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Digi-necking discovered as a word, and as a side effect of car accidents
Driving up to Nottingham from the south coast this last weekend meant that I got caught in all the bank holiday traffic - including, sadly, that caused by a couple of car accidents. And I've just learned a new word for one of the reasons why accidents slow down the traffic around them more than might be expected.
That word's 'digi-necking'. We already know about rubber-necking, craning the head around in to strange positions to get a better look at the results of a car crash, but this is a step further - it involves scrabbling around in the car or a pocket to get hold of a digital camera or mobile phone to record the fact that the digi-necker saw it.
In addition to the tendency of old-fashioned rubber-neckers to slow down because there's this thing to look at, the digital version also has to find the time to locate whichever bit of kit they're going to use for their photo, so is very likely to be even slower. Which means, of course, that they're even more likely to cause a further car accident with their erratic speed and inattentive driving (and, with the neck turned, may suffer whiplash in the process).
It seems to be a fairly new word, which is reasonable, as the cameras in question only became cheap enough to be popular recently. The earliest usage of the word that I can find is by an American journalist in 2008, but he claims that he is simply reporting a phrase that "traffic types" are already using.
So it's a new word with a pedigree of usage by the traffic professionals. And, if you type 'car accident' into YouTube, you'll see plenty of examples of crashes and smashes filmed on mobile phones, so it must be an existing phenomenon.
That said, I didn't see anyone actually doing this while I was driving. Does that mean it's a non-UK phenomenon? You can imagine that the British are too polite to trouble the crash victims with their cameras, but it's more likely to be related to the fact that I didn't even see the accidents, just the handy overhead signs that warned me to get out of the inside lane and go slowly.
Any digi-neckers there might have been, then, were probably miles ahead of me causing the queue, rather than nearby for me to see.
Frankly, the closest I came to a car crash was when a small van with continental plates zoomed across all three lanes and into a service station across my nose. Not that I'm complaining - I know from working for a personal injury solicitor how bad car accident injuries can be, and I'd much rather an extended and accident-free journey to an abruptly curtailed one.
