A couple of things from the road today.

Do you anyone who has been charged with tailgating?  I don’t.  There seems to me to be an epidemic of it on the roads lately as everyone seems to believe that their rush is more important than anyone else’s.

Similarly, do you know anyone who has been charged with using a cell phone while driving?  I sat at a corner the other day and watched 4 cars turn left in front of me. All 4 drivers were on the phone.

There is a guy in my neighborhood who obviously has a problem finding his way around town.  I see him almost every day driving who knows where with a GPS device suction cupped to his windshield.  The screen is so large I can pretty well read the thing myself from the driver’s seat of my own car.  It’s always on. Twice during the summer I had my window down and could hear that the thing was telling him to turn right at the end of our street. I could hear it saying “turn right on Lake Street”.  The problem, right off the bat of course, is that this guy needs this reminder everyday on his own street.  I can’t imagine his confusion if he’s ever faced with an address in downtown Toronto. 

That isn’t what annoyed me, though. That’s his business. BUT what is annoying is that his GPS screen sits right smack in the middle of his windshield.  Not off to the side, or somewhere on his dash.  Right in the middle of his field of view.

I know that has to be illegal and I know how dangerous that is. Yet all we ever discuss when it comes to distracted driving is the cell phone.  Why do we give drivers who can’t take their eyes of their Tom Toms a free pass??? Yes texting is worse, but you can’t convince me that it’s more dangerous for someone to be talking to someone on a phone than it is for someone’s eyes to be glued to an animated car driving down a cartoon street.

All the new technology on board the new cars touts the fact that the radio and internet and phone stuff is hands free but it’s not eyes free and it is more and more requiring drivers to take their eyes off the road.  Time to treat GPS units just like cell phones.  Am I alone in this????