Friday, September 20, 2013

88 feet per second

"I only text on the highway," was the comment overheard the other day.  Huh?  I guess the thought was that there is more traffic on local streets, along with pedestrians.

But really?

At 60 miles per hour, your car is going 88 feet per second.  In the time it takes for you to read a text message, say, 5 seconds, you have traveled 440 feet when you look up and see you need to stop.  That's over 100 yards.  And then you put on the brakes.  At 60 mph, "a driver could stop the described vehicle in a total of 6.87 seconds (including a 1 second delay for driver reaction) and your total stopping distance would be 302.28 feet, slightly more than a football field in length!"

In total, two football fields. And that's if you are just reading.  If you are writing, the result is worse.

Please don't.  You are going to feel very stupid if you say, "I killed that person in order to read (or write) a text message."

Watch the video.

 

6 comments:

Bobby Franklin said...

From Facebook:

That was very tough to watch, but it does send the message. I see people behind the wheel texting all the time. I hope they all watch this and heed the warning. All the lives that are ruined because of something so stupid.

Mary Klingensmith said...

From Facebook: Very powerful. I hope this is seen by many, including teen drivers AND us "grown ups"!

Cathleen Chapman Fangerow said...

From Facebook: Thanks for sharing that link - it carries a powerful message - and I will be posting it as well. It is bad enough when drivers talk on their cell phones whilst driving, but texting is absolute lunacy!

Anonymous said...

See also:
From One Second To The Next - Texting While Driving Documentary - Werner Herzog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk1vCqfYpos

Bobbie Sproat said...

From Facebook:

Thank you, Paul. I've seen this before, and watching it (again) should be mandatory for anyone who drives.

Thomas said...

Stupid. NOT EVEN CLOSE. Suicidal, severe depression, catatonia come to mind.