genec

The French really agree with your food assessment. I think "fast food" there is any mean eaten in an hour.

I remember once as we were passing through a tiny village in the middle of France we stopped to have lunch and saw a road repair crew just sitting down. Our 5 course meal took almost two hours. The road crew guys took just as much time. This was a simple lunch that started with soup and ended with a cheese plate and fruit. It was great; sure beat the American habit of wolfing down a "burger" with one hand on the wheel.

genec

You actually still have a "home phone?" Gave it up at the beginning of the new year... since most calls were just "nuisance / telemarketers anyhow," it didn't make sense to pay that bill for their convenience.

thompsonpost

Normally, I keep mine on the passenger seat. When it rings, I either ask who it is and call back in a minute or two when I can pull over somewhere, or hit the speaker button, put it back on the seat and talk. It hangs up when the calling party does.

The Big Wheel

Here in MI if you look at the drivers it seems like 90% of them are on a cellphone.

pe2er

Where I live, it is not allowed (by law) to hold a cellphone in your hand while driving a car. So you can not text or make a 'Hand-held' phone call while driving. Calling hands-free is allowed though, but reading this link posted earlier in this thread, and my own experience, shows that it would be better to outlaw that as well.

The fine is €150 (about US$200) if you get caught.

imi

make cars illegal... problem solved

mikeybikes

Any boss of mine that would get bent out of shape because I didn't answer my phone while driving would have a two weeks notice on their desk the next time I saw him/her. I consider it unacceptable for my boss to be able to get a hold of me whenever he/she wants.

Plus, I can't see this actually being socially accepted for your boss to demand he/she be able to reach you whenever even if you're driving... How many bosses have you ever had where they required you to pick up your phone?

thompsonpost

None.

Now that I am self-employed, that will never be a possibility.

guadzilla

Interesting. In so many countries, cellphone usage while driving is illegal. Rightfully so.

Even if it isn't - nothing wrong with not answering the phone. We have caller ID and just cos I have a mobile phone doesn't mean I am at the world's beck and call.

Re handsfree sets - I wonder how different that is in terms of enhanced risk when compared to speaking to a passenger in the car.

thompsonpost

I have found it way less distracting than holding it to my ear. I know there's no one in the car, and if it doesn't work because of the area, I have a call log, a turn signal and a place to pull over will be along any second. In the majority of my cases, I call back when I've stopped moving.

genec

Well I did have a job at one time that required I wear a pager... But that was primarily to notify me if the server went down. But bottom line, my safety always takes a front seat to the demands of any job.

nkfrench 

I am grandfathered in on a old residential poverty "metered" phone plan. The land line works great even if the electricity goes out.

My cellphone gets very poor reception at my house so I end up having to walk outside to use it. Still - most of the time I ask the caller to please call me back on my land line as I can't hear clearly on it. It's also really annoying to navigate through menus on the cell.

I have taken some work telecommute classes where I am online for the video and in a conference call for the audio. Usually they are 3 days long /1440 minutes. I also do some "regular" work from home time to time and it is required that I have adequate phone coverage/reception for telecommuting to be allowed.

One of my work locations is shielded so the only provider that works is the one that my company chose for purchasing company cellphones - they installed an internal antenna. So other brands of cellphones were unusable and if I forgot to turn them off, the battery would run down in a few hours from trying to connect with the mother ship continuously. I also got an employee discount using the same provider that my company uses.

guadzilla

Re handsfree sets:

Oh, no arguments there. I was referring to a post or two which implied handsfree sets were unsafe as well. Now, obviously, any multi-tasking is going to be less safe, but is using a handsfree any less safe than chatting with a passenger in the car? I don't think so - but this is just a gut feel and - I'd like to know if there are studies showing otherwise.

V.

Fremdchen

I tend to have a laserlike focus of attention, not a scattershot one, so am fairly poor at multitasking. I find talking to passengers while driving to be incredibly distracting and I know I'm a better driver when alone in the car.

JoeyBike

I find that some folks, walking or driving, block their peripheral vision with their hand held phone.

I have seen it with the meanderthal zombies in my community a thousand times. The one that really sticks in my mind is the UPS driver who pushed a hand truck off the curb in front of me because his phone was blocking his view of me on my bike. I managed to get around him barely. I still have the fantasy of punching him in the head through the phone. Although I would never actually do that, it makes me feel good to think about it.

How much lost work time do you folks think cell phones cost us in annual USA worker productivity? I must be a staggering figure. To me, unnecessary phone calls while "on the clock" is the same as stealing. If you add attending to personal emails, online banking, checking message boards, YouTube surfing, and general asshattery on the workplace computer when allegedly "working" it's no wonder we are having economic meltdown.

aley

Now I have to figure out a way to use that in casual conversation!

As for lost work, I have a coworker who regularly drives the rest of us nuts with his constant texting. The other day I was ready to grab his phone and toss it in the toilet - I was trying to explain how to do a very precise alignment of an XYZ optical stage that he just wasn't understanding, and he kept going back and forth with texts while I was talking. Small wonder he wasn't getting what I was saying!