Grandma Got Lost Again

Last month I posted about how Grandma lost her way to her daughter's house. Well it happened again. This time we were able to track her and call her to help get her home much more quickly. Here's more to the story.

One problem with living with family is that you will eventually upset each other. There is a reason kids grow up and leave home. When it comes time for a parent to move in with a child, it will be stressful. Well Grandma got caught eating a brownie at her daughter's house before dinner and her daughter gave her the you'll-spoil-your-dinner speech. This offended Grandma and she jumped in her car and drove off. The next morning she showed up at my house. I knew she had to return to her daughter's in a week for a doctor's appointment and so my wife and I welcomed her into our home for a limited stay.

I used the visit to see how Grandma is doing with her new phone and other technological devices in her life. It didn't take long to realize that Grandma doesn't know how to use her new smartphone. She doesn't even know how to answer it. She claims it won't let her answer a call when she is driving. While this is a feature I wish all phones would adopt without hands-free car integration, the reality is that she just isn't familiar enough with her new phone. So lesson number one was to help her get more familiar with her phone.

I also asked Grandma to explain how she got lost on that fated drive back to her daughter's. Of course she didn't really have a good explanation. I explained to her that she just needed to stay on the freeway and not take any exits until she got close to home. That sounds pretty easy, right? I actually explained it in much more detail to help ensure the same problem wouldn't happen again. I felt pretty confident in my explanation and was sure she would drive right home.

Saturday morning arrived and Grandma jumped in her car to head back to her daughter's. About an hour later, my wife used the "Find my Phone" app to locate Grandma. Contrary to all my directions, Grandma exited the freeway she was supposed to stay on and headed off on the wrong way. I couldn't believe it. My wife gave her a call but it went unanswered. Fortunately Grandma's daughter was also watching and managed to get her on the phone. Grandma added 45 minutes to her drive but eventually made her way home.

Smartphones are great tools. They can be used to prevent driving mistakes, provided you are using them to help you navigate to your destination. They can also be used to fix that mistake if someone is watching you and can call you to provide correction. Unfortunately this all relies on the user being able to use said smartphone. Grandma still needs help.

Driving with Earphones

While riding my bike to work this past week I witnessed a near accident because the driver of a car was wearing earphones. The bike path I take to work runs alongside a dog park. That means it crosses the parking lot where drivers have to stop and watch for cyclists. On Tuesday a guy on a road bike passed me on my much slower mountain bike. He came to the crossing at the same time as a driver wearing earphones. The driver stopped but never bothered looking to see if any bikers might be approaching. He started going as this other cyclist, who was not required to stop, got to this minor intersection. The cyclist realized the driver was not paying attention and slammed on his brakes before getting T-boned by the much larger truck. The cyclist tried to yell at the driver but the driver couldn't hear a thing because of the earphones. The driver then proceeded through the intersection without yielding to the cyclist.

As a cyclist, you have to be aware of your surroundings and pay attention to all of the inattentive people driving cars. It is my experience that headphones make drivers less attentive and I think they should be illegal to wear while operating a bike or motor vehicle. The state of California agrees with me. Its law states:

Wearing headsets or earplugs in both ears is not permitted while driving or operating a bicycle, unless designed to aid hearing or specifically designed to attenuate injurious noise levels.

Not wanting to provide the wrong information, I looked up the law for Utah. There is no law against wearing headphones while driving. That really surprised me but I guess that explains why I see a lot of drivers cruising down the road listening to headphones and not worried about getting pulled over. If you are interested in finding out the law in your state, AAA has a great page that lists every state with its headphone law.

I found it interesting that my last blog post talked about headphones and then I had this recent experience. It made for a good follow-up for today. Fortunately I was glad I didn't have to help scrape the poor cyclist off the pavement on Tuesday.

Winter Driving Revisited

My daughter just got home after spending the day teaching skiing at Alta. It is 9:30pm and the drive took her over 5 hours. Normally it takes 20 minutes. Why so long? People don't know how to drive in the snow. My wife and I spent the morning skiing and had the same drive. It took us an hour and we came down at 1:00pm. During our drive, we saw a number of idiots trying to drive in the snow with 2-wheeled-drive vehicles and summer tires.

One of my most popular blog posts is from 2013 on Winter Driving. Unfortunately the video I reference is no longer available but there are some secrets of driving in the snow:

1. Make sure you have winter tires
2. Go slow

If you don't have item #1, then don't drive in the snow. Pull off to the side of the road and wait for the snow to melt. If that sounds harsh, sorry but that is reality.

While waiting for my daughter to make it safely down the canyon, I utilized several online tools. My favorite is maps.google.com. You can have it show traffic and see where the slowdowns are located. My kids all prefer Waze. This evening Waze had the better information. While I could see where traffic is slow, that doesn't help get home any quicker when there is only one way down the canyon. Interestingly, my daughter could have skied home quicker than it took to drive. Too bad they won't let you leave a car at the ski resorts overnight. After all, I will be back up there tomorrow and could have helped bring it home.

On the Phone While Driving

In a number of states it is illegal to drive while talking on the phone unless you have a hands-free device. I understand this law as it is tough to hold your phone and steer the car at the same time. I think it is a good practice to never have your phone out while driving even if you are in one of the states that does allow you to talk on the phone and drive like Utah.

I am noticing a trend though. Last night I drove home from the airport with my wife and she noticed that the woman in the car next to us was simultaneously driving and watching a video on her phone. I'm sure this person thought she could multitask but her driving proved otherwise. She spent most of her time in the bike lane and looked like she wove a rug as she sped down the street. Needless to say I felt relief as she turned right while I continued straight.

Driving while you are playing with your phone is what is known as "distracted driving" and can result in citations and fines. The only problem is that the police have to catch you. Sure I could have followed the woman last night and called the police. Unfortunately that never works out very well. Eventually this person will cause an accident. It is not a question of "If" but "When."

Please don't drive and play with your phone at the same time. Last night nobody happened to be in the bike lane due to the late hour and cold weather. However I often use that bike lane on my daily rides and would hate to wind up being a hood ornament to a distracted driver.

Winter Driving

I don't know how I managed to stumble across the video on YouTube showing some of the worst 2012 truck accidents caught on video. Once I started watching though, I couldn't stop. You only need to watch about half of the video as the second half is full of repeats. The first accident on the video shows how important it is to pay attention while driving in winter conditions. One lapse in judgement can send your car sliding out of control and into oncoming traffic.

When I am in California during the week, I don't really have to worry too much about winter driving as there is never any snow or ice on the road. Tonight it is supposed to get down below freezing, but anyone who drives in the snow knows that a couple of hours below freezing is not likely to create treacherous conditions. No, I have to worry about winter driving on weekends when I am back in Utah.

Last week I managed to contract an ear infection. I was glad to get on a plane Friday evening and have the weekend to recuperate. I thought about forcing myself to ski for a few runs on Saturday, but I just wasn't up to it. Instead I stayed in bed all day and watched the Ice Road Truckers marathon with seven episodes all in a row. If you think it is tough keeping a car on an icy road, try doing it in an large truck with 80,000 pounds of cargo.

As winter driving will be with us for the next few months, I thought I would gather some links to sites with a few suggestions:

Caltrans Winter Driving Tips
AAA Winter Driving Tips
The Weather Channel Winter Driving Tips

My motivation for passing these along are purely for selfish reasons. I know how to drive in the snow. I don't want someone else running into me and pushing me into a head-on collision with a large long-haul trucker. That would really ruin my day.

Website Consistency

Last night it snowed again. Normally a skier would be very happy about fresh snow, but it has been snowing all week and I am sort of getting tired of skiing powder every day. Don't get me wrong, I love powder. I am just ready to ski in conditions where I can actually see where I am going.

One more problem with all of this constant snow is that it makes for very difficult driving. Yesterday I watched a lot of idiots slide off the road in their SUVs with summer tires. Four-wheel drive doesn't do anything for you if you don't have tires with an aggressive winter tread. I highly recommend metal studs in your tires for winter driving.

Before heading to Snowbird this morning for another day of skiing, I made sure to check their website to see if the road was open. There were conflicting messages on the home page. First there was a banner across the top exclaiming that the road would remain closed until 8:30 am for avalanche control. Immediately under the banner was a green light with a message saying the road was open. Checking the police department's website verified that the road was closed and not scheduled to open until 8:30 am. There is an old saying that applies to this: A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two isn't quite sure.

That Was It?

Yesterday I wrote about how a big snow storm was supposed to hit Utah. I stayed up watching the traffic cameras and checking in on the family. My wife and kids were safe watching a movie and didn't give the storm a second thought. I got a call right before everyone headed off to bed saying that there was only 4 inches of snow on the driveway.

I woke up this morning and checked in with the family before they headed up to Snowbird for some skiing. My wife said that there wasn't much more snow this morning than when they went to bed. That's it? Only 4 inches of snow? My wife did mention that it was incredibly cold and so the salt on the roads wasn't melting the ice. That can make for tricky driving but I don't think it justifies all of the lead-up to this storm. The weather service kept saying it was going to be a 4-foot storm. The mountains only got 9 inches. That barely justifies bringing out the new skis.

It will be difficult to trust the weather service the next time I hear that a huge snowstorm is rolling in. I'm sure others feel the same way. Unfortunately that means that when the big storm really does clobber the area, we will be unprepared. Awe who am I kidding. The next time I hear about a big storm coming, I will get excited and hope for tons of snow. That's what skiers do.