Driving in Atlanta (construction, live, law)

[billl]

Originally Posted by hatgirl007

I was dialing my mother at the time...
Here I am traveling and about to change lanes when I take my final look before changing lanes. What do I see but another FOOL traveling in my blind spot.

'Nuff said right there.

[RoslynHolcomb]

Well I had a nasty encounter this morning and I promise I wasn't on the phone. I was taking my little guy to school on the surface streets. The speed limit is 25 and with good reason. It's residential and the streets are both curvy and hilly. People walk their kids to school and others are out walking their dogs or jogging. Anyway I was doing the speed limit and there were two cars behind me. Suddenly from nowhere this goober in a red BMW blasted past us on the left at the bottom of a hill! And yes, there was another car coming down the hill. They missed a head-on collision by no more than a couple of feet. I was so freaked out I had to pull over. I just can't believe anyone would be so stupid or inconsiderate. It's a residential street with kids all over the place. He could've killed someone, including himself. If he'd blinked his lights or indicated in some way that he needed to get by I would've been happy to pull over. I'm never in a hurry when I've got my kid in the car. Dunwoody police were on the other side of that hill yesterday. They've been patrolling fairly heavily. I would've given anything if he'd been there today.

[MisterNY]

Originally Posted by hatgirl007

I had a moment yall this morning. Unfortunately I was dialing my mother at the time and I think she caught my explicatives before I could explain.

1) Can someone please explain why anyone with common sense would drive close to someone's rear end?

2) I make sure whenever I dirve I either drive faster, or fall behind, or side by side to AVOID having any accidents.

3) Someone please explain why someone would drive like that!? Who teaches people how to drive like that?

1....Common sense? Maybe because they were on the phone too!

2. Maybe staying off the phone and paying attention to the road would be the best way to AVOID accidents...

3. Maybe the same people who tells others it's cool to be on the phone and not care about others on the road (same idiotic teachers, maybe?)...

[darkone]

Why does the OP think this is an Atlanta-specific occurrence? It could happen in NJ, LA, Boston anywhere.

[afonega1]

Cant believe Im up at 5am cracking up at the responses to such an obviously delusional poster.LOL.

[scottinpdx]

Why yes I do own the road. lol. anyways, sound like your in no position to complain about other drivers when your using the phone at the time. Unless it was a hands free voice dialer and you might get a little bit of sympathy,

[hatgirl007]

Has anyone heard of hands-free. That is how I placed my call/speakerphone people. So everyone who posted something about people dialing and drivng.........you can quit with the comments.

* Judging by the responses received I can clearly see some of you guys do that. Let me say this. When changing lanes it is always the drivers responsibility who's changing lanes. True.

I'm not asking anyone to look out for me because that's not their job. I'm just for the old school where I try to prevent accidents from occuring. So when I drive I NEVER drive in blind spots, especially around trucks, because I know common sense tells me they can't see me. Although they may look several times they won't be able to see my body.

Can I get the same type of accident avoidance/conscience awareness going on with people who drive. That's all I'm asking. It's like watching passive aggressive behavior in action.

[Sweet Atlanta Peach]

Originally Posted by hatgirl007

Has anyone heard of hands-free. That is how I placed my call/speakerphone people. So everyone who posted something about people dialing and drivng.........you can quit with the comments.

* Judging by the responses received I can clearly see some of you guys do that. Let me say this. When changing lanes it is always the drivers responsibility who's changing lanes. True.

I'm not asking anyone to look out for me because that's not their job. I'm just for the old school where I try to prevent accidents from occuring. So when I drive I NEVER drive in blind spots, especially around trucks, because I know common sense tells me they can't see me. Although they may look several times they won't be able to see my body.

Can I get the same type of accident avoidance/conscience awareness going on with people who drive. That's all I'm asking. It's like watching passive aggressive behavior in action.

I think people are a little spooked because even though it is speakerphone/hands-free, unless it's blue tooth coming through your car, your car has voice recognition where you speak the number you are going to dial and the car does it for you, you do have to dial the number you are calling unless you have one touch dialing or speed dial perhaps? I think when you said "dialing", that threw a lot of people off.

I am hoping that this is the case and you didn't decide to throw in the hands-free thing once you read the comments about it .

With all that being said, even hands-free can be a distraction, because anything that's being done while driving besides driving is a distraction. The bottom line is, it would be nice for us to drive in a perfect world where everyone is conscience of what's going on, and they may teach that in driver's ed. But, you always have to drive for yourself and others, and if I have to do that to avoid an accident, I will.

But I will say, that, most people know where a blind spot is if you've been driving for a while and many try to avoid it driving in it.

True, it is the driver's responsibility, however, we as drivers have to drive for those other people who are easily distracted. Who knows, maybe the person who

[elvez]

Originally Posted by hatgirl007

Has anyone heard of hands-free. That is how I placed my call/speakerphone people. So everyone who posted something about people dialing and drivng.........you can quit with the comments.

* Judging by the responses received I can clearly see some of you guys do that. Let me say this. When changing lanes it is always the drivers responsibility who's changing lanes. True.

I'm not asking anyone to look out for me because that's not their job. I'm just for the old school where I try to prevent accidents from occuring. So when I drive I NEVER drive in blind spots, especially around trucks, because I know common sense tells me they can't see me. Although they may look several times they won't be able to see my body.

Can I get the same type of accident avoidance/conscience awareness going on with people who drive. That's all I'm asking. It's like watching passive aggressive behavior in action.

Hands-free or not, you were still driving distracted. Was the call really that important that it couldn't wait?

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by hatgirl007

Has anyone heard of hands-free. That is how I placed my call/speakerphone people. So everyone who posted something about people dialing and drivng.........you can quit with the comments.

In all fairness, you came to the forum and posted some unclear and rambling comments about some guy in your blindspot and how terrible it was that he didn't move out of your way. You seemed to be blaming him for being in your way as you tried to change lanes and talk on the phone. You weren't specific, and I'm not quite sure what you wanted to hear.

Bottom line is that using a hands free setup in your car is best, but you are still responsible for driving the vehicle and avoiding others. I'm a private pilot which can involve lots of multitasking. One of the first things they teach you in flight school is: "FIRST....fly the airplane" which means all the other things don't matter if you can't safely fly the plane. Same is true for a car.