Blood on the Blackberry

So, the NYT has posted a "game" which helps you estimate how you'd do texting while driving.

For the record, I never text while driving. I can barely text while walking. Just ask my daughter.

But having said that, I believe this game is an unfair representation of highway conditions. Under normal circumstances it's not nearly as eventful on the road as this game makes out.

Also, the game would not accept abbreviated answers. My imaginary friend asked which movie I would prefer to see. I managed to type in 'st' for Star Trek while actually clearing most of the underpasses. But the friend claimed not to be able to understand me. What kind of texter - for that matter, what kind of cyber-friendship - is this? If you're going to scare us straight, NYT, make it a realistic game.

Comments

[Anthony]

Strangely, at "traffic extremes" texting would be no problem. One could probably post half of "War and Peace" while stuck in NY/LA rush hour conditions, while, at the same time, how much danger would one incurr texting on a Nebraska backroad at 6 am on Sunday?
It's all the OTHER distribution points which incur lethality: say, Sacramento at 1:30 pm on Wedensday....

[pam]

Exactly. If we could distribute the rigorousness of traffic conditions along a bell curve, we'd see you're really only in danger from being overly-distracted at the +/-1 standard deviation range. Unfortunately for us urbanites, that's the range we find ourselves in most of the time.

One time I was stuck in traffic - I mean, stopped dead on the freeway - and I read my textbook behind the wheel for about a half hour. It was a surprisingly restful way to study. Too bad it's so tough to replicate the conditions ...