
Reclaiming your commute - jaf12duke
http://42floors.com/blog/posts/reclaiming-your-commute
======
SimonPStevens
I totally agree with the other comments here about safety. Driving is one of
the most dangerous things the average person will do every day, and deserves
your full attention.

It's fine to make choices for yourself and to accept some risk in your life,
but when you are behind the wheel you are making that choice to increase the
risk for everyone around you too. You have a responsibility to drive
carefully.

Please don't make the roads any more unsafe by doing activities or encouraging
others to do activities while driving that may distract them from the task of
driving safely.

Find other ways to reclaim your commute such as moving closer to work, working
from home on some days or using public transport. Or perhaps stop thinking of
your commute as lost time, but time that is spent to enable you to live
somewhere pleasant/quiet/cheap while working somewhere that meets the needs of
your business/work.

~~~
Periodic
As a society, at least in the US, we seem to have decided that audio-only
activities are acceptable while driving. I suppose this is because driving
mostly engages visual and motor skills, leaving our audio and language
processing free to talk or listen.

Listening to audio books or presentations I believe is good. Dictation is
probably a fine activity. As soon as your hands start getting involved or you
start to look away from the road I believe that safety starts to suffer.

Does anyone have any quantitative data on how common driving activities affect
safety?

~~~
underwater
Unless he's recording random streams of thoight then there is going to be a
lot of conscious decision making and problem solving involved in authoring a
post. Those tasks seem overlap with what he should be doing while driving.

~~~
codemac
I'd imagine that he probably IS recording random streams of thought, and then
editing them when he gets the dictation back. Even when I'm talking to friends
in the car, I can barely keep a thread of conversation very sensible.

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jlarocco
This seems like a terrible idea from a safety point of view.

If commute time bothers you, move closer to work, or work closer to home. Use
the extra time to blog.

Personally, I'd never work somewhere I couldn't bike to. Its significantly
more fun than driving, and I never sit in traffic.

~~~
ddorian43
what about the sweat?

~~~
bjxrn
Don't race to work, just ride. Sweat isn't a problem when riding at a calm
pace unless you're either in really bad shape, or you have some medical
condition which causes abnormal sweating.

~~~
dionidium
That's a silly thing to say. Here in St. Louis, for example, we have very hot,
humid summers. It's not hard to break a sweat casually _walking_.

~~~
bjxrn
Fair enough, I hadn't considered extreme heat. So I'll change my assertion to:
if you can walk without sweating, you can bike without sweating.

Just to expand on my first comment: I live in the Netherlands. People here
bike everywhere. They wouldn't do that if they got sweaty and had to take a
shower every time they arrived somewhere.

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chadgeidel
Please don't do this. There are already few enough people paying attention
while driving. Just because you are in stop-and-go traffic doesn't mean you
can stop paying attention.

~~~
K2h
Some studies say distracted driving is age dependent and I think I heard
somewhere else some are just better at multitasking safely, though I don't
remember the signs or how to test for this -awesome- traight.

[http://www.mendeley.com/research/effect-cellular-phone-
upon-...](http://www.mendeley.com/research/effect-cellular-phone-upon-driver-
attention/)

~~~
chadgeidel
That certainly may be true. I'm merely of the opinion that driving warrants
all my attention - no matter the traffic conditions. Full disclosure: I do
listen to music/podcasts on long trips, so you may consider that I'm breaking
my own rule.

~~~
K2h
Off topic completely now. Sorry all.. My post was in defense of distracted
driving to give a balanced perspective with some scientific data..

However, I'm as annoyed with distracted driving as ou. I play a small game
when driving.. Spot the person on the phone, watch the person next to you at
the light and can tell with the head nod to lap that they are texting,
especially If under 30. Sorry for the stereotype.

We need some legal paintball guns so we can use on the freeway to tag
offenders so those of us that are driving can know where the risks are... And
it would be a chance to practice my aim. If more than a few hundred tags, we
can then switch to harpoons and the cars will start to look like porcupines.

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kurtvarner
Glad it works for you. However, I would never be able to blog this way. When I
blog, it's a continuous iteration of what I have written. I write something,
it doesn't make sense, then I go back and make it better. Personally, I would
find it impossible to create quality content by just starting to speak out
loud.

~~~
Estragon
I agree, but I think this could be a good way to get raw material.

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begriffs
My daily half-hour bus commute gives me a great opportunity for focused
reading time. By making it a habit, I have read through a year's worth of the
St. John's College classics curriculum
(<http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/academic/ANreadlist.shtml>).

Take the bus if it's accessible to you, load up on some books, and you will
love your commute.

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K2h
The reference to <http://www.taskrabbit.com/> was exactly what I have wanted.
Thanks for the link.

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natesm
Articles like this are a major reason why I decided to move to New York.
Commuting? Sure, but it's also free exercise!

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stretchwithme
I've found that people who multi-task while driving leave lots of room in
front of their car so they can pay less attention and are themselves causing
more congestion for others. Of which they are usually unaware because they
have tunnel vision at the point.

~~~
chadgeidel
Actually leaving lots of room in front of your car (1-2 car lengths in stop-
and-go traffic) is very safe and makes traffic flow smoother. It "evens out"
the stop and go part of stop and go traffic.

If you have a manual transmission, It's almost mandatory - take a look at
large trucks in stop-and-go traffic, they attempt to "idle through" because
stopping and restarting a heavy vehicle is fuel-inefficient.

~~~
stretchwithme
And that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about those who leave 25 car lengths ahead of them when traffic is
moving so they can text or blog or do whatever is taking their attention off
their driving.

How much space they think they need depends on how frequently they decide to
look at the road.

~~~
chadgeidel
Wow - that is quite a bit. I've never seen that personally.

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lindablus
Know your own limit - I always need 100% concentration while driving, but I
found that some people can get away with multitasking.

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carguy1983
Great, now in addition to people who eat fast food, apply make up, play sing-
along, tend to their children, talk on the phone, text message, and nod off in
the car, we have to deal with people BLOGGING in their cars?

It's gotten to the point where I refuse to drive anything but a performance
car because the kind of shit you have to deal with as a person who actually
FOLLOWS the rules requires the ability to accelerate, brake, and handle better
than all the idiots on the road who are totally distracted, don't signal or
stay in the lanes, and drive 40mph on the fucking highway.

The only way to reclaim your commute is to not commute.

------
pcd
Listen to audiobooks. Better than listening to the rubbish on the radio, and
no more dangerous. Really good way to do something you enjoy while driving.
Find a good book. Either fiction or self development or what ever and I find
myself looking forward to car time because I can relax. My audiobook player is
the best player for iPhone that I've found.
[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-audiobook-
player/id4593930...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-audiobook-
player/id459393040?ls=1&mt=8) Let's you play downloaded books.

