{"id":8782,"date":"2018-08-31T12:02:22","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T02:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/?p=8782"},"modified":"2020-06-20T00:23:17","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T14:23:17","slug":"how-not-to-use-your-phone-in-your-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/blog\/how-not-to-use-your-phone-in-your-car\/","title":{"rendered":"How Not To Use Your Phone In Your Car"},"content":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/1385.jpg\")
Don\u2019t stop reading and decide that this post isn\u2019t relevant to you because you\u2019re not one of those social media-obsessed millennials. The fact is that it\u2019s not just teens and twenty-year-olds that get distracted by that beeping phone when they ought to be concentrating on their driving.\u00a0 The problem seems to be common to all age groups. In the US (and possibly also here in Australia), it\u2019s busy middle-aged people who are the most likely to be busted using their phones illegally while driving.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re going to have to break yourself of that habit of just taking a quick look at your phone to see what it\u2019s notifying you about.\u00a0 You know that it\u2019s not safe and you know that the potential consequences go way beyond just getting busted and slapped with a fine.\u00a0 To help you kick the habit, here\u2019s a few things you could try to help you get out of the habit of checking texts, posts and calls while you\u2019re driving.<\/p>\n
(1) Analyse your excuses<\/strong>. Ask yourself why you feel that (a) you need to take a look at your phone right now and (b) why the law (yes, the law) about not looking at your phone when you\u2019re driving applies to you.\u00a0 Perhaps some of these sound familiar\u2026<\/p>\n\n- It could be important\/urgent.<\/li>\n
- I\u2019m a good\/experienced driver and I know what I\u2019m doing, not like those teenagers who are always on their phones.<\/li>\n
- The road\u2019s not that busy right now.<\/li>\n
- I could miss out on bagging that new client\/job\/contract.<\/li>\n
- I\u2019m only taking a quick look to see who it\u2019s from.<\/li>\n
- I was at a red light so it\u2019s OK.<\/li>\n
- I was just looking at the time.<\/li>\n
- I\u2019m just looking at a photo.<\/li>\n
- I\u2019m just taking a photo.<\/li>\n
- I\u2019m perfectly capable of multitasking.<\/li>\n
- I\u2019m trying to identify the song on the radio with the Shazam app.<\/li>\n
- I can text without looking at the keys\/screen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The cops have heard them all before\u2026<\/p>\n
Honestly, there isn\u2019t a text, post or call that isn\u2019t so urgent that it can\u2019t wait 10 seconds while you find a place to pull over safely.\u00a0 Yes, even that call that you need to make to secure that business deal \u2013 and if you were in the middle of a conversation that important, you shouldn\u2019t have got behind the wheel in the first place.\u00a0 The same goes for the text or call to the family or the boss to say that you\u2019re running late \u2013 a few seconds later won\u2019t make that much difference to them or you, but an accident while driving distracted will make a huge difference.<\/p>\n
(2) Go cold turkey.<\/strong> As part of your pre-driving routine (closing the door, adjusting your seat if needed, putting on your seatbelt, starting the engine), either switch your phone off or put it in the back seat on the passenger side where you can\u2019t reach it. Then you\u2019ll either not know that you\u2019re being notified or you\u2019ll hear the beep but not be able to do anything about it until you can stop and reach the phone.\u00a0 In the case of being able to hear the notification, you will probably find that the urge to respond instantly will pass after a few seconds, or at least a few minutes.<\/p>\n(3) Get an app<\/strong>. There are quite a few apps on the market that will autorespond for you if someone tries texting or calling while you\u2019re driving. OK, you have to activate the app but this can easily become part of your pre-driving routine.\u00a0 These apps might be marketed at teens and the parents of teens, but they work for everybody, just like the laws of the land and the laws of physics.<\/p>\n(4) Mute it.<\/strong> If you can\u2019t hear the notification, you won\u2019t be tempted to respond when you shouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 So mute your phone and don\u2019t even have it on vibrate.<\/p>\n(5) Go offline<\/strong>. An awful lot of beeps and pings your phone makes are notifications from social media and emails.\u00a0 The trouble with quite a few phones (at least it\u2019s the case with mine) is that the notification for a text is the same as a notification for an email or an update.\u00a0 Avoid quite a lot of temptations by going offline.<\/p>\n(6) Send a text before you drive<\/strong>.\u00a0 Most of the texts and calls you receive are likely to be from your most important five contacts (probably family members, best friends and immediate work contacts).\u00a0 Send them a group text telling them that you\u2019re about to start driving (and maybe about how long you\u2019ll be on the road) and they probably won\u2019t send you anything for that period.\u00a0 Again, this will dramatically cut down on the notifications tempting you.<\/p>\n(7) Enlist a passenger<\/strong>. \u00a0It\u2019s kind of like the years B.C. (Before Cellphones) when the person in the front passenger seat had the job of reading the map for the driver. In this case, the front passenger becomes the official communications officer who will check the phone for you and tell you who it\u2019s from, then (if necessary) opening the message and reading it out, and maybe typing out the reply you dictate.\u00a0 Checking the identity of the sender before opening the message is a smart move if you and your significant other are in the habit of sending each other raunchy texts so your 10-year-old or your co-worker doesn\u2019t suddenly end up being on the receiving end of way too much information.<\/p>\nCome on now \u2013 no more excuses!\u00a0 Which of these steps are you going to try? http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/about.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t stop reading and decide that this post isn\u2019t relevant to you because you\u2019re not one of those social media-obsessed millennials. The fact is that it\u2019s not just teens and twenty-year-olds that get distracted by that beeping phone when they ought to be concentrating on their driving.\u00a0 The problem seems to be common to all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11187,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8782\/revisions\/11187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}