We are slowly (very slowly) going back to life before the pandemic and its lockdowns. A lot of us are on the road again, back to our commutes, and that means back to old driving habits — both good and bad. That prompts the following question: What are the worst habits you see on the road?
I think, for me, it’s something that’s annoyed me for years, and it’s still a problem and I honestly don’t think it will ever not be a problem. I’m talking about smartphones.
You hear it all the time, Don’t Text And Drive, #ITCANWAIT, and in a bunch of other slogans that are somehow generated by Big Telecom to help stave off regulation, but the idea behind the cheesy messages is still valid. The idea is that smartphones are a black hole for your brain and they will suck up your attention span into their event horizon.
I try to limit my use to basic things like music selection or navigation, but even then, both of those tasks are still a little hazardous when you’re operating a big piece of machinery that’s moving very fast among a group of other machines that are just as big, and just as fast.
My nightmare is one day looking up from my smartphone because I had to put on that one song from Steely Dan (that Siri wouldn’t recognize,) and rear ending someone on the highway.
And yet I still see drivers on their smartphones every time I drive. I see drivers on their phones when the light is green. I see drivers on their phones when they’re cruising in a parking lot, and I see drivers on their phones on the damn highway. You can see them full-on phone browsing, with their head tilted down and to the side when we’re doing seventy on the interstate.
It absolutely terrifies me, and I think it’s probably one of the big bad habits that many drivers have. Smartphones aren’t our only bad habit, but it’s one I thought we would have solved by now. What about you? What are the worst habits you see on the road?