Put the phone down! Car opens door into path of motorbike

[dash riposki]

70mai lite dashcam, mounted in my girlfriends car. Her phone use while driving, and generally horrible driving, has been a major issue for me.
Here she parks in the street in front of a house, and opens the door into the path of a motorbike.
The girl is scraped up, but no broken bones. Gf is suffering minor hearing loss from me screaming at her once I saw the video.

Note to everyone: put the phones down while driving. No matter how good a driver you are, or think you are, being distracted by electronic devices degrades your abilities. I've driven 4.5 million miles and it was hard for me to break the habit, but now I would be more willing to grab a cobra than a phone while driving.

 

[dash riposki]

 

[dash riposki]

 

[dash riposki]

One of the rare times security cam video is available, but a tree is in the way. You can hear the crash. I have no idea why she didn't pull into the driveway? The house with the cam is where she had to drop off some things.

 

[Nigel]

Note to everyone: put the phones down while driving. No matter how good a driver you are, or think you are, being distracted by electronic devices degrades your abilities. I've driven 4.5 million miles and it was hard for me to break the habit, but now I would be more willing to grab a cobra than a phone while driving.

Don't just put the phone down, also don't wear hands free earphones that stop you hearing the traffic coming up behind!

 

[dash riposki]

She doesn't use headsets or earphones. Most often she is screaming on the speaker phone setting. She also holds the phone to her ear when driving.
I can't hear who she is talking to, so must not be on speakerphone.

 

[IAmATeaf]

This is why in some countries they teach you to open the door with your opposite hand as this will mean that you need to turn your body and therefore be able to see the traffic coming before opening the door.

 

[dash riposki]

Just looking is often adequate.

 

[kamkar]

Danish police are dispatching 80 fines ( 1500 DKkkr + 500 for victim fund ) + 1 mark of 3 on licenses every day,,,,,, really if they tried they could easy double that.
Doing 80 kmh ( Danish highway speed ) you move 22 M every second, so 4 seconds on the phone liking that picture of a cupcake and you have moved 88 M

Personally i dont even like being on the phone hands free, i rather find a place to pull over and then return the call.

 

[Outbacknomad]

Down under it costs you a fortune, also loss of points and loss of licence if short of points. There are also overhead cameras looking into cars to fine you.

Even if it is hands free, it is the conversation that is distracting. I had a company car phone, hands free, in the 1980s, and that was just as distracting.

 

[kamkar]

yeah cars and phones just do not mix, to be honest nor do cars and a conversations, the 1 time i have run a red light as a kid, i was deeply engaged in talks with the other 3 guys in the car.
Actually it was them that told me about the red light, i dident even see the intersection.
Okay i was also both stoned and a little drunk but that was normally not a problem back then and at least in regard to stoned not a problem in the decades to follow.

Unless of course i have been driving around thinking i was all that, and then was not, but i think that would have manifested itself in ruined cars / crashes, but i never made any of those.

 

[Vanhalo]

I switched back to a flip phone. $16/month

 

[dash riposki]

I have a low end, 60 dollar smartphone that leaves the house with me. I need translator app ability, some Internet, basic camera. I don't worry about losing this one and there is no banking stuff on it if I do.
The screen and keyboard are too small to attempt to use while driving, anyway.

It's liberating when these things are returned to 'tool' status, and not primarily entertainment/'I think I have some brain cells left...let's kill them' status.

 

[HonestReview]

70mai lite dashcam, mounted in my girlfriends car. Her phone use while driving, and generally horrible driving, has been a major issue for me.
Here she parks in the street in front of a house, and opens the door into the path of a motorbike.
The girl is scraped up, but no broken bones. Gf is suffering minor hearing loss from me screaming at her once I saw the video.

Note to everyone: put the phones down while driving. No matter how good a driver you are, or think you are, being distracted by electronic devices degrades your abilities. I've driven 4.5 million miles and it was hard for me to break the habit, but now I would be more willing to grab a cobra than a phone while driving.

On the bright side, this is Thailand and not some western country where ambulance chasing lawyers would now be suing for big money. On the negative side, that lady on the motorbike has some nasty road rash. Lucky she wasn't seriously hurt or killed. She definitely skidded across the road.

I guess helmets and other safety gear is option in Thailand. Lucky she didn't hit her head!

I think your girlfriend should be relegated to 1960's and earlier rural Asian transportation....Less a danger to everyone else on the road!

 

[dash riposki]

Even though the accident was only a few km away, I couldn't go there when she called. If they know a foreigner is in the picture prices for settlement go up dramatically.

The emergency room bill was 28 usd. Damages to the motorbike were negotiated.....60 usd.
Repair to her car will be 120 usd.
This is about 35 percent of her monthly take home pay as a teacher.
I checked the dash cam files for the next day, and her use of the phone while driving has reduced, a little, but not enough.
She has agreed to a 2 channel cam...that records her while she drives. If it doesn't improve her driving, at least I can make some money with viral videos.
I've been on her case for a year about her driving, and reminded her I'm not going to be financially responsible for her recklessness, (or her teenaged son who removes the taillight from his motorbike so ghosts can't see him at night.)

 

[SawMaster]

Even if it is hands free, it is the conversation that is distracting. I had a company car phone, hands free, in the 1980s, and that was just as distracting.

That's the real issue here: Is the phone/ conversation/ whatever distracting from your driving enough to create an unsafe condition? I can almost always drive and talk safely, in person, on a 2-way radio, or on my phone. I know that my driving takes priority over everything else and I act accordingly. I either stop or don't start anything which detracts from that primary task enough to be a problem. I know my abilities and I do not exceed them. I'd venture a guess that maybe 5% of the world's drivers are like this, probably less Which leads to the other questions:

So if people won't behave properly on their own, laws must enact to ensure that this happens- how do you regulate this? To go with the lowest standard takes away from my life- it is not my problem that others drive distracted when I don't. And it brings another deeper question: Why are drivers being licensed when they are apparently not capable of discerning between that which is safe to do and that which is unsafe to do while driving?

It's not an easy fix and the only real solution is to allow people to do only that which they do responsibly, which means making people inherently unequal in their rights. Any other approach means you're reducing the goodness and ability of those can can do better. Sometimes the phone can wait. Sometimes the siblings fighting in the back seat needs to be temporarily overlooked to drive safely. Sometimes you need to stop listening to the spouse so you both don't end up in a crash.

From the moment the engine starts till when the car is parked, the driver has to put driving with adequate safety above everything else with no exceptions for everyone else's sake as well as their own.

Phil

 

[Outbacknomad]

Be careful if you have a automatically opening tailgate. I was walking past the rear of a car & the tailgate opens. Hits my very expensive mechanical watch. The timing of the tailgate, so to speak, was perfect!

Lucky the watch has sapphire crystal glass and won't scratch & fortunately didn't break.

People simply need to focus a bit more on the physical surroundings and get off their bl--dy phones for a few nonoseconds.

 

[HonestReview]

Even though the accident was only a few km away, I couldn't go there when she called. If they know a foreigner is in the picture prices for settlement go up dramatically.

The emergency room bill was 28 usd. Damages to the motorbike were negotiated.....60 usd.
Repair to her car will be 120 usd.
This is about 35 percent of her monthly take home pay as a teacher.
I checked the dash cam files for the next day, and her use of the phone while driving has reduced, a little, but not enough.
She has agreed to a 2 channel cam...that records her while she drives. If it doesn't improve her driving, at least I can make some money with viral videos.
I've been on her case for a year about her driving, and reminded her I'm not going to be financially responsible for her recklessness, (or her teenaged son who removes the taillight from his motorbike so ghosts can't see him at night.)

Are you a westerner? So if someone who is from the west gets in trouble, demands for higher compensation increase? I presume because locals make far less (600 USD / Month as a teacher) than some westerner who probably has more money?

Even if you showed up, I can't imagine they could extort you? You weren't involved and she's not your wife?

Sounds like your g/f is lucky to have no killed the lady and got off "cheap". $208 USD. Happened anywhere else in world and I am sure we'd be talking big numbers.

 

[KANNINA 2.0]

Are you a westerner? So if someone who is from the west gets in trouble, demands for higher compensation increase? I presume because locals make far less (600 USD / Month as a teacher) than some westerner who probably has more money?

Even if you showed up, I can't imagine they could extort you? You weren't involved and she's not your wife?

I take it that you've never had the pleasure of living in Asia and dealing with the low-situational-awareness masses on scooters and motorcycles.

Imagine a stray chihuahua on crack darting into your path every 15 to 20 seconds as you try to get to and from any given destination on any given day. Every day. All year.

Not defending your GF, but some of this is on the biker. They run around everywhere paying zero attention to what the hell is going on around them. Worse in some countries than others. Thailand is one of the worst behind the Philippines and Malaysia...

One of the first things I learned when I was a kid starting to ride a bike: You see a parked car with a person in it, expect that door to fling open into your path. Give it a wide berth.

 

[kamkar]

mechanical watch

Are there any other kind of watches,,,,,,, that matter.