. Saw people reading newspaper, books. putting on makeup in the mirror, bowl of cereal, shaving and many other things. Amazing there were not more accidents. Left that contract after about 1-1/2 years. I have GPS with voice activation and bluetooth for hands free phone. Recently drove to DC and back to visit our daughter. My wife asked about checking each time my phone made a noise. Had to keep reminding her it will keep until we stop. The world has got so wrapped up in faster and faster, and instant response time. I keep saying the two most important features of that device are caller ID and voicemail.

I was a young passenger in a can with the driver reading a newspaper by the dome light during a morning commute. One morning he was pulled over and cited for impaired driving. Man, he was p o'ed. But he never did it again.

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2LaneCruzer · May 19, 2016

Sounds the same to me. I would love to be the judge when this case came before me.

aczlan · May 19, 2016

downslope said:
Funny story, just yesterday my friend was stopped at a red light with his left turn signal on. A County police officer in marked car was coming from the opposite direction, also stopped at the red light. Light turns green, my friend edges up into the intersection and waits for the cop to proceed before my friend makes the left. The cop doesn't move; after about 10-20 seconds my friend completes the turn, thinking the cop was giving a courtesy. The cop immediately turns on his lights and issues a citation for failure to yield, probably a $160 ticket, plus points.

My friend thinks it was entrapment. He asked the cop why he didn't move when the light turned green, but he wouldn't answer. They concluded with "see you at court."

What do you think, have any of you ever heard of this method of entrapment? I think maybe the cop was just looking at his personal phone or maybe the police computer, but then why did he have to issue a ticket?

Thats why I run a dash camera. That way I have more than just my word against someone else's for what happened.

Speaking of cops and entrapment:
Some time back when we lived in GA there was an intersection with another light a half a block up.
The lights weren't timed right, so if you were turning left (with a green arrow), the next light would be red and you would sit there for 10 seconds until it turned green.
The cops would (near the end of the month) pull over the 4-5 cars that were in the intersection waiting for the next light to turn green and write tickets for obstructing the intersection, then repeat as soon as the tickets were written.
What was fishy was that the control box for the lights was open and there was a cop standing next to it, so it appeared that they were manually changing the light so they could ticket people.

Aaron Z

jlgurr · May 19, 2016

aczlan said:
Thats why I run a dash camera. That way I have more than just my word against someone else's for what happened. Some time back when we lived in GA there was an intersection with another light a half a block up. The lights weren't timed right, so if you were turning left (with a green arrow), the next light would be red and you would sit there for 10 seconds until it turned green. The cops would (near the end of the month) pull over the 4-5 cars that were in the intersection waiting for the next light to turn green and write tickets for obstructing the intersection, then repeat as soon as the tickets were written. What was fishy was that the control box for the lights was open and there was a cop standing next to it, so it appeared that they were manually changing the light so they could ticket people. Aaron Z

Reminds me of Rosco P Coltrain of Hazzard County. LOL!

stopped at a red light with his left turn

downslope · May 19, 2016

aczlan said:
Thats why I run a dash camera. That way I have more than just my word against someone else's for what happened...

Aaron Z

Yeah, I mentioned to my friend about getting a dash cam for the future.

Are the cams good at showing the colors of the signals as well as the traffic ahead? That is, the traffic signal is way up in the air and you're pretty close to it when you're the first car, and when you go to make the turn you're almost underneath. I could see bright sunlight making it difficult as well.

aczlan · May 19, 2016

downslope said:
Yeah, I mentioned to my friend about getting a dash cam for the future.

Are the cams good at showing the colors of the signals as well as the traffic ahead? That is, the traffic signal is way up in the air and you're pretty close to it when you're the first car, and when you go to make the turn you're almost underneath. I could see bright sunlight making it difficult as well.

Mine ($30 Amazon special) will show which light it lit (most of the time, it has a hard time looking into the sun), so it should show if I had a green light, arrow, etc.

Aaron Z