Ways to Manage Your Commute

1. Keep your car in top shape. Take it in for servicing if you even suspect something is askew.
2. Join an automotive club. They pay for themselves after one tow.
3. Wean yourself of flicking on the radio the moment you step into the car, or of listening to shock talkers who offer little to your life. Instead...
4. Install a tape or CD player to control your environment to and from work. Patronize your local library for lectures, plays, books, and music on cassettes.
5. Ride with the windows closed and the A/C on. You'll get the same MPG as otherwise, the ride will to be quieter, and you'll have more control of your immediate environment.
6. Keep spare car keys in your house and spare house keys hidden in a faithful "Hide-a-Key" compartment which magnetically attaches under the bumper.
7. Hide several quarters, key phone numbers, a pad, a pen, stamps, and envelopes in your car.
8. During your ride, reflect on what you'd like to complete or how you'd like your day to go.

Foolish Highway Games

NBC Channel 10 in Phildelphia recently reported that "New Jersey legislators pushed forward a plan to make it illegal to text message while driving. The Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee voted unanimously to release the proposal after several legislators admitted frequently firing off text messages while behind the wheel, even though they know doing so is dangerous."

"Assemblyman Paul Moriarty acknowledges doing it himself, but he's not proud of it. 'It's very, very dangerous,' he said. Citing that risk, the Democratic assemblyman wants to stop motorists from sending text messages while driving."

"'It's more dangerous than talking on a cell phone because I believe you can keep your eyes on the road when talking on a cell phone,' Moriarty said. That's not the case when typing and sending text messages, he said. 'I only assume they're using their knees to drive,' Moriarty said."

Hang-Up-and-Drive Bill

Legislation banning the use of hand-held cellphones while driving goes into effect in 2008.
By Nancy Vogel, Times Staff Writer, September 15, 2006

SACRAMENTO — California will become the fourth state in the country to ban motorists from holding cellphones while driving under legislation Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he will sign into law today.

The governor's office said Thursday that the signing will take place in Oakland, ending a five-year campaign by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) to outlaw one of the most common distractions of California drivers.

Under the law, which will take effect in July 2008, Californians risk a minimum $20 fine for driving while yakking into a phone — unless they are using a headset, speaker phone, ear bud or some other technology that frees both hands while they talk. Drivers in emergency situations would be exempt.

"Public safety is the governor's No. 1 priority," said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson, "and this bill will make the streets and highways of California safer by ensuring that drivers have both hands available for driving."

The bill passed both legislative bodies in late August — the Assembly 50-28, and the Senate 21-16. In both houses, the measure passed with largely Democratic support and the votes of a few Republicans.

Although 38 state legislatures considered bills to minimize driving distractions such as cellphones this year, only New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and the District of Columbia have banned drivers from using hand-held cellphones.

It took Simitian five attempts to get enough support in the Legislature to pass the bill, but Schwarzenegger warmed to the idea quickly.

…the only official opponent of the bill was the Sprint-Nextel cellular phone company…

Simitian argued that the traffic safety risk of cellphone use while driving is "measurable and significant." In a letter sent Monday to the governor, the senator pointed to academic research in the Accident Analysis and Prevention journal that concluded that the risk of death is nine times greater for drivers who use a cellphone while driving.

California Highway Patrol data from 2004 show police reports for 775 accidents in which a driver at fault was using a hand-held cellphone.

There were only 28 reports of accidents in which drivers using hands-free phones were to blame. Preliminary data from last year show a similar pattern.

"When you're on your cellphone," wrote Simitian, "you are distracted at three different levels: aurally, visually and mentally. But what the hands-free requirement can and does accomplish is that … you will have both hands free to control the vehicle during those split seconds that make the difference between life and death."

Cell Phone and Driving

No amount of mitigation will diminish the reality that driving and talking on the phone is not as safe as simply driving. The vendors of cell phones and other vehicle gadgetry will argue that speaking to others in the car, listening to the radio, or engaging in other such behavior is equally hazardous. This is not true in any respect because of a concept known as sharp attention.

You can only give your sharp attention in one basic direction. Listening to the radio or CD, or speaking with someone in the passenger seat does not pose the same risk. The reason is that your sharp attention can continue to be on the road, and as practical, you can give some attention to the radio, CD, and the passenger in the seat next to you. However, at any given moment, your driving takes precedence.

This is not the case with the use of the cell phone — concentrating on the conversation on someone at a distance and driving compete with one and another. If activist state legislators get their wishes, people who hold a cell phone to their ear while driving may soon find themselves talking to a judge. That's the message that could come from more and more states considering legislation that would ban the use of handheld, wireless phones while operating an automobile.

The legislative efforts come in response to an increase in cell phone use while driving, hands free or not, which some politicians say has led to more vehicle accidents. Momentum for this cause has been building ever since The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in February, 1997, titled: "The Association of Cell Telephone Calls and Motor Vehicle Collisions." The article concluded that drivers talking on a cell phone are four times more likely to get into car accidents than those who aren't, and they are 11 times likely to die in an accident.

Multitasking in your car is not pretty. The message for readers: do not use a cell phone in your vehicle when the engine is on, and minimize conversation time with those who make such calls to you.

Adjusting to Gridlock

Does it seem as if it's taking you longer merely to drive a few blocks? It's not your imagination--and it's not going to subside soon. More densely packed urban areas have resulted in gridlock. And our population and road use grow faster than our ability to repair our highways and bridges. Three quarters of the nation's 575,000 bridges were built before 1938, and nearly half are structurally deficient. Meanwhile, city planners report that there will be no clear solution to gridlock for decades.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to take personal control. Beat the traffic by getting up earlier, or later. Ask your boss if you can work flextime or at home a couple days a week. If you drive to work, put your CD player to use. I recommend listening to books on cassette, or relaxing with music of your own choice. Commute with people you enjoy talking to, not merely those who live nearby or work close to where you do.

Of course, you can move closer to your job, telecommute, change your job, or self-employ. Otherwise, recognize that gridlock will always be a part of your life.

Key Chain Blues

Every day I see the people of my neighborhood drive up to the mail box stand, then turn off their car so that they can get their keys out of the ignition. Then they open their mailbox with the mailbox key which is part of their overall key chain, close their mailbox door, insert the car
ignition key, and drive on.

After hundreds and hundreds of times of doing this, you would think that one of them might stumble upon the notion that since they always get the mail when they're in their car, there's no reason to have the mail key as part of the same key chain that holds the car key. Their mail key could be housed independently someplace in the car. where no one else would know what it is. and be used at the appropriate moment to open the box, while keeping the car on, and then driving off.

You wonder, if they can't figure out this component of getting things done, what else can they
not figure out?