- Put the phone away, as far away as possible. Stop using it for GPS and get a dedicated GPS instead.
- If you cannot, use the “driving mode” which disables everything else other than the GPS functionality
Keep repeating this to yourself: If I am not driving I am not driving. There is no such thing as “Driving & …” You are either driving or not. Stop & go traffic is still driving. Waiting at red light is still driving. If you are behind the wheel, every other living being around you is your responsibility, you have the means and the capability to end their lives or injure them severely. If you cannot be responsible with this, simply don’t get behind the wheel.
Also remember, vast majority of accidents happen in stop & go traffic when almost every driver nowadays is distracted (on their phones). We are not moving. We are almost not moving. We are not driving we are standing still - these are all excuses and none of the excuses can prevent the accidents that happen every single day on stop & go traffic.
Yesterday it was raining in NY and the roads were completely clogged with fender-bender accidents. I was on my motorcycle. What should’ve been a 40 minute ride took 1 hour and 43 minutes. Every accident I passed by I saw a pair of youngish drivers with a stupid look on their faces, completely surprised that they had an accident. And still phones in their hands, trying to figure out what to do now. Miles of traffic behind them - all because they all had excuses.
Just repeat to yourself: I am driving. And don’t touch your phone. Listen to an audio-book, your favorite radio show or whatever. We always had traffic, but we never had this many accidents day in and day out. It’s an epidemic now.
Repeat to yourself: I am driving. And don’t touch the phone… If you cannot, then don’t drive, please get yourself off the road. We’ve had it with you, you are putting all our lives in danger with your irresponsible actions.
Sadly, I am seeing older people on their phones too. So this is not a millennial problem, or a youth problem. Humans are simply bad at multi-tasking (we cannot multi-task btw we can do fast switching, but are horrible at multi-tasking…)