NPR Features Vietnam’s Texting Terrors
April 7, 2010
Jeff Holt/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The international media seems to be cadging on to the minutiae of everyday life in Vietnam. Michael Sullivan recently contributed this piece to NPR that chronicles Vietnam’s epidemic of motorbike text messaging, a major contributor to the country’s abysmal traffic safety record. (According to the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, traffic accidents are the leading cause of child and adolescent deaths–approximately six children a day died in accidents in 2007.)
Our favorite part is the bit in which Sullivan quotes Pham Thi Thuy Linh, a 21-year-old student who was named fastest text messager in a contest sponsored by a mobile phone company: “I think I’m about 20 or 30 percent slower texting on my bike. And it’s easier to make mistakes because I’m trying to watch the road in front of me.”
Yikes.
Contributed by Tom DiChristopher
April 8, 2010 at 4:11 am
I recently narrowly avoided a collision as the other driver involved tried to light a cigarette while also talking on the phone.
By my reckoning you need five hands to do that.