Texting while driving, woman impaled through buttocks
ELIZABETH, Colo. — [Christina Jahnz] says she was texting and driving when she hit a pole that went through her car, piercing her thigh and buttocks....
..."I did a voice text. I looked down to make sure it was all right. The next thing I knew, I was looking up, there was white powder from the air bags deployed"...
...Jahnz says even though she was going 20 mph and looked down for only a split second, she has learned a lesson she will never forget.
I have no doubt that Christina Jahnz will remember her "lesson."
While this event is being used to tout the general warning against texting and driving, there is something else that should be acknowledged. That something else is personal skill level.
At "20 mph", a vehicle travels less than 30 feet per second; it would travel less than 30 in a "split second." What kind of driving skill or situational awareness does a person have when they cannot take their eye off the road for a second while driving at 20 mph?
Consider that when we meet another vehicle on a two-lane highway, while traveling at highway speeds, we are less than 30 feet from instant death when we pass one another (two vehicles meeting head-on at 55 mph have a relative speed of 110 mph, and are closing at a rate of over 160 feet per second.)
Having worked in a profession that required multi-tasking while driving at speeds over 100 mph, I know that it can be done safely — but it takes skill and practice.
We encounter people every day who are pre-occupied, and/or operating at such a low skill level, that we are their potential "pole." Telephones, like guns, are merely incidental to the real problem.
/fl