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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

My girlfriend loves her car and her phone and it seems like she’s always on the go. When she called me yesterday, I could hear the road noise and cars whizzing by. I said, “Are you driving?” And she said, “No problem. There’s not a lot of traffic and it’s a really straight part right here with no exits or complicated overpasses or anything. And anyway, it’s not the worst thing I could be doing.” I said “I can’t talk to you like this. Call me when you’ve stopped somewhere.” And then I hung up. Moments later I got this text: “Don’t you love me?” So I called her right back and said “Stop texting and driving! It’s worse than just talking on the phone!” And she said “See, I told you!”
Dr. Babooner, because of her driving, talking and texting compulsions, I hesitate to call. When my phone rings, I worry that I’ll put her life in danger just by picking up. But if I don’t, I’m afraid she’ll just be talking and texting with someone else! How can I safely communicate with her, and also communicate with her about safety?

Sincerely,

Wrong Number

I told Wrong Number that he’s right to be concerned about his girlfriend’s habits. In fact, there was a recent crackdown on texting drivers right here in the Twin Cities. I suggested he impose a more rudimentary strategy. I told him to tell his girlfriend he’d given up digital communications and would only send and respond to pen-and-ink messages. “She may resist at first”, I said, “but with luck you’ll win her over with your thoughtful and expressive writing, especially if you tell her how important it is to you that she stays safe. And perhaps in time she’ll come to treasure your letters as physical objects. Check her written responses carefully, however. If her letters have a faint imprint that says ‘Honda’ in the center, she’s still texting and driving.”

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

64 thoughts on “Ask Dr. Babooner”

  1. the next generation of texting and phoning will be the hands free factor. with your google search my phone today has a “voice search” in the corner. i never use it because it doesn’t occur to me and when i do try it , my words are misunderstoof because of background noise driving down the road. i think it will get berter though and soon we will all have those telephonic implants installed our ears where we can simply talk our texts and have them printed and sent. my fear is in the next technology (see yesterdays blog) when the requirement to speak wou’t be needed. you will be able to think and have it printed. then you will have to be careful what you think or suffer the consequences of letting people know what you really think. boy then i’d really be in trouble.
    i do like the idea of embossed letterhead though dale, maybe we could market baboon embossing stationary fundamentals course. the how to of tombstone rubbings incorporated into personal stationary. what a leap in personalizing your letters and notes.

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      1. isn’t it amazing. my kids handwriting all look like they are in 3rd grade. thats ok for my 4th grader but the two in college, not so much. maybe we could get virtual comic strip balloons to put above out heads and have our conversations in fonts like “peanuts” beetle baily” or “mark trail”.

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      2. I was at Parents Night at our kids high school earlier this week. The ‘Writers Workshop’ teacher talked about assignments “…and then we go to the computer lab so they can write…”. I asked if they don’t ever do actual long hand? And you could see the wistful look in her eyes as she said how much she loves doing that… but I get the sense that maybe, once in a while, for short assignments– you know, the unimportant ones– it will actually be pen on paper.
        I’ve tried ‘journal-ing’ (sp??) on the computer but that just isn’t right. Simply has to be long hand…

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      3. I actually do use digital media for everything I do, so I can’t really talk. My handwriting has gotten very poor. I even journal at a laptop, though I do have a leather bound book for journaling as well. It mostly collects race numbers and notes on race results.

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      4. Well, at least you are all making me feel better about the homework the 6th grader had last night, which I thought looked more like 1st or 2nd grade.

        Trouble is, the composition also suffers when he has to actually write longhand (does keyboard really well and not just picking either, so I guess I should be grateful).

        Deep and heavy sigh.

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      6. MIG,
        I was fortunate to be at a meeting last night while Lovely Wife helped 9th grader with math and spelling. Apparently there was much grumpiness…

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  2. Dear Wrong Number,
    just try to be patient. as she gets older (if she lives that long, or isn’t thrown in jail for maiming someone else) driving will begin to be an all-encompassing task. texting will take a back seat to 1. remembering how to turn on the wind-shield wipers 2. seeing signs or objects in the road 3. keeping that turn signal blinking at all times or even 4. remembering where she is headed. in time, she won’t know here cell phone number anymore and the technology will be be-fuddling.
    so just wait. and hope.

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    2. I thought our new car did not have a turn signal beeper until my son-in-law commented on what an annoying sound it makes. And we have these new sweeping turns being built around here, so off I go ever signlaing a turn I am not going to make. but that compensates for the 80% od drivers here who do not signal any turn.

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      1. love the efrafa reference. too many does eh.. ah the glories of the wedding tradition.
        i can’t hear the blinkers either. comes form my rock and roll history. i have high end and low end just missing the middle. standing too close to the amps in those formative years. its the opposite of not realizing what you have until its gone. (lost electricity for 24 hours and the kids thought the world came to an end. i did have horrible aquarium consequences that will be backed up by generator for next time) with hearing i have no idea what i am missing. i hear what i do and thats all i have for reference. i can tell you which speakers sound the best to me but that is relative isn’t it. the reoccurring theme of the blinkers as background noise is a popular on during my shuttle missions.

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      3. OH! My Dad’s 75 Olds Deta-88 that I totaled the day after I got my license had one of those. I still feel badly. Dad still misses that car.

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      4. Cars had a starter down there? I remember a tractor that had a foot starter…. I never used column shifters or dash button shifters either. I am not old.

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      5. my dads pre 60 pick up had a starter on the floor board when youpushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. i guess the logic was you wouldn’t put the pedal to the floor except to start it. i remember playing that i was driving the car in the driveway and pushing the pedal all the way to the floor. well .. the starter would engage because the car was in gear and it would lurch forward and bang into the big chrome bumper of the car in form=not on me and i remember that i couldn’t believe it . it didn’t make sense that the car would go with only that being done. so i did it again and banged hard into the car in front of me in the driveway. 4 times 5 times. my dad came running out and saw me smashing one car into the other and asked why i kept doing it. i explained that it didn’t make any sense to me so he expalined it and that was that. never a harsh word about what an idiot move that was. he was special about that kind of stuff.

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  3. “If your girlfriend’s safety is truly your top priority and if your wallet permits, invest in the best technology for her. With voice recognition software like Google Voice and a good headset, she can still communicate with you and keep both hands at “9 and 3 o’clock” on the wheel. Also, make sure she knows the laws for the states in which she is driving, since the laws regarding handheld and hands-free cell phone use vary from state to state. You could also switch her plan to ATT or one of the other providers whose coverage is weak.”

    I liked your funny advice, Dale. I have a photographer friend whom I met online but who requested that we exchange letters rather than emails. Even though I get teased in my high tech workplace about my Cuneiform correspondence, I am happy to have a drawer full of notes, cards, and photographs from this friend who is also a Polaroid enthusiast.

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  4. How do we learn to quit doing something fun but foolish? Not by hearing droning boring predictable advice against doing it from parents and safety experts who don’t understand fun and who always urge caution. We learn by having the cr@p scared out of us by having accidents or close misses.

    My daughter had the typical arrogance of the young until she was texting while commuting and she whacked the car ahead of her. The accident wasn’t expensive and the driver was an undocumented alien who didn’t want the police contacted. How lucky was THAT? The accident, plus driving with her new child in the car, have totally changed her driving. So . . . Wrong Number’s girlfriend needs to have a few low-speed accidents and get pregnant. That’ll teach her.

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    2. OMG. I am shocked to learn about the relationship between texting and pregnancy.

      But I read it on the internet. IT MUST BE TRUE.

      This will go viral and there will be another population explosion! we R doomed.

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  6. Until the newer hands free technology, someone needs to take a way either her cell phone or her car. I wish it were that easy and that could actually happen. Makes me crazy that these nutjobs are out on the road at the same time I am. (I’m not opinionated about this topic or anything…)

    I’m really glad to see they’re now getting ticketed, at least. But it’s addictive behavior, so we’ll see how far that goes. I think Steve’s right, it may take the “logical consequences” to bring the point home.

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  7. As a bike rider, and as an Certified Old Fart, I would ban phones from cars and lots of other places. But to show you a side of this you may not guess–A couple out there might. My daughter the pastor has many of her teen church members (and several from nearby churches) on facebook and she exchanges texts with them. For whatever reason they are much more likely to reveal things to her that way, texting more than facebook. She has rescued kids from some situations. I will let you guess what kinds, because she tells me nothing speciific, just that this has become a very important part of her ministry.

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  8. Rise and Shine Babooners:

    Dear WN:

    This is a really bad situation and your GF’s response is bad news for U. She is not understanding your thoughts and feelings about this situation, especially your concern for her safety. U try to communicate concern and danger. She hears “Why don’t U luv me.” Dear, dear WN, this is all about her. U R just a mirror. Dump her.

    I’d be interested to know Billy Marty Barry’s thoughts on this. He has been mysteriously out of touch for some time. Is he leading a therapeutic trek to the Andes?

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    1. I used to get a kick out of the way Billy Marty Barry started almost every analysis of a song by noting that this person was really messed up and needed therapy. Just what you’d expect to hear from a therapist! Every scientific paper I’ve read concluded by noting that more research was needed (which, since the paper was written by a researcher, sounded like “send me more grants!”).

      Good ol’ Billy Marty Barry. I miss him.

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  9. I’m afraid that we may find a “survival of the fittest” scenario with this problem, with either the most sensible (those who are too smart to text and drive) and those with really great eye-hand coordination (who manage to text and drive without accident) living longest. It is unfortunate that innocent bystanders will also be killed or injured by the driving texters who don’t make it. My husband and I saw a young man in a nice suit texting while driving a motorcycle. He wasn’t even wearing a helmet.

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    1. i was going to say you never see texting on a motorcycle. then i remembered pulling off to the side of the road to to look up an address on the motorcycle and it seemed like the only way to do it. just not driving down the road. they now have the cigerette lighter adapters on motorcycles so you can plug in gps, xm radio, i phone, i pod whatever acceroies they can dream up so i suppose when the cell gets mounted on the dashboard that will become a danger too. helmets with audio capacity will become popular as the 50 somethings take the motorcycle industry by storm with at money in their pockets for the the big toys

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  11. I’m interested in this process of learning to be careful when that is not as fun as being careless. When I was a teenager I went through a brief period of driving like a jerk, whipping around in the family station wagon as if it were a Porsche. One day I slid off a gravel road and halfway down to the ditch by driving foolishly. When my heartbeat settled down I told God that if he let me get the car back on the road without my parents learning about this, I would drive prudently. Well, God came through (thanks Big Guy!) and I kept my word.

    But let’s change the dangerous activity from driving badly to the reckless burning of fossil fuels. I think what most people want is an unambiguous sign we are doing something stupid and should shape up. They are not going to assign credibility to climate change until we lose a few Pacific island nations and a few hundred animal species. And at that point people will say, “Yup. We can’t keep doin’ like we’re doin’.” Alas, by the time the planet will already be cooked forever and it won’t matter if people start behaving prudently.

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    1. alas, Steve – i think you give folks too much credit. i wonder how many US citizens even CARE if we lose all the islands in the pacific (unless they have a condo in Hawaii) or many hundreds of species (i would personally vote that the 13-lined pocket squirrel number be reduced anyway. well, not really)
      i’ve seen “the earth is not your mother” stuff on Facebook that makes me shiver.
      sorry so cynical
      i’ll be quiet now and go visit my little methane-makers 🙂

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      1. what barb said.

        Reminds me of the old proverb about the king who was warned that some kind of invasive was in his prize fish pond, and it was doubling the amount of surface that it covered every day-he scoffed that it was too early to have to worry about it, and told them to come back when the pond was half covered.

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  12. Morning–

    When I was a teenager, I drove fast; loved to fishtail, squeal the tires or whatever. But only scared myself once when that fence post suddenly appeared right in front of the hood. My best friend, who was always slow and careful; he’s the one that ripped the bumper off his car and got in an accident.
    It’s a mystery.
    I need to stop texting myself when I drive. I don’t do it a lot mind you… and I’d never do it in heavy traffic. (why does that suddenly sound so hypocritical??) …my wife will kill me if I come home pregnant!

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