Talking on the phone while driving is or should be illegal, at least without a hands-free device. Texting while driving is or should be illegal. But texting while sitting behind the wheel of a car, say at red lights, works pretty well because of a nearly hands-free approach, speech-to-text. This technology has really, really improved since I first came across it in the '90s or so. My phone understands me way better than real people do, and gets what I'm saying even when I expect it not to.
The other day, I was trying to get together with a friend. The weather was very unsettled in that it was raining lightly but the clouds ahead looked like the apocalypse. She was trying to get home ahead of the rain and I was trying to get Dad home and then me home, also before the deluge. It turned out we were both using speech-to-text to text one another. This sounds crazy; why not just phone each other? But as I say, it's not safe to talk and drive even in good weather and less so in bad. Speech-to-text texting lets you say what you want to say, check it at red lights, then send when you're sure you didn't just, "The horsie is eating pancakes." (Unless that's what you wanted to say, of course.)
Anyway, I thought it was neat that she and I hit on the same solution independently. Now if only speech-to-text could handle punctuation!
I am the type of person who can't walk and chew gum at the same time so I never try to text in any manner when I'm driving.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that we weren't texting while driving but only while stopped at traffic lights. I have no eye-hand coordination either.
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