From One Second to the Next

"From One Second to the Next", by the renowned documentarian Werner Herzog, is a powerful short on the most tragic consequences resulting in people texting while driving. Herzog takes the subject that while serious may appear too general or simplistic a topic, and makes it a really personal, moving experience, showing both side of several very sad incidents. The interviews of both loved ones of victims, and of those whose texting caused tragedies (those who were willing to speak) are very powerful and moving.

Beyond all this is a dire warning to anyone who has this reckless habit to get away with it right away, and those haven't garnered it to make sure they don't start. No words which you can wait to say later—it can only take one word, an abbreviation of a few letters—can ever be worth the needless taking of a human life.

This is an excellent short form documentary. Werner Herzog is a bit of a character and you never know what his movies are all different* so I always try to catch his stuff. But what I really want to know is why he made this one. My theory is that Herzog got caught in California text messaging while driving a couple times and the judge made him do a movie about it instead of community service. If anybody knows, please PM me.

9/10

*Herzog makes documentaries, feature films, and even acts in other people's movies.

This relatively short film is about the consequences of texting and driving and a warning for viewers to not to do it. Herzog has considerable skill in interviewing and assembling the interviews in order to make a point or create a narrative. We can see his artistry here, but we're left wondering: what is it all about, really? Both victims and perpetrators of texting and driving accidents are interviewed. Of course it's what you'd expect: descriptions of the carnage, devastated families and offenders who have to live with guilt for the rest of their lives. These are the kind of scenes that are played out in any fatal accident, no matter what the cause. And except for the particular reason for driver distraction, in this case texting, they are generic to all bad accidents. This exercise in persuasion is powerful, moving, and pointless. Why? Because anyone dumb enough to text and drive wouldn't be watching a Werner Herzog film to get pointers on driver ed. Telling a person not to text and drive is like telling him not to stick his hand in a wood chipper while it's running. You don't warn people like that about the dangers of doing something anyone with half a brain would know from the start not to do, you don't let them drive in the first place.

It's somewhat unusual that Werner Herzog was behind this, because it's not characteristic of most of his documentaries. Of course, it would feel strange if it did have that signature Herzog style, given it's a very no-nonsense PSA type of documentary about the dangers of texting while driving.

There's not a great deal that can be said about it beyond that, because once you've seen one effective PSA, you've pretty much seen them all (of course, this style can be done badly). Herzog understood the severity of the stories at hand and let them speak for themselves, and though this is straightforward and sad, that's what it needs to be... so it largely works.

The moment I read about this new documentary short from Werner Herzog, I thought, "A public service announcement video to warn people to never text while driving? Really?" It seems like a small hair ball of a problem that should already be common sense. Having watched the short, I realized that's precisely the problem, that texting while driving seems like a such a minor hiccup. It is not.

The half-hour short covers the story of four accidents that have caused by texting while driving. One case has a child that is paralyzed for life and is currently on life support, caused by an accident from a teenage girl who was distracted from texting. There were no skid marks. She never saw him. Another case involves a man who killed two Amish children. The driver is now perpetually left to questioning himself what was so important about his text that couldn't wait. The other two cases was a family dealing with the monstrous medical bills from her mother's accident and a family losing her father. What really struck me was the last man who caused the accident, who wasn't able to recall the text message he sent after the accident happened. He couldn't remember why it was important.

Herzog brings his brand of deep introspectiveness to the short, adding the much-needed seriousness this topic deserves. As the title suggests, life is connected by each second. It's in- between each seconds we must throw caution, because everything can change within a second. The most disturbing part for me was, my initial reaction was exactly the type of behavior this short was trying to warn against. It is not a hairball. It is not something to handle. Reading a text is not better than sending a text. There are human lives at stake. Do not text and drive. You just do not do it.

Some statistics I found on texting while driving:

• Texting while driving causes 1,600,000 accidents per year.

• The minimal amount of time needed for a text is 5 seconds. If you are traveling at 88.5 km/hour (55 miles/hour), that would cover an entire football field without any attention paid to the road.

• As of 2011, at least 23% auto collisions have involved cell phones. That amounts to 1.3 million car crashes.

• 1 out of 5 drivers of all ages confess to surfing on the web while driving.

• Text messaging is the longest eye-off-the-road time out of all the distracted driving activities. An accident is 23 times more likely to happen if you are text messaging.

The documentary can be viewed on Youtube. The slogan to the AT&T campaign is "It can wait."

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