I was intrigued to read this blog post recently, which compares the dangers of driving while drunk to the dangers of driving while using a cell phone to the dangers of driving ... with kids in the back seat.
I know a thing or two about those kinds of dangerous distractions.
One day last fall, I drove a van full of kids home from an afternoon of shopping. It was pretty late, but I was in no hurry to get home.
As darkness fell, I made my way along winding roads, and the kids in the back seat began to entertain themselves. They usually do this by making lots of noise. This time, their noise took the form of reciting Finding Nemo as a group.
Now when I say “reciting” I really mean reciting. They took turns repeating every line and performing every scene of the entire movie. They were pretty good. (Please ignore what this says about the likelihood that I ever use the television as a babysitter.)
I was driving along, listening to their performance, and breaking up the occasional argument over whether Crush the turtle says “Give me some fin” or “Give me some flipper” (It’s fin, by the way) when flashing blue lights filled the van.
Uh oh.
I pulled over.
“Do you know why I stopped you, Ma’am?” the nice young officer asked me, as he studied my license.
I wasn’t sure.
“You were all over the yellow line,” he enlightened me.
Hmmm. Was I?
“You haven’t had anything to drink this evening, have you?”
Obviously, I needed to clear this up.
“No,” I told him, “I’ve just got a bunch of kids in here.”
When he shined his flashlight into the back of the van, his eyes grew wide.
I started talking then, telling him all about the Finding Nemo performance, Dorry the forgetful fish, the turtles ... everything.
He stifled a laugh, handed me my license, and told me to drive home safely.
And so I learned an important lesson: Having a mess of kids in the car is a dangerous thing. Even when they are entertaining. Perhaps especially when they are entertaining.
Driving with distractions, whether they be cell phones or screeching toddlers, is dangerous business. I don’t know if I’ll go as far as this blogger and instill a “no talking to Mom while she’s driving” rule, but I must admit it’s tempting.
What parent couldn’t get behind that idea?
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Good column, Danielle. Thank you for the reminder.
I definitely am against cell phone usage/texting and such when driving—and I will never have any kind of video/dvd unit in a vehicle for the kids while driving somewhere, even a LONG trip. But, my kids can certainly talk to me, but likely not long conversations to me from the backseat.
I get quite distressed driving about and seeing people NOT focusing on (hello!) their driving, and just found out my son was driven to a (far-away) retreat by a cell phone talking (almost non-stop!) driver! Ugh - I am not a fan of confrontation but that is just so wrong - ‘specially when many children are under your care.
Texting, no. Talking on the phone hands free, maybe….especially if it keeps you awake. See that is the thing about moms and kids-you cannot really fire all synapses when operating on a sleep deficit that spans a decade. So I think there should actually be chauffeurs provided by your car insurance company when you graduate to the minivan status.
I was in a bad accident with a driver who drove through a red light without realizing it was red because he was on a cell phone. T-boned 6 inches behind the driver’s seat, I cannot walk without pain five years after the accident. It is not the type of cellphone device, but the distraction that is the problem. As I waited for the ambulance in my seat,incapable of moving, I watched the other driver standing in front of the bumper of his van making call, after call, after call.
My husband and I have a rule: turn off the cell phone before turning on the ignition. The exception is that if someone else is in the car you can hand the phone over to them. Husband is so serious about removing distractions from the car he took out the stereo.
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