Meandering Starre

… it even sucks at 11:30 at night!

I was traveling home late 5/8 from a meeting with some rhet comp graduate students (over beer and food at Park Tavern) and found myself actually stuck in this awful traffic. It was after 11:30 at night. I was not happy. It was some of the worse traffic I have been in here. Luckily it was a fairly short lived near midnight parking lot—only a mile or so. That took about half my travel time home, but in this area it could have been much worse…  No busses drove off an overpass. No one was threatening to jump off an overpass. No freight truck dumped a load of tomatoes and stopped traffic for hours (apparently a ton or so of tomatoes takes a long time to clean off a road). But still… Not how I wanted to end the evening.

I actually witnessed someone the other day brushing their teeth while driving. I kid you not! I’m not quite sure how one handles the tooth past and such (he didn’t seem to be spitting), but he was clearly brushing his teeth and driving. And his driving was just fine. Very odd. I wonder if he is related to the flosser?

[Note 3/7: I have backdated this posting because it has been sitting around done, but not posted for a week now. Instead of updating it I’m just posting it backdated. I am lazy.]

My blog in general has suffered a severe lack of postings, but my traffic study has suffered even more. It’s not that the metro drivers suddenly improved, but that I have just been too busy. And frankly, I have yet to find someone to beat the floss welding driver. Or have I?

This past weekend B & I drove a few hours away to help his parents move. We came back with a dinning room set (complete with china cabinet, which thrills us both to no end) and a guest bedroom set, but this require B to drive a UHaul, with me not too far ahead to make sure nothing bad happened (side note: iPod’s iGriffin do actually broadcast a few car lengths away, but are best real close). During this drive, and right after each other, I witnessed two great feats of driving, both worthy of my traffic study. And I witnessed an additional feat today 2/27.

So onto my driving study…

Initial Findings for Post 3

Driver 1: Level 2.5 using cell phone
Driver 2: Level 2.5 wielding lips
Driver 2: Level 2 itchy eye

I met up with Driver 1, almost literally, near the Metro area. I was driving along, listening to some tunes, in the second right most lane, as the right most lane ended. I am somewhat aware of this car to my right, and since I am going fast and have the right of way I expect it to yield. But no, she speeds up and is suddenly right next to me and there are no longer two lanes. Luckily there was a nice space next to me and I moved over to the left lane (expletives may have been said). Well once I was all situated in my lane I noticed that this woman was talking on her cell phone. But not like most people talk. She was wagging her mouth—making these huge open mouth movements and totally talking with her hands (possibly both hands at time. I’m not sure how she also managed to drive and hold the cell phone… oh wait she wasn’t driving—at least not well). It was one of the most animated cell phone conversations I’ve seen. Her driving reflected this focus on the conversation—lots of variations in speed and she was all over the lane.

Driver 2 fell into my line of perception right after driver 1 made me change lanes. I quickly caught up with this pickup truck. There were two people in it (seemed to be male and female). The girl kept moving over and snuggling with the guy. And he kept looking over at her (he was driving). It was getting a little annoying to watch when it got worse. The guy leaned over and totally kissed the girl. We are not talking a quick peck on the lips. We are talking tongue. It lasted long enough for me to go “they are kissing! Ack!… they are still kissing. Stop kissingâ€? ***BEEEEEEEEP**** “What they are still kissing? I beeped at them…â€? and it lasted a bit longer. And the guy’s head was not facing the road at all. Not surprisingly his truck was all over the road and slowed down dramatically. Now I am all for kissing, in its proper time and place (and even perhaps less proper), but really, while driving? Although I’ve had some good kisses none of them was worth my own life, let alone the life of the person I was kissing. Plus, you are risking the lives of those around you (like the lovely, bright, and funny Volvo-driving red-head behind you!). Come on. Wait a few minutes and then kiss when you can really enjoy it and are not going 70 mph. And if you like the thrill go to Six Flags and kiss on a roller coaster or join the mile high club, not the 70 mph metro Atlanta club!

Driver 3 really only get mentioned because he was amusing (and because I was going to talk about the other ones). Driving home from work today our intrepid researcher noticed the vehicle in front of her doing some minor within-lane swerving and some speed changes. Thinking of her research she starts paying attention to the driver. She quickly discovered that he does not appear to be on a cell phone. But he keeps rubbing his left eye. And keeps rubbing it. In the 3-4 minutes the researcher was observing he did not stop. One would think that if his eye was bothering him that much maybe he should pull over? Can he see out of it? Doesn’t he know that rubbing it makes it worse (apparently not as he kept going).

So, my initial hypothesis stands that it is not so much necessarily cell phone use, but distraction in general.

Post note: the other day I saw this trick with w “What would Zena do?� bumper sticker. I know! Zena would not drive 10 mph slower than everyone else—like this truck was!

Post Post note: Just got back from Florida. We saw tons of out of state license plates down there and lots of crazy drivers. However, all the crazy drivers had Florida plates. I forgot how bad Florida drivers can be! But then the traffic in Tampa seemed pretty bad too, and I say that as someone who lives in metro Atlanta!

One of my loyal readers (actually a friend, but I like loyal reader, I always wanted loyal readers!) sent me this picture for my driving study. Although I myself did not witness this, it is certainly entertaining.

Lentil McBean and wife were driving on I-295 in Portland Main and witnessed this guy, who was actually flossing his teeth while driving! Yes flossing. I think that is actually worse than mascara, which can be done with one hand. Apparently the guy was even driving pretty well.

These pictures show it all (pictures courtesy of Lentil). Most amusing perhaps is the car to the right with the passenger apparently watching the flosser in action (below). I know flossing is important, but frankly while driving isn’t your life (at least) and the lives of your passenger(s), and other drivers and passengers more important? Even if you are good at driving while flossing, couldn’t you be better at each if you did them separately? Who wants to floss while driving anyway? It really needs a sink! As Lentil pointed out to me, the guy is a Mass. driver. In Maine we don’t often have nice things to say about Mass. drivers, but maybe we now have to say they at least have good gums?

Unofficial traffic study: Post 2

I have been diligently taking note of poor driving round me so I can post it to my unofficial traffic study, but I have not been so good about posting.

I would like to note that trying to see if a bad driver is on a cell phone can be rather difficult and may even cause some bad driving (all in the sake of science, of course). I do think I have flattered many people as I look straight at them (to see if they are on a cell phone) when passing.

I have two cases of poor driving to relate in this post and neither is due to cell phone usage. So, this lends further support to my hypothesis that is is really just distractions that make the driving poor, not necessarily the cell phone.

Onto the poor driving.

Initial Findings for Post 2:
Driver 1: Level 2.5 (not quite a 3)
Driver 2: Level 2.5 (It a nice number today)

Driver 1 was in front of me on a local road with a speed limit of varying from 35-45. When I first noticed the poor driver there were two cars in front of the driver. The driver kept speeding up until he almost caught up with the cars in front of him and then quickly breaking. This yo-yo style of driving was rather annoying, but it actually got worse when the other two cars turned onto another road. Then it was just me and the poor driver on our side for a good distance. At this point he started driving a good 10 mph under the speed limit and drifting all over the road. Plus, apparently 10 under wasn’t slow enough, he began randomly breaking. Very annoying. I was relieved when the driver pulled over into the suicide lane to turn into a shopping center. This happened to be right before the suicide lane turned into a left turn lane for a major intersection. I happily drove by the crazy driver, only to watch him them pull out and get into the lane behind me so he could go straight through the intersection. Very weird (at this point I wondered if he was following me). I did observe, however in my rearview mirror that this man was drinking while drinking—not alcohol—coffee, but not like Starbucks coffee—he was drinking coffee (or tea or something) from a regular coffee mug. You know the type we have at home in cupboards without lids! No wonder he was driving so crazy.

Driver 2 was dancing. There is no other way to describe it. Drive was bobbing up and down, swaying to the sides, and even clapping his hands while driving 80 mph on a major highway with a fair number of cars around him. When he started I think he was also dancing with the car (as in moving it back and forth across the lane in time to the music). After doing this twice he stopped. However, he slowed down (a good 15 under what everyone else on both sides were doing and what he was doing before the dancing began) and after a while of going slow did the fast-slow, fast-slow thing. He also began weaving back and forth across the lane (not in time to the music—at least not in time to his dancing). Due to high traffic flow I was trapped behind this man for all of Jingle Bell Rock (which is what I was listening to). And he danced the whole time. I really wished he would stop dancing and drive!

As a driver in metro Atlanta, I get to see much driving excitement each day I drive around. For example, yesterday I got to experience the joy of almost standstill traffic at 10:30 am, when traffic should have been flowing smoothly. But three accidents on one highway will often cause traffic to slow and cause certain people who left with time to spare to be late (a 40 minute drive on the typical weekday midmorning: 40 minutes, the drive yesterday: 80 minutes). Anyway, anyone in Atlanta could moan and groan for hours about the traffic. That is not the purpose of my study.

As I get to witness so many cars on my commute, I have begun to take note of poorer drives and often will see that shiny happy cell phone in their hands. With a traffic engineer as a husband, I have heard that a recent study (see this USAToday summary of the study by Strayer and Drews) shows that cell phone use impairers drivers more than being drunk (it’s actually worse than a 0.08 blood-alcohol level). As the same time, I must admit I do occasionally talk on my cell phone while driving. I am one of those people who will drop the phone if I need both hands and I do not talk and drive often or for long. So, I decided to study the impacts of cell phone use on drives in this very unofficial long-term (researcher-as-participant quasi-ethnographic) study. The academic researcher in my has qualms with the numerous issues with such a poor quality study, but it’s not like I’m going to publish it. Well at least not outside my blog

The Study:
An observation-based analysis of poor driving and cell phone use. Poor driving is defined by the researcher at the time of her witnessing of the driving and will likely vary depending on the day and her mood. Poor driving does not include the people driving really fast or successfully cutting through 4 lanes of traffic to make a sudden exit. Poor driving will generally be swerving, frequent changes in speed (for no apparent reason), apparent inattention to other drivers and environment (not noticing the light changes or the car in front moving away), and what ever else strikes the researcher at the time.

Research question:
Do cell phone cause poor driving?

Sample:
Metro Atlanta drivers

Measure:
The observed poorer drivers will be rated based on their level of egregious driving:
Level 1: minor driving problems such as driving slow or minor weaving
Level 2: problematic with more serious driving problems such as significant weaving and large changes in speed. The Level 2 driver is likely affecting the other drivers and annoying me to no end
Level 3: serious (“oh my god I’m going to die because of that * beep * driver!) problems. Major issues with weaving, speed changes, and other serious problems. These drivers are likely causing other drivers to move out of the way and adjust their speeds

Initial findings for 12/1:
Today I witnessed 4 cases of poor driving. Most of these were level 1, but there was one level 2 case. All except for one level 1 case were clearly chatting on their phone. With the other level 1 driver I could not tell.

Drive 1: Level 1, using cell phone
Driver 2: Level 1, unclear
Driver 3: Level 2, using cell phone
Driver 4: Level 1, using cell phone

Based on my results today, it does appear that cell phone use may, in fact, be causing this drivers to drive more poorly. However, I have been doing this unofficial study for a while and generally I have found that the poorer drivers are distracted in some way—not only cell phones, but having animated conversions with others in the car, eating and drinking, fiddling with the radio or other things, or putting on makeup. So perhaps it is just the distraction and not the cell phone use. I will continue the study to see.

I must end by saying the worse driver so far, clearly a level 3, was weaving all over the road in her lovely, shiny, large SUV. I thought for sure she was chatting on her cell phone (nothing like some good ‘ol researcher bias) but she wasn’t. She was driving down the road putting on makeup. But not something “easy� like lipstick. This crazy woman was driving and putting on mascara! I have issues putting on mascara while standing up, in the bathroom with good light and looking in the mirror! Plus, she’s just dumb for sticking a pointed stick near her eye while driving! And I do mean she was driving. She was not stopped at a light; she was going 45 miles an hour on a busy city street. At least I drive a Volvo!