Driving while distracted contributes to many accidents, which is why safety organizations have made a major effort to stop people from sending text messages while operating motor vehicles.
Twitter site “Don’t Tweet & Drive” includes such gems of wisdom as “Texting & Driving is like playing with a loaded weapon ... sooner or later someone is going to get hurt,” and, “Your attempts to stay connected while driving may lead to the ultimate disconnect. Don’t text & drive.”
The amount of time that some people spend on their smartphones is crazy. If they aren’t checking their email, taking a photo or searching for directions, they may be playing a video game. Sometimes they even use them to make telephone calls.
One of the newest distractions is the game “Pokemon GO.” The name “Pokemon” is a combination of the Japanese words “pocket” and “monster,” and started as a video game in the 1990s. The players catch the monsters.
The new game has players catch virtual monsters that appear in the “real world” as seen by a phone camera lens. Using the GPS on a phone, players can wander around the neighborhood hunting for the creatures. Great Bend Public Library bills itself as a “Poke stop.”
We’ve heard it’s a lot of fun and even gets couch potatoes to walk around some, so the game isn’t all bad. But it shouldn’t be combined with driving.
Recently, we heard that sometime driving through our area picked up a Pokemon at each stop light.
Technology website ubergizmo.com reports that playing the game has caused accidents, with distracted drivers running into trees or distracted pedestrians running into cars and falling off cliffs. Billboards have been erected in Florida that read “Don’t Poke and Drive.”
Today’s smartphones are amazing, but smart people know when to leave them alone.