Distracted Driving Close-Calls

[1955moose]

Jeff, I too love the sound of a 69-73 Kawasaki 500 mach 3 on the pipe as we use to say. One of the craziest bikes to ride, flat as a week old can of Dr pepper, but hit 5,000 rpm, and hang on and lets get the party started. I grew up wrenching/ riding some of the craziest wheel standing bikes of late 60's-80's. Yeah I should be driving something smaller and better mileage, but with my 6'2 , 300 plus frame, I love crawling up into my big green beast everyday. They didn't give me the nickname Moose for nothing. I just found out Friday, after being called into my bosses office, they had me on camera in my small bus I drive part- time using my cell! Oops, when your a commercial driver like me, the fine if highway patrol, or even city cop catches you I $2750 and $10,000 fine for the company. You can bet I'll let it ring or just turn off ringer. Theirs no call that important!

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[Dorzak]

People have indicated that by and large, they no longer wish to drive, they choose to be driven when desired. Yes, they might want to drive like they do in their video games once in a while but that will likely die out in time as the PC police deem it "bad". So they will build around the user...the driver will be slowly shutout & removed. I think that you are beginning to see the earliest ideas of how to separate the driver from the user......their problem is that the driver is usually the one paying for the car. In a more matriarchy world, their model might work....but most of us still have our nuts...we'll see how this turns out.

It honestly appears that the "Race" is on for class 5 (I think)-fully autonomous Self-driving.....nothing less ....between all the manufacturers.

Some manufacturers have already said the plan is to move to subscription on demand vehicles. You pay something and self driving car shows up to take you to your destination. Goal is to reduce the number of cars in cities and improve safety. If one autonomous subscription car per say 20 people instead of 20 people owning their own cars. Overage charges would apply for too many trips or longer trips.

 

[deweysmith]

Some manufacturers have already said the plan is to move to subscription on demand vehicles. You pay something and self driving car shows up to take you to your destination. Goal is to reduce the number of cars in cities and improve safety. If one autonomous subscription car per say 20 people instead of 20 people owning their own cars. Overage charges would apply for too many trips or longer trips.

Yep. This is Ford’s long-term vision, currently. It will probably change a bit but hopefully it won’t drive up prices on their trucks too much. I think insurance is going to be the hard part. A human operated vehicle will suddenly become a larger liability split among exponentially fewer people.

 

[Dorzak]

Yep. This is Ford’s long-term vision, currently. It will probably change a bit but hopefully it won’t drive up prices on their trucks too much. I think insurance is going to be the hard part. A human operated vehicle will suddenly become a larger liability split among exponentially fewer people.

Self driving cars would be insured as the car. The passengers would not be the basis of the insurance. We would be cargo, not drivers anymore. Cold dead hands comes to mind.

 

[1955moose]

Anyone remember George Jetson folding his little bubble car into his briefcase, when he arrived at Spacely sprockets for work. Well we never got our flying cars by the year 2000, so the self driving car is the alternate. A lot of people don't mind being driven around, but I hate most other drivers. They scare the hell out of me! Seems like all my friends these days are nuts when they drive. I still drive for a living, and are responsible for the safety of 13 people and myself Monday thru Friday. I know the day is coming, but till then, I drive myself! The only high tech stuff I like these days are Abs brakes, and a rocking, clear sounding stereo to play my oldies!

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[jeff kushner]

Jeff, I too love the sound of a 69-73 Kawasaki 500 mach 3 on the pipe as we use to say. One of the craziest bikes to ride, flat as a week old can of Dr pepper, but hit 5,000 rpm, and hang on and lets get the party started. I grew up wrenching/ riding some of the craziest wheel standing bikes of late 60's-80's. Yeah I should be driving something smaller and better mileage, but with my 6'2 , 300 plus frame, I love crawling up into my big green beast everyday. They didn't give me the nickname Moose for nothing. I just found out Friday, after being called into my bosses office, they had me on camera in my small bus I drive part- time using my cell! Oops, when your a commercial driver like me, the fine if highway patrol, or even city cop catches you I $2750 and $10,000 fine for the company. You can bet I'll let it ring or just turn off ringer. Theirs no call that important!

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This is for you Moose!

1975 H1.....Countersunk, squish-band cut heads, VERY, heavily ported to match the custom built Expansion chambers that were built to match the extreme porting, PWK Flatslide 35MM carbs (replace the stock 28's), new bronze swingarm bushings & tapered head bearings along with longer shocks to get geometry corrected....made to go straight...very quickly. Obviously, I was not concerned with build quality or ground clearance for turning....as this really was a testbed engine....it just has never broke.....so it's still under testing?

Anyway...this one is a wrist-rocket in the truest sense...and a blast to ride!




jeff

 

[Tocapet]

My wife was rear-ended at a stoplight and her car was pushed into the rear of a pickup truck stopped in front of her. My wife was OK, but her 2013 Camry sustained $9,500 in damages, which was repaired. A woman in the pickup truck in front went to the hospital in an ambulance. Fire dept responded to clean up the anti-freeze that leaked out of our cars cooling system. The woman who hit us claimed that she fell asleep at the wheel. This was about 11 AM. And she had her mother riding with her. If she had really fallen asleep, her mother would have alerted her. No, she was most likely texting. After the car was repaired, I filed a "Diminished Value" claim against the woman's insurance company because, having been in an accident, the value of our car decreased. They paid us $3200 for that. So we used that as a down payment and traded the car in on a new one.

 

[gtnator]

I don't think an autonomous vehicle is for me to be honest, I enjoy driving. It would also be a very hard sell on any performance vehicle where enthusiasts still find automatic transmissions to be unacceptable, heck the whole car is based on your experience behind the wheel as the driver of the vehicle. I think autonomous vehicles will become more prevalent but computers fail, look at vehicles already, backup sensors fail, ABS fails, Yaw sensors and wheel speed sensors connected to traction control fail, Lane keep alert and blind spot detection systems false and fail, computers can be hacked etc etc.... unfortunately there is no perfect answer. We keep like some mentioned here making it easier for the texting driver to do so. People are becoming too absorbed in their devices, I think we have an epidemic on our hands and are choosing to coddle and ignore it. People need to take responsibility for their own actions and stop looking to Someone else to fix it for them... this being one.

My guess is that people who like to drive and are driving enthusiasts probably are not the ones who are texting and driving or at least do it a lot less if ever.

Others don't respect or even like driving, its just a necessary chore to get somewhere. Let the driving nannies and autonomous driving take care of all those distracted drivers. The rest of us will be safer for it.

 

[Adieu]

For several years I drove 30,000 miles per year. I was in four accidents and all of them the other driver was distracted by something. CHP officer who rear ended me at a traffic light was changing radio frequencies, tomato truck driver who turned left/jack knifed in front of me couldn’t find the field he was going to, the guy who t boned me in a parking lot hadn’t seen me stop for pedestrians walking in front of me because he was reading something on the passenger seat, and the uninsured motorist who rear ended me was trying to beat a stop light and change his radio.

In the parking lot and the last one I had to slow it stop for distracted pedestrians who stepped in front of me.

Going to and from work I used to see things like people falling asleep. Hint: Don’t honk at them if you are close they are likely to swerve towards you.

You got rearended by a chip???

Did the guy admit fault or try to weasel out?

 

[Adieu]

Jeff, I too love the sound of a 69-73 Kawasaki 500 mach 3 on the pipe as we use to say. One of the craziest bikes to ride, flat as a week old can of Dr pepper, but hit 5,000 rpm, and hang on and lets get the party started. I grew up wrenching/ riding some of the craziest wheel standing bikes of late 60's-80's. Yeah I should be driving something smaller and better mileage, but with my 6'2 , 300 plus frame, I love crawling up into my big green beast everyday. They didn't give me the nickname Moose for nothing. I just found out Friday, after being called into my bosses office, they had me on camera in my small bus I drive part- time using my cell! Oops, when your a commercial driver like me, the fine if highway patrol, or even city cop catches you I $2750 and $10,000 fine for the company. You can bet I'll let it ring or just turn off ringer. Theirs no call that important!

Sent from my N9131 using Tapatalk

Just mount it near the wheel and use speakerphone however much you want

 

[Dorzak]

You got rearended by a chip???

Did the guy admit fault or try to weasel out?

Admitted fault. State self insured and cut a check for the lowest of three estimates for the damage. April 15, 2008.

 

[Dorzak]

Current distracted driving issue is my wife trying to give herself a black eye when the Expditin goes over speed bumps.