nancynall.com » A close shave.
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A close shave.

I told Alan not long ago, moments after we’d been nearly side­swiped, at free­way speeds, by a dri­ver whose inat­ten­tive­ness to the road was inversely pro­por­tional to her atten­tive­ness to her phone call: “The mir­a­cle is that we don’t have six fatal­i­ties a day around here.” And the scari­est thing about our near-miss? I don’t think the dri­ver even knew it hap­pened. She was too busy blah-blahing.

Yes­ter­day I came as close as I ever have to becom­ing a smear on the road. Ped­al­ing my bike down to the library, on the sort of semi-deserted sub­ur­ban street that I love to ride on, I approached an inter­sec­tion. I had the right-of-way. A mini­van rolling down the side street seemed to be slow­ing. I went on across. The mini­van kept rolling. I threw up my hand in the uni­ver­sal ges­ture known to Supremes fans every­where: Stop stop for the love of God stop you idiot I’m so much smaller than you. The dri­ver slammed on the brakes, and stopped a whole 24 inches from my right hip.

You know the punch­line, don’t you? Cell phone.

I swear, I’m going to start pack­ing a sawed-off shot­gun, loaded with a pep­pery bird­shot, maybe rock salt. Noth­ing lethal, just some­thing to get their attention.

Well, I always sus­pected exer­cise would kill me someday.

OK, then.

Our old pal Adri­anne called yes­ter­day, who may be the last news­pa­per edi­tor in Amer­ica who’s hav­ing a good time at her job. Why? She works for a tabloid, in upstate New York. Tabs still know how to have fun. Big news up in her neck of the Hud­son Val­ley these days — the death of Moses Teit­el­baum, the rebbe of the Sat­mar Has­sidim, a branch of which lives in Kiryas Joel, a lit­tle vil­lage in their cir­cu­la­tion area.

“You have your unusual locals in the Amish,” she often tells me. “We have the Hassidim.”

Any­way, the death of an ortho­dox Jew­ish leader with devoted fol­low­ers in two places cre­ates its own news — there were ser­vices in New York, then a sprint up to KJ for a sec­ond funeral, at 3:30 a.m., so that he could be buried before sun­rise in keep­ing with Jew­ish tra­di­tion. And there was traf­fic and char­ter buses and law­suits, and, of course, the politi­cians. Gov. Pataki showed up to pay his respects.

“You should see our front page,” she said. “A pic­ture of these kids in side­locks lined up, and a head­line: GUESS WHO’S COMING TO SHIVA?”

Tabs have all the fun.

I once saw some research, very cutting-edge for the time, that wired up a bunch of vol­un­teers with these devices that would track, with some pre­ci­sion, where and how their eyes moved as they read the paper. The idea was to dis­cover, with­out rely­ing on per­sonal report­ing, exactly what things peo­ple read as they looked at their home­town daily. When the research was pre­sented, each ele­ment on the page — from the 2D page num­ber at the top to the credit lines on pho­tos — had a num­ber next to it, indi­cat­ing the per­cent­age of peo­ple whose eyes stopped long enough to indi­cate they might have actu­ally read it.

One page had a left-rail digest of short items, march­ing all the way down the page. Each item had a num­ber some­where between 17 and 19 per­cent, except for two, which were up in the 40 per­cent range. The head­line on one was some­thing like “Sex charges filed against parolee” and the other, “Nude body found in field.” I think this indi­cates, with some author­ity, that if you want some­one to read your work, slap a head­line on it fea­tur­ing the words “sex” or “nude.”

Note that I haven’t done it for this item, as all good web­mas­ters know that doing so is like send­ing an engraved invi­ta­tion ask­ing for spam-bots to stop by. Some read­ers you don’t want.

But my point — and I do have one — is that head­lines mat­ter, whether it’s GUESS WHO’S COMING TO SHIVA or NUDE SEX AT COUNCIL MEETING. And yet, when I was writ­ing them, the ques­tion we most often asked one another was, “Is this offen­sive? Should we tone this down?”

OK, I’ll stop. Off for another bike ride. If I’m killed by a dis­tracted, cell phone-yakking, mini­van dri­ver, I’d like this head­line, please: CYCLIST STRANGLES DRIVER BEFORE DYING OF INJURIES.

Posted on Thursday, April 27th, 2006 at 9:44 am
in Media.

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32 responses to
“A close shave.”

  1. Kirk said on April 27th, 2006 at 10:03 am

    Nance, I’m not big into gad­gets (I don’t own a cell phone or under­stand why so many peo­ple feel com­pelled to talk on the phone at all times while they’re awake). But I would pay good money for a lit­tle deal that, aimed at some­one yakking on a cell phone, would turn the sig­nal into a high-pitched, painful screech. I know, it prob­a­bly would cause even more of these obliv­i­ous morons to wreck, but it sure sounds like fun. Maybe if I promised to use it only in gro­cery stores.

  2. John said on April 27th, 2006 at 10:11 am

    NUDE CYCLIST STRANGLES DRIVER BEFORE DYING OF INJURIES.…catches more eyes

  3. nancy said on April 27th, 2006 at 10:12 am

    Well, I have one, and I’m very ambiva­lent about it. I rarely use even a third of my min­utes in a month — and I’m on the bargain-basement allot­ment — but I will admit that when you need it, you really need it. It comes in handy at times I never antic­i­pated it would. So I expect I’ll keep it.

    But I have the same thought when I see so many peo­ple on them, all the time. I mean: What the hell is every­body talk­ing about? What can’t pos­si­bly wait until you get home? And gro­cery stores are the worst: You want broc­coli or aspara­gus? OK, you want rice or pota­toes? Chee­rios or Apple Jacks? Now that every­one has a hands-free ear­piece, I no longer assume the per­son talk­ing to her­self in the soda aisle is insane. I don’t care what Char­lene said…It doesn’t matter…Do you know what she told me last week? That jam­mer would come in handy, I admit.

  4. joodyb said on April 27th, 2006 at 10:31 am

    I really like the shot­gun idea, espe­cially in your neighborhood!

    Charleen. Ha!

  5. jcburns said on April 27th, 2006 at 10:41 am

    So you’re say­ing they have some sort of..device…a…phone? That they use…while dri­ving? I’m baf­fled by this tech­nol­ogy you describe.

  6. Dorothy said on April 27th, 2006 at 10:53 am

    Used to be the minor­ity of dri­vers were using cell phones — now I believe it’s the major­ity. It’s not even safe to walk my dog any­more with­out wor­ry­ing about get­ting run over by cell phone-using-soccer-moms-in-vans in my subdivision.

    Do any of you know if the guy who ran into Stephen King a few years ago was yakking on the phone when he plowed into him?

  7. Danny said on April 27th, 2006 at 10:54 am

    My wife got my phone for free with the plan she has. It’s cool in that it flips up like the com­mu­ni­ca­tors on Star Trek, but as you hint, Nance, they should have devel­oped phasers set to stun along with the cell phones.

    I use it once a week, at most. And I resist using it while dri­ving. Too many years rid­ing a motor­cy­cle have me accus­tomed to giv­ing the road my com­plete atten­tion and too many miles on a bicy­cle have me irri­tated with the obliv­i­ous numb­skulls who kill so many cyclists each year.

  8. brian stouder said on April 27th, 2006 at 11:31 am

    Would you believe me if I told you that the other day I was dri­ving down the boule­vard, both hands on the wheel and Pearl Jam on the speak­ers — at a mod­er­ate vol­ume — and a bicy­clist ran a stop sign and nearly clob­bered me!

    I did the big swerve/heavy brak­ing manuever  — and the law-breaking dis­tracted bicy­clist did the same (thank­fully the streets weren’t wet).…

  9. Danny said on April 27th, 2006 at 11:36 am

    Wow, Brian. I would say that that bicy­clist is def­i­nitely in need of a more highly devel­oped sense of self-preservation. By any chance was he/she lis­ten­ing to Pearl Jam on an mp3 player at high vol­ume? Because then that would be understandable.

  10. John said on April 27th, 2006 at 11:55 am

    I know the Times Her­ald Record well, they over­lapped with some of our cov­er­age area when I worked for the NJ Her­ald. I really only bought the paper one day of the year bar­ring major news events in our area.
    The THR was a MUST READ paper on the day before passover each year when the Has­sidim would reg­u­lar­aly burn down like six homes and start dozens of brush fires when they would burn the wheat prod­ucts in their homes to pre­pare for the hol­i­days.
    Every fire com­pany was on standby and their news staff worked like crazy to doc­u­ment the burn­ing frenzy. An edi­tor I worked with used to remark that it was the day Kiryas Joel burns down each year.

  11. alex said on April 27th, 2006 at 12:07 pm

    It’s true about those headlines:

    http://​sun​times​.com/​o​u​t​p​u​t​/​n​e​w​s​/​n​a​k​e​d​2​7.html

  12. John said on April 27th, 2006 at 12:18 pm

    Okay…here’s another one:

    http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,18941157%255E2862,00.html

  13. colleen said on April 27th, 2006 at 12:28 pm

    Totally with you on the “what’s every­one talk­ing about?” thing. At the NAB this week.…we’re tak­ing a break out­side the con­ven­tion hall, and every­one is lined up against the wall, yam­mer­ing on their cell phones. I had no one to call. My hus­band (also a broad­caster) and my boss are both at the con­ven­tion, and they are about the only peo­ple I’d talk to via cell. And on the airplanes…yesh…as soon as peo­ple can turn their phones back on, they do, and start talk­ing. You’d think they’d been hold­ing their breath for the whole flight, with the urgency they have in get­ting those phones back on!

    Must admit, though, I did once get a call from my hus­band at the gro­cery where he asked “what’s a pork loin?”

  14. Connie said on April 27th, 2006 at 12:55 pm

    I too rarely use my cell phone min­utes and try not to use it while dri­ving. Mine came with a hands free head set, why aren’t these dri­vers using theirs?

    Back in my Ann Arbor grad school days I got hit while rid­ing my bike, I had a green light, and the dri­ver turned right on red. He knew he done wrong, and I wasn’t hurt.

    What’s a pork loin? Clearly he didn’t have a Dutch grandma teach him how to roast pork the old fash­ioned way like I did.

  15. brian stouder said on April 27th, 2006 at 1:12 pm

    “An edi­tor I worked with used to remark that it was the day Kiryas Joel burns down each year.”

    When I saw Nance’s ref­er­ence to Kiryas Joel, my first thought was ‘I won­der if that’s up the road from Curi­ous George’ — and THEN I won­dered if indeed I had missed the joke — and then I began to won­der if the folks who invented Curi­ous George were mak­ing the joke.

    Strange about the annual fires — but then again every cul­ture has its idio­syn­cra­cies, I suppose

  16. Michael G said on April 27th, 2006 at 1:22 pm

    Worst was when the lady in front of me dropped her phone (this was on the free­way). I lost ten years that day. I don’t use it when dri­ving but I will con­fess to call­ing my wife from the gro­cery store. I do try to be dis­creet, mov­ing to a cor­ner and talk­ing qui­etly, but I am guilty of using it in the store. Beats suf­fer­ing the con­se­quences of com­ing home with­out what­ever it was. Also I travel a lot and don’t even bother with phone num­bers and addresses etc of hotels any­more. We can just con­tact each other by cell and it works great when meet­ing at the airport.

  17. Connie said on April 27th, 2006 at 3:03 pm

    We just did a big in house cam­paign about turn­ing off your cell phone when you come in the library. I mean, duh. It seems to be work­ing too.

  18. Carter said on April 27th, 2006 at 4:00 pm

    If, as I con­tinue to read, the occur­rence of acci­dents is on the rise from dis­tracted dri­vers, how soon will it be before the insur­ance com­pa­nies raise the pre­mi­ums of those with cell­phones? (Or self-phones as I pre­fer to call them…) Or is that highly unlikely as some sort of phone-number-privacy– eti­quette would be violated?

  19. Dorothy said on April 27th, 2006 at 5:23 pm

    The com­pany I work for for­bids use of cell phones while dri­ving on com­pany busi­ness. Not sure how strictly it is enforced, however.

  20. MarkH said on April 27th, 2006 at 7:57 pm

    Nancy and Kirk’s posts say it all for me.

    What is so damned impor­tant that can’t wait till you’re at home or some­where else alone where you’re not inflict­ing your­self on oth­ers. Right after I first read this thread this morn­ing, I went to our local post office. While I’m wait­ing in line, a man approaches, look­ing at me and starts talk­ing. “Excuse me?”, I said to him, not hear­ing what he said. He just kept talk­ing, look­ing me in the eye, yet not respond­ing to my ques­tion. Of course, I didn’t see his cool lit­tle ear­piece right away, and he didn’t think it appro­pri­ate to let me know he was talk­ing to some other (invis­i­ble) entity.

    I need one for busi­ness, but use it as lit­tle as pos­si­ble and almost never use it while dri­ving. I do, how­ever, make exten­sive use of its voice­mail fea­ture instead.

    “I have a cell phone, there­fore, I must use it and be heard! Surely there’s SOMETHING I can say…Who can I call?” Sheesh…

  21. alex said on April 27th, 2006 at 8:20 pm

    How quickly we become inured to things like cell phone rude­ness. I remem­ber just a few years ago being embar­rassed for a guy in a Chicago restau­rant who was sit­ting alone and yam­mer­ing away, louder than if he’d been face to face with some­one across the table. My imme­di­ate impres­sion was a) either he was all about being seen with his new toy, or b) absolutely so unself-aware he was fit for the booby hatch, which is to say c) same diff, get a frig­gin’ life, dude. Yet it has become so com­mon­place I’ve done it myself and not thought twice about it — until it has occurred to me how it prob­a­bly looks to others.

    No, there’s really never a good rea­son to be on the phone unless you’re call­ing the cops or an ambu­lance, or you just hap­pen to walk out of the house on hold like the guy in the Citi ads who says “Fluffy” and “Big Boy” and loses his sig­nal in the sub­way when he finally gets through to a real live human being.

  22. Linda said on April 27th, 2006 at 8:55 pm

    I was on a day trip this week, and our bus dri­ver was on his cell phone while dri­ving on I-75 among all those trucks. He did it sev­eral times. Sounded like he was con­duct­ing some busi­ness. It did not make me feel safe.

  23. nancy said on April 27th, 2006 at 9:00 pm

    Well, I have used mine when dri­ving, but I try to be smart about it. In fact, I have to be — I have a stick shift, and no head­set, so it pretty much has to be in calm free­way traf­fic or not at all.

    But again, I’m amazed at how often I use it for things I never thought I’d use it for. Alan and I never would have been able to find one another in the Ren­Cen the week­end before the Super Bowl with­out our phones. And when Alex and I were at the Gay/Lesbian Din­ner Dance, it came in handy to find him when we got separated.

    And here I thought it was only for 911 calls.

  24. Mindy said on April 28th, 2006 at 6:37 am

    Back when cell phones were still unique to peo­ple who had too much money, a friend was at a stop­light on Col­i­seum Blvd. and hap­pened to glance in her rearview mir­ror only to see a mini­van approach­ing much too fast. She sat help­lessly as the van smashed into the back of her car. The dri­ver was a soc­cer mom yakking on her cell en route to tak­ing three kids to a game. Only one of the kids was hers, very scary.

  25. Dorothy said on April 28th, 2006 at 8:47 am

    My point exactly about those soc­cer moms! (Hope your friend wasn’t hurt, Mindy. Don’t mean to make light of it.)

  26. Jeff said on April 28th, 2006 at 8:53 am

    Stephen King, who tells this story much bet­ter (duh) in “On Writ­ing,” was hit by a now deceased fel­low who was a sad story out of one of King’s own books — and don’t think it wasn’t on his mind as he lay writhing on the roadside.

    Better/worse than a cell phone: he was dri­ving an old van, and had bought some fresh meat which was in a cooler slid­ing around in the back with his dog, who (cue Nance) was try­ing to get at it, and the dri­ver was reach­ing back to grab the col­lar when he turned King’s leg into butcher meat.

    King later pur­chased the van in ques­tion and sold, to raise money for his area Lit­tle League, hits with a base­ball bat on it, and finally per­son­ally pushed the but­ton to crush it at a recy­cling yard. The man really lives his work.

    And i am no hor­ror fan, or even much of a King reader, but “On Writ­ing” is a really use­ful and fun read.

    Peace, Jeff

  27. Kirk said on April 28th, 2006 at 9:10 am

    i live in a neigh­bor­hood rife with soc­cer moms. they scare me more than any other class of dri­vers — cell phones, too much of a hurry, too many places to haul too many kids, etc., etc.

  28. Connie said on April 28th, 2006 at 9:24 am

    Speak­ing of Stephen King in his lat­est The Cell, only the peo­ple who use their cell phones go zom­bie crazy. Unfor­tu­nately as it starts most every­one else grabs their cell to call 911 and turn zom­bie crazy themselves.

  29. mary said on April 28th, 2006 at 10:34 am

    The clas­sic move I see here is the giant SUV, oper­ated by a woman talk­ing on a cell phone, mak­ing a sud­den U-Turn mid-block after drop­ping off her kid. The dri­ver never looks either way, just makes a hard left, then four or five back and forths to get the behemoth-mobile going the other direc­tion. I see it in front of my older son’s high school and at younger son’s mid­dle school. It’s not even the same woman. It has to be a huge SUV, though, and the phone and obliv­i­ous atti­tude are identical.

  30. alex said on April 28th, 2006 at 12:06 pm

    And don’t for­get the oblig­a­tory blond hel­met hair, Mary. At least it’s that way around here in Hoosierland.

  31. Kirk said on April 28th, 2006 at 12:09 pm

    designer shades, too, in my neighborhood

  32. mary said on April 28th, 2006 at 4:10 pm

    It’s the same woman.

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