Prepare yourself for a rant.
A little over a week ago I was nearly killed by a bicyclist who ran a red light at a high rate of speed while biking and texting at the same time.
All the cars had stopped for the light. I looked both ways and stepped into the crosswalk. Before I could take one more step I heard, just barely, a whizzing noise and glanced to my left in time to see a bicyclist zip around a stopped UPS van. He had his cell phone in his hand. He was texting with his thumb, looking down at the cell phone, and thus he ran the red light. Had I not seen him and jumped backwards, he would have collided with me and probably killed me.
We pedestrians do die you know, when a bicyclist collides with us at a high rate of speed, causing us to smack our little heads against the pavement.
One evening last week, as the dog and I approached a busy intersection, I heard a male voice raised in anger. It grew louder and louder. I saw a man, again on a bicycle, apparently arguing with someone on the other end of a headset. This bicyclist pulled a Burley Trailer which held his toddler. I yelled at the man to stop at the stop sign because there were cars coming, but he was so tuned out to his surroundings he didn’t hear me. Instead he sailed right through the stop sign, causing oncoming traffic (from both directions) to shriek to a halt, nearly hitting him and the Burley Trailer and the kid. And he just kept on a-ridin’ and a-arguin’, oblivious to the chaos he’d just caused.
It’s one thing to risk your life. It’s another thing altogether to risk the life of your child because you choose to have an argument via cell phone while biking, or while driving for that matter. Nor is it excusable when your negligence and inattentiveness causes another person to accidentally injure or kill your child.
Speaking of which… How many of you know much about babies? Do you know babies are programmed to seek out human faces? Babies have limited visual range, but they do prefer a human face. When an infant nurses he looks at his mother’s face. And he wants her to look back. It’s one of the ways our babies bond to us and we bond to them. We interact. There’s plenty of documentation. Babies try all kinds of movements to capture and hold our attention. If we never attend, eventually the baby gives up and stops attending to us. It’s totally true. I’m not pulling this out of thin air.
So a couple weeks ago I stopped by the pharmacy. A woman sat on a bench near the entrance. A baby carriage was parked in front of her but her eyes were riveted on her iPad. Meanwhile her baby was trying like crazy to catch her attention. She never looked up. When I came out 20 minutes later, she was still staring at the iPad, texting now, and the baby was screaming his head off. She could only be roused long enough from her texting to move the stroller back and forth a couple times with her foot. Even then she never once looked at her child, nor did she make a single sound or gesture to comfort him. Her texts were apparently far more important than the well-being of her genetic offspring.
You know, real life is happening right in front of us folks, but we’re so plugged in we might as well be Neo in The Matrix.
My husband says someone could walk onto a bus waving a loaded gun and nobody would notice because everyone is so distracted by his and her social media of choice.
Social media is deadly to something else too… daydreams. Can’t remember the last time anyone tweeted or facebooked about daydreams.
I find social media extremely useful. But I need my unplugged time as well. Helps me recharge.
Gee, if I’d had headphones on or if I’d been talking on a headset or if I’d been looking down at my cell phone, texting, when that bicyclist ran the red light, I wouldn’t have been warned by the whizzing noise of his bike and I would probably be dead.
I actually really like to hear what’s around me, to see what’s around me. I don’t need a virtual world when I have the real thing.
If I’d been texting this morning during our hike, I would have missed the peregrine falcon flying silently along the trail and the yearling buck leaping across the hillside above us.
Apparently I’m not alone:
From Christina Bramlet Darwin Would Not Approve:
Texting While Biking
Two recent encounters got me thinking about other distracted behaviors, such as texting while operating a bicycle. The first incident happened over Memorial Day weekend when I threw caution (and Claritin-D) to the wind to venture out to a local five-mile trail. You see, I have a complicated relationship with nature, having been declared by my doctor as “a very allergic person.” In any case, after swallowing approximately 15 gnats, around mile two, I felt alive. Free. Wind blowing in my face, my euphoria was short-lived, first interrupted by a runny nose and sore throat. Then by a teenager who, oblivious to my presence on the trail, furiously texted while awkwardly (slowly) peddling his bicycle. My shriek proved futile, and in order to avoid a low-speed, head-on collision, I veered off the trail and into a bed of allergens, err, grass.
Alas, he didn’t seem to notice. On my way home, a teen swerved in front of my car, forcing an abrupt stop to avoid what I feared would have been a far more serious accident. This kid was also distracted; it became apparent he was not only texting while riding his bicycle but also listening to music via clunky headphones, perhaps of the noise-cancelling or base-heavy variety.
Really? I mean, really? Was this some sort of cosmic coincidence, or a sign that I’m morphing into a female version of Andy Rooney?
And OMG… in today’s San Francisco Chronicle:
Absorbed Device Users Oblivious to Danger!
You gave some heart-thudding examples, and as much as I agree with you, I have to say these aren’t the fault of social media. They’re the fault of individuals who are idiots. (It’s a twist on Guns don’t kill people; people kill people-in both cases we have idiots.)
The same guy on the bike could have easily done the same thing WITHOUT texting. Some bike riders are careless and selfish and non-observant.
And some parents, no matter where they are or what they’re doing, do not bother to make eye contact or smile at their babies. And then they get huffy when the toddler runs with smiles and open arms to the nanny.
I both agree and disagree, Marylin. I do feel there is an addictive quality to certain activities- texting, calling, tweeting… But yes, anyone with a brain pays attention.
Au contraire Darwin would approve. Unfortunately these yahoos sometimes take us innocent bystanders down with them.
Thus the Darwin Awards… Eh, Yoshi?
It’s scary. I hate when I’m driving and I see someone looking down, not paying attention because they’re too busy texting.
Me too, Amber. Some drivers have enough problems just changing the radio station.
I agree, Julia. I have not been almost run over as you were - yet. Yet as much as I like and use modern media, I think there is a real danger too. These devices are tools. You need to put them down once in a while and get to know and interact with people.
Idiots on the road too often take the innocent with them.
You gave enough examples in your post, plus Christina’s, and then the newspaper article for me to say we have a huge public problem.
While I have not had any incidents as you report on here, I have seen enough people distracted with head phones, cell phones, and what looks like texting while driving to know it is a real problem. And it scares me a great deal.
One day last week I was yelling at the car in front of me, because I could tell he was texting, and I was afraid I would be in an accident. At the first opportunity I got out of his way. I wish I had an idea of how to stop it. But I don’t Even if you pass a law, there are not enough police officers to patrol and enforce such a law.
Wish I knew what to do, But I commend you for bringing the topic/issue up.
Mostly glad you were not hit by the bicycle idiot and are here to wrote this up!
I’m glad I’m fine too, Roberta! There are loads of things to distract us. I suspect texting and driving is about as bad as drunk driving.
OMG. How totally irresponsible.
Glad you are okay.
Yes, Sandra. Me too! I kinda think this happens a lot!
So I assume you’ve seen this article from San Fran - it’s like you’re husband predicted it!
Not that it’s funny, but damn the irony.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/san-francisco-train-shooting_n_4066930.html
I know, Amber! Weird!
Agree, agree, agree! Some of the stuff I see people doing while being on the phone boggles the mind. My pet hate: people who think it’s ok to text when you’re having dinner with them, be this at home or in a restaurant. Not quite fatal, I agree, but could prove to be painful the day I decide to stick my fork in their hand for attention.
My current favourite pastime? Watching people come out of the hospital and walk straight into the GIANT lamp post outside the doors! Really?! You didn’t SEE that?! Of course you didn’t! Your eyes were glued to your phone. Obviously, the top of your skull has acquired the hitherto unknown power of “vision”. And now, your ass is discovering the pleasure of being flattened by gravity. By the way, congratulations on your newly acquired and totally deserved concussion! No, there isn’t two of me. And throw up on your own shoes.
Joking outside that, VERY FEW things are that important that they can’t wait. Having to explain why you killed someone because you HAD to answer that unimportant phone call or reply to that inconsequential text (unless you’re guiding a pilot landing a jumbo jet full of people or talking them through a life saving procedure as in, ‘NO! Don’t touch the red wire!’ or ‘Next, you clamp the artery and slow dissect down to the muscle’, I think it CAN wait!)
Seriously, what did we use to do when we didn’t have all these technologies? Did our lives end because we weren’t constantly available to all and sundry? I think it’s good to “unplug” from everything once in a while. I know for a fact that I have “unlearned” how to relax. My mind seems to need constant stimulation from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. That’s not healthy. That’s not normal. And I’m trying to do something about it.
It’s so true, AD. So pathetically true… That’s what my hikes are for, time away from technology.
Can’t imagine ANYTHING important enough to require texting at any time. If it’s an emergency you make the 911, no? I despise texting. Actually…I’m very close to despising all portable electric media.
I’m glad you’re okay.
I like texting, Anny, to keep in touch with my kids, but not while driving.