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With so many cars coming with bluetooth, I can't really blame anyone for doing this. People may have free time at home, but that doesn't means it's "free" to be occupied otherwise. I generally don't like phone calls unless they're short and sweet, but I do have a couple of people in my life who like to keep the call going and going (I admit I'm too polite to cut the convo short). So I'll use my long commute to talk to them.
As for being distracted, do you ask your passengers to be quiet the entire time you're driving?
I expect you actually are aware that an in person conversation with a passenger in a car is not at all the same as how focused people get when talking on the phone and that there is really no comparison. And the longer the phone conversation goes on, the easier it is to forget one is actually driving a potential weapon of mass destruction down the road.
Years ago there was a distant friend that seem to call only when driving, it started to get annoying. He's the type of person that needs constant conversation not a lot of quiet time. So I just stopped answering when he was driving, and said texting would work out better, as soon as the text was sent he called! This happened a few more times, ugh!
I didn't care to have so much conversation, he mainly wanted to about the past all the fun times, however, have me carry the conversation, there's a point where it's enough.
Last edited by bellamax2; 10-21-2021 at 01:03 PM..
I expect you actually are aware that an in person conversation with a passenger in a car is not at all the same as how focused people get when talking on the phone and that there is really no comparison. And the longer the phone conversation goes on, the easier it is to forget one is actually driving a potential weapon of mass destruction down the road.
You are more focused with a phone call than an in person conversation? I am not.
For me, it really depends on who I am talking to, I think.
And I don't know if you've ever looked in the rear view mirror at a stop light and seen a bunch of young people in a car together, but their conversations can get pretty involved and animated.
When I have been on a call in my car, I do not hesitate to tell them, "hold on a sec" or "hey I gotta go call you back later" if I need to focus on the road more. I still hold to different driving situations needing different degrees of focused attention. The highest for me being unfamiliar areas, where I do not already know the speed limits and the specifics of my route, I need to see signs to determine what lane to be in or that the street at this intersection is one way, and so forth. Merging into traffic, too, I tend to shut out all distractions when I do that. If someone is speaking, I will need them to repeat themselves a few moments later once I'm steady in my lane. In person or on the phone, either one.
The kind of conversation, on the other hand, that is actually likely to impair my driving (and which thankfully is a very rare sort for me to be involved in at any time) is an angry conversation or argument. I can think of one or two times back when I was with my Ex where he was in the car shouting at me or we were fighting, where my driving got temporarily aggressive and dangerous.
But I tend to try very hard to avoid having that whole...all that whole energy in my life. He is the ex for reasons. I'm not OK with being an irrational person, and I feel irrational when I am angry.
I will make calls (usually to my adult kids) while driving to or from work in a familiar area that I have been driving to and from for 45 years. I do not make calls while driving in unfamiliar areas. No one is offended. In fact, if I decide to listen to the radio and not call, I am often asked "hey,why didn't you call me?", lol. Bluetooth makes this all very easy and safe. Common sense ought to prevail regarding the weather, traffic and road conditions. There is no right or wrong here. I find speaking on the phone no different than having someone in the car.
The other day a friend called while she was driving...she always does but THIS time she was blabbing so much she missed her freeway exit AND turned down the wrong street going towards her house...so much for distracted driving...
Maybe that'll teach her not to call while driving.
I have one friend that calls me on her way home from work. The funny thing is that she'll text me before to ask if she can call me. I can't understand a lot what she says because the connection is usually poor.
Yes, it IS my precious time. When I was commuting 45-60 min each way for my job years ago, I would definitely make phone calls while I was driving. So what? I would be getting up at 4:30 AM and getting home after 6 pm. I was not going to share my precious few hours at home after work talking on the phone. Not when I had almost an hour to talk to someone on the commute. If someone is willing to call someone else, it shouldn't matter when they call.
As I see it driving/talking/texting is just plain asking for trouble. I wonder how I got thru my long life and never talked on the phone and I worked 40 yrs so was in the car plenty. The addiction of it all.
Do you consider this rude?: I have a couple of friends that only ever call me when they are in the car driving somewhere. To me, it feels as though they don't want to waste their precious time calling, so they only call when they have nothing else to do but drive.
I hear you & understand your logic completely! If people you know ONLY or even MOSTLY ever call while driving, that means, they'd never really do it on their own free time & that really showing you how they value you & the friendship. My cousin & I talk monthly w/o fail & at times, she'll call while she's driving, but in her case, I'm totally fine w/ it because of 2 major things:
A) She doesn't call me from her car most of the time B) We have pretty opposite schedules, so it's tough for us to talk. Often, we've played phone tag trying to reach each other.
Now, you can't just call them when you're driving because they won't care able that & won't see that you're trying to open their eyes about what they're doing. All I can say is, hopefully, you're not always or even mostly available to talk to them when they call. SHow them that you're just as busy as they are!
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