bats

Hey! That's ageist and sexist. I knew more about using computers than all of those young people at work and I'm old enough to be a grandma.

BristolUK

My mum has seen off three computers since I moved here. I reckon she had experience of eight of those keys

And she is a grandma.

Siouxie

My sister (72 and grandma to 11, great grandma to 2) fixes her kids and grandkids computers for them.. she'll strip them down, install new hardware, get rid of virus's and malware; she's had no training, it's all self taught.

Having said that, she would have laughed her socks off at Bristols post!

Gozit

Cheers

Not really a problem. My phone's usually on vibrate/silent mode and I don't keep it in my pocket - its face down in the centre console usually bluetooth connected so I can listen to my music thru the stereo and answer/make emergency phonecalls. So isn't much to be distracted with or flashing at me, not like I would ever take my eyes off the road anyways. Even looking away 1 second you miss too much with what is going on around you!


Talking on the phone via handsfree is a big one too. Even though you are still focused on the road its similar to having a conversation with the passenger.


Thats how I feel sometimes in my dads truck. Although I am used to driving it and know my way around it, I too feel like i'm taking up the whole street. Have to park in drive-thru, far away spots with it too. Like my mums car alot better. I'm with you on the compact car thing...

dave_j

I live in the Fraser Valley just south of highway 1. Highway 1 is a relatively straight road but does have the usual 3 into 2 and 2 into three lane changes at awkward intervals that some planner thought to be a good idea when he didn't quite have enough money to do the job properly.
Of a morning I listen to AM730, a channel that informs me on traffic problems.
Every morning there is a crash or car in a ditch or some such issue on what should be a safe-ish road over a short stretch from Langley to Abbotsford.
I had considered that most of these drivers were probably stoned but perhaps they're just texting... or being incompetent or canadian, but this thread has alerted me to the invidious in-car-mobile-phone hazard.

So.. Q1. Is canabis or the humble mobile phone a greater threat to driving safety?

Answers on a postcard please.

BEVS

I thought the end was going to read



Anyway. Well done that lad. Such a sense of freedom , especially when you gain your own wheels. Fab.


That was my old Dad with his pc BristolUK. A very intelligent man but technology overtook him in his 70's . Many a time I drove across town to sort him and the m/c out.

beckiwoo

Neither!

You have already answered the question above.

Not sure about the Fraser Valley but in Vancouver, people just don't know how to: drive, be curtious, be aware of other road users and then they have god awful expensive cars in tacky colours and designs.

Stinkypup

Yeah I would agree, forward planning particularly, and I mean in the next two seconds is not a Canadian driver's strength. I think that phones are a distraction. I love your comment about the design and "different"colour of the cars , you do make me chuckle BW Come on girl, say what you really think!

Siouxie

I see so many kids (and some adults) texting or talking on the phone while driving, it's a major cause of accidents.

Texting while driving now a worse public hazard than drunk drivers | Driver Risk Management Solutions | AlertDriving

CAA Distracted Driving

Teaandtoday5

A couple of months ago, whilst stopped behind a school bus I noticed the guy behind was reading/sorting paperwork. He continued, once we started moving again. Every time I glanced in my rvm he was holding up a sheet of paper, or leaning over his passenger seat. All this, while driving very close behind me, at 70kph. Some people don't need technology to be idiots.

(That keyboard could easily be mine, and I'm not even (that) old. My kids despair.)

caretaker

Get your chips ready, there's a fish truck on fire on the highway near Pickering!

Stinkypup

That would thaw Nigel out very nicely.. Trouble is he will need a passport to get to Yorkshire and he says he prefers Lancashire............Oh Ontario...right

caretaker

Our own selfless icon Novocastrian has managed to persuede the academy to exchange his own Nobel Prize for Scientific Education and Research for a literature medal for a musician he's long admired.
Opinions on Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature are varied, (Salman Rushdie gives his thumbs-up), and suggestions for alternative nominations are making the news on a slow day.

If Dylan can get a Nobel for literature Stephen King should be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Keith Richards

JonboyE

You know, I think we are missing a business opportunity. We should found “The British School of Driving” in Canada. We would have a wide choice of instructors as all Brits are perfect drivers. Unfortunately, we may have to concede driving on the wrong side of the road, at least for the moment. We can increase revenue streams by offering post-graduation courses such as Sunday driving, clocking and white van man.

I am sure Canadians will appreciate the opportunity to learn how to drive with a sense of superiority.

caretaker

The metal show the other night left me a pint from a craft brewery in Minnesota. I'm taking the day off with a sore back and 11 o'clock is close enough right now.
Edit: Not bad, dad! Dark amber and a bit murky, slightly hoppy without tasting green - like someone's really good home made beer, which is what a craft brewer does.