The American College of Emergency Physicians issued an alert this week warning about the dangers of text messaging while involved in other activities such as walking, driving, cooking or horseback riding.
...the American College of Emergency Physicians warns of the danger of more serious accidents involving oblivious texters. The ER doctors cite rising reports from doctors around the country of injuries involving text-messaging pedestrians, bicyclists, Rollerbladers, even motorists.Most involve scrapes, cuts and sprains from texters who walked into lampposts or walls or tripped over curbs. [Via Yahoo Tech]
I am guilty of texting while walking. I've had a few near misses with a misplaced bookcase, shopping cart, or fruit stand. But I just don't see texting while cooking or on horseback in my future. Had a bad run-in with a bowl of soup a few years ago... my cellphone was never the same.
Some of the worst texting-related accidents happened while people were walking, biking, riding horses, rollerblading, cooking, and driving. Most of the injuries are nothing but cuts and sprains, but there are those who have lost their life because they didn't look both ways when stepping onto a street.
One of the most disturbing stories disclosed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission was of a 15-year-old girl who suffered head and back injuries after falling of her horse while texting, and another teen burned herself while cooking noodles and texting her boyfriend. Unbelievable! [Via The Techie Diva]
In an article posted on the American College of Emergency Physicians Website, Dr. Matthew Lewin, MD, PhD, an emergency physician at University of California San Francisco Hospital in San Francisco, points out various safety tips for chronic texters:
- Don’t text or use a cell phone while engaged in any physical activities that require sustained attention; such activities include walking, biking, boating, rollerblading or even intermittent-contact sports such as baseball, football or soccer.
- Never text or use a hand-held cell phone while driving or motorcycling, and use caution even with headsets.
- Avoid becoming distracted by rummaging through purses, backpacks or clothing by keeping cell phones and blackberries in easy-to-find locations, such as phone pockets or pouches.
- Ignore the call or message if it might interfere with concentration during critical activities that require attention. Better yet, turn off the device beforehand during times when incoming calls or messages might prove to be a dangerous or even simply embarrassing or annoying interference.
- Be mindful of the distraction and corresponding reflex-response delay that texting can cause, and don’t text in any environments in which excessive inattention can cause safety concerns, such as while sitting alone at night, waiting for a bus, or in a crowded area, where one could easily become a victim of a personal theft.
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I don't know if it's because of all the gadgets we have these days, but people have so many things to be easily distracted by while driving : cellphones, GPS, DVD players, etc. I wonder what sort of distractions the early settlers dealt with back when the main source of transportation was the horse and wagon?
But with that said, using common sense and paying attention to where you are going is the best practice.
July 31, 2008 at 11:07 p.m.To answer your question....uh, no, but being an idiot can shorten one's life expectancy considerably. It doesn't matter if a person is driving while eating, riding a bicycle while putting on makeup, using a table saw while reading the instruction manual, adding the water TO the acid while flirting with a lab partner, or flying a plane and looking intently for UFOs, if a person is not paying attention to the task at hand, SH!T happens. People, PAY ATTENTION for chrissake! The life you save may be your own (or mine, or Joe Blow's).
July 31, 2008 at 9:52 p.m.I'll have to find the link somewhere, but I read that some city is trying to pass a law that makes it against the law to text while crossing the street. As long as it's not illegal to text while in the candy aisle at HEB Plus, I'm good.
July 31, 2008 at 5:38 p.m."And no I didn't crash while texting.......... "
July 31, 2008 at 1:05 p.m.. . . yet.
We live in a world in which it has become necessary to put warning notes at the bottom of TV ads, like "Do not attempt." This always runs when the ad shows a woman sawing down telephone poles, or someone driving a car off a bridge, or dripping hot wax on someone else during . . . oh, wait. That was a show on Cinemax. You would think it wouldn't really be necessary to tell someone to remove a windshield shade before driving to McDonald's for a cup of hot coffee to hold in her lap, but we live in a litigious society crowded with gullible jurors.
So, I'm telling everyone: Don't drive while texting. You can't afford the lawsuit.