photo credit: elle.johnson

My son asked me these questions last night.

“Have you ever got drunk?”  Yes.

“Has Dad ever got drunk?”  Yes.

“Did you get a tattoo? “  No, I replied.

“Doesn’t everyone who gets drunk get one?” he asked.  Not everyone, I replied.

Fastforward 25 years and I can imagine my grandchildren asking about other odd or risky behavior in the olden days.

“Grandma, I read in the old days that people used to think it was safe to send text messages and drive their cars. Did you do that when Dad was a kid?”

Yes, I will admit,  “just once or twice.”  And I will hang my head in shame, like I did when filling out the WiredMoms survey about moms driving and cell phone habits.

You can still take the anonymous survey, but so far, WiredMoms reports that Moms admitted to communicating in all ways while driving in their cars.

“Most use handheld phones while driving.  Half of the time we do have kids in the car with us.

“About half of the Moms surveyed left comments that they knew they probably shouldn’t text while driving but that they mostly just checked messages at stop lights. Mostly. There were a surprising amount of Moms that admitted to texting and driving.”

In my defense, I have only texted while driving once or twice, and that was just to hit the send button. But a study, published in The New York Times, of truckers who texted while driving showed it increased their risk of collision by 23%.

Meanwhile I am on day 20 of not talking on my cell while driving.  Since I wrote My Worst Addiction I’ve made a big effort to concentrate on the road and my kids, and ignore my phone.

It’s been nice.

It’s been awful.

It’s been hard to admit it was an ingrained habit to reach for the phone and chat in the car, especially when I was upset.

So how are you doing with your attempts?  Follow @DonTwive onTwitter to join the conversation by using theses  hashtag, #DontTwive & #TweetSafe!.

You can also do an interactive test, Gauge Your  Distraction, to see just how distracting it is: