Caution: Driver Lost in Conversation
One day I was yakking on the cellphone with my wife as I drove east on 15th Street in Edmond, waiting for the light to change so I could turn left onto Broadway. Both of our kids were in the back seat.
When the light changed and I pulled into the intersection I found myself nose-to-nose with an ambulance — lights on and siren blasting — that was trying to get around the intersection traffic. I had neither seen nor heard the emergency vehicle.
I stopped where I was and the ambulance somehow maneuvered around me.
After the ambulance cleared my car I turned into the northbound lane and drove about 50 yards when I saw the flashing lights of an Edmond police car in my rearview mirror.
My first reaction was to put the phone down into the console between the front seats — with my wife still hanging on the other end of the call — and pull into a parking lot with the policeman right behind me.
“I guess you didn’t hear the ambulance,” he asked. No, I didn’t, apologizing profusely for my inattention. He told me to be more careful in the future and let me go on my way.
My kids were loving it, of course, but the point was that my attention to my cellphone call almost cost me big time.
Of course, I still use my cellphone when driving, although I recently purchased a Bluetooth wireless device that lets me drive and talk without having the phone stuck in my ear.
All of which leads me to a front page article I saw in last Sunday’s San Diego Union Tribune newspaper. California has passed a law that makes it illegal for drivers to use a cellphone unless using a hands-free device. Beginning July 1, California police will begin ticketing drivers caught with a phone in their ear.
California isn’t the first state to make talking and driving illegal, and it won’t be the last. I’m sure that such a law will land on Oklahoma books in the not-too-distant future. I’ll be ready, Bluetooth device planted in my ear.
Jim Stafford
Business Writer
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Some cities and states are banning text messaging while driving too. Two cities in New Mexico, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, don’t allow talking on the phone while driving and I beleive texting is included in that or at the very least that will be added soon. Also, in Tucson, Ariz. it’s texting isn’t allowed, but talking still is. My dad actually told me he saw a study that found a person who is on the phone while driving becomes 20-30 years older (in terms of reaction times and the like).