Yahoo Autos You Wouldn’t Eat Pizza While Driving. So Why Are People Talking to It?
From the August 2018 issue
Have any of you witnessed this phenomenon? Harried-looking people at the wheel holding their phones up to their mouths and yammering? A second hand may be off the wheel and gesticulating for added conversational emphasis.
These drivers are all piloting late-model cars built long after the industry-wide adoption of Bluetooth. The phones they’re talking into are of the smart variety, designed to pair seamlessly with the vehicle they are driving. It would be one thing if the phones were StarTACs and the cars were Fairmonts. But, nope, modern technology all around, all engineered to relieve motorists of the burden of holding the phone while talking.
The hand-held apparatuses in these scenarios are positioned as if they were slices of pizza, but instead of eating the pizza, the drivers are talking into the pizza.
Those holding the phones seem to be saying, “I’m so good at driving, I need diversions and horseplay to keep myself challenged.” Or, “I’m not a big fan of safety.” Or, perhaps more likely, “I really like pizza.”
Maybe people just like holding things. Phones are indeed our modern-day security blankets, displacing pants pockets as go-to locales for nervous hands. But for everyone’s sake, please go back to the old methods of fidgeting. Hell, buy a fidget spinner if that makes you feel better and you’re no longer in the dating pool. Or try putting your hands on the wheel. Just put the phone down.
According to a trusted source on matters Bluetooth-okay, the Bluetooth Blog, brought to you by the fine folks at Bluetooth-traffic fatalities sank by a spectacular 26 percent from 2005 to 2011, bringing the number of roadway deaths to its lowest level in over 60 years, per the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In that six-year period, it became a sign of forward-thinking state policy to restrict hand-held-phone use, and now California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia all ban the practice, wisely.
Now, our legal team keeps telling me that correlation does not imply causation, but I sure know the cause of the ministrokes my golden retriever and I experience whenever we’re out on a walk and someone, blithely chatting away while holding their phone, veers straight toward us. You wouldn’t eat pizza while driving. So why are people talking to it?
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