"we definitely shouldn't be enacting legislation without informed judgement."
You are absolutely correct. And I never claimed there was a lack of evidence or informed judgement. I only claimed there is a lack of statistics.
The NHTSA has been collecting data for 40 years, yet it took the government a good 10 years after that to get into high gear with drunk driving legislation. Point is you can have volumes of data and no information.
"BTW, I'm not criticizing you for using a hands free device because I've stated numerous times its the driver, not the device that causes the hazard. Remember, guns don't kill people, people kill people."
Oops, I think you stepped into do-do with that analogy. As I am sure you are aware, the US, with it's lax gun control laws, has by many orders of magnitude the highest homicide rate of any industrialized nation. From a "statistical" analysis
ATLANTA -- The United States has by far the highest rate of gun deaths -- murders, suicides and accidents -- among the world's 36 richest nations, a government study found. The U.S. rate for gun deaths in 1994 was 14.24 per 100,000 people. Japan had the lowest rate, at .05 per 100,000.....
You are right, behind every one of those guns was a person pulling a trigger. Just like behind every cell phone is a person pushing the buttons. But I think you made a better case for kdshapiro's position by bringing up the gun analogy.
I think I understand your civil libertarian orientation, even if I don't particluarly care for the fact that the ACLU is more concerned about giving liberties to criminals than protecting the innocent. But are you actually personally convinced that cell phone use does not create a safety hazard and increase the likelihood of an accident for some (if not most) drivers?
I don't dispute that the US is one of the most murderous countries on the planet, is murderous a word? My point is that there is no corellation between this murder rate and gun control laws. There are other countries with similar gun control laws that don't have high murder rates and our murder rates haven't decreased with more stringent gun control laws. In the context of this thread inattentive driving is the crime and cell phones are the weapon. There's no reason or evidence to support the believe that criminalizing the weapon will decrease the crime.
"There's no reason or evidence to support the believe that criminalizing the weapon will decrease the crime."
On the other hand there is every reason to believe recall of gun control laws will make the problem worse. But that is neither here nor there. There are many seeming inadequate laws on the books that I wouldn't want recalled. I mentioned two of them earlier.
It really doesn't matter whether laws are effective, some laws need to be on the books in a complex society such as ours.
NY and CA had drunk driving laws circa 1910. What astounded me is it took 70 for the start of a get tough attitude.
Need to give these cell phones laws a chance and the stats to catch up. If it took 70 years for get tough DUI legislation it will take a few for the cell phones.
Thought provoking post. We are dealing the someone who believes ineffective laws should be recalled. Gun control, murder, rape and a host of other crimes were not eliminated with legislation. I wouldn't want any of these laws recalled.
I personally do not care if I lose the right to talk in a car. I'm willing to give up some rights, to make the roads safer. Anyone who sees a cell phone user driving erratically, swerving, tailgating etc and then believes the laws are off-base, is not someone who is thinking rationally.
What astounded me is it took 70 for the start of a get tough attitude.
It should not be astounding at all. Religious fervor (mellinialism) hits the public every 60-70 years or so. 1910's was the prohibition era, 1980's was the war on drugs and get tough on alcohol laws, 1840'-50's was the first prohibition movement and emancipation movement. What it really comes down to is that another generation of suckers are born and raised in prosperity, and grow up to believe that it's their god-given right to meddle in other people's affairs through the expansion of government (what else?), wihtout realizing the intrinsicly corrupting power of power itself. The result is usually catastrophic, and takes the following generation or two to clean up the mess, and let the economy to recover and grow for the next cycle.
There is some truth to the statement that when you give up freedom for security you end up with neither. It will take time for our generation to learn to use new technology and to use it safely. We are developing cars that will apply breaks when they got to close to another car. We have cars that will warn us if we are drifting into another lane. We have navigation systems that we can talk to, and contrary to what some have said many of them do allow programing while in motion by voice and by touch. At least reading through about 1000 posts on the subject has indicated they can. by 2010 or 2011 we will have mandated skid control to go with ABS and traction control. Driving is changing cars are getting safer, accident rates are dropping and new technology is being introduced. Most of the laws dealing with cell phones or any other new communication devices simply will not be able to keep up and we will come to the realization that sometimes accident will happen no matter how safe we try to make the world. Till then the number one cause for automotive deaths in the US is teenage drivers. we as a society have decided they have to learn to drive so it is worth the risk to continue the practice of allowing them to drive. They account for more deaths than cell phones and they account for the loss of more of the lives of our young drivers. The statistics are there. The studies are there and we have decided as a society that it is an acceptable risk. I believe we will come to that conclusion when it comes to communication devices as well. Sooner or later.
Indeed it was. She can provide data to substantiate her argument -- you can't.
The gun control argument is a good example. Industrialized nations that have imposed it have lower homicide rates than does the US; in contrast, there is no such parallel in respect to phone laws. Likewise, we have seen greater decreases in homicide rates in nations with gun control than without; no such claim can be made for crashes and fatalities in respect to phones.
If you want to defend the phone laws, then you should be able to use the same technique used by gun control advocates -- demonstrate how the laws are effective in places where they have been imposed. Yet you can't offer any example of an effective phone law, or show that those with phone laws are necessarily better off because of them. Your argument doesn't even come close.
Till then the number one cause for automotive deaths in the US is teenage drivers. we as a society have decided they have to learn to drive so it is worth the risk to continue the practice of allowing them to drive. They account for more deaths than cell phones and they account for the loss of more of the lives of our young drivers. The statistics are there. The studies are there and we have decided as a society that it is an acceptable risk. I believe we will come to that conclusion when it comes to communication devices as well. Sooner or later.
Well said. And in the case of teenage drivers the primary people taking this risk are the ones with the most to lose; the parents that hand over the keys. Communication is a positive, beneficial thing. If it results in a risk there are a couple of choices. Eliminate the risk by eliminating the benefit or find a way to maintain the benefit and mitigate the risk. The pursuit of progress would dictate the latter.
Very well said. I will add that, cars themselves are fundamentally a communication device. We have allowed cars, despite 35-50,000 deaths each year in this country alone and probably a magnitude higher injuries, precisely because the benefit of being able to communicate and carry on exchange has proven worthy of the risk. If society had indeed followed the prescript of "if only one life is saved," like some millenial idealists would like to believe, our ancestors would not have sailed off the horizon in search of new opportunities to begin with.
I asked you to provide the name of those countries that achieved some benefit from its phone laws, and this is your answer:
Again, to your way of thinking, murder, rape and DUI laws ought to be abolished also.
Obviously, you were deflecting and are trying to avoid answering my rather straightforward question.
So why don't you just tell about these places with phone laws that got positive results from them? If the evidence is so compelling, don't be shy -- just share the results. So far, the list is short, it has zero places listed on it!
Yes, and with new technology we have to develop new ways to deal with it. A model T could easily drive on the roads we have today except for the speed difference. But most of our cars today would have trouble driving on some of the roads that were common to the Model T. We have had to change our roads as we changed our vehicles and how we drive them. As our technology changes we will have to learn to change with it.
The gun control argument is a good example. Industrialized nations that have imposed it have lower homicide rates than does the US;
Just about every country has a lower homicide rate than the US. The simple answer is to blame it on lax gun control laws but we have a high murder rate by other means, e.g. knives, blunt objects, poison, etc.. You'd think that the easy access to guns would reduce the need to commit murders by these more crude methods. The indication is that there is something unique and definitely undesirable about our society that makes murder more palatable to some. I'm not intelligent enough to be able to explain the reason for this but I'm certain it is far more complex than the lack of the right laws. BTW, Canada may have even more lax gun control laws than the US yet there homicide rate is no where near what ours is.
Since I'm this far off topic I might as well continue. IMO, there is no more misguided and wasteful effort than our country's "war on drugs". It hasn't reduced drug use but it has filled our jails, provided funds for gangs and created negative role models for disadvantaged youths growing up in impoverished neighborhoods. All bad, but for a politician/legislator to make this statement would result in him being labeled as pro-drug use. Its a shame. You can't effectively solve a problem if you're unwilling to accept that your failed attempts didn't work.
My point wasn't to discuss gun control per se, but to demonstrate that the poster whom kdshapiro is heaping praises on is able to do the very thing with her argument that he is unable to do with his.
It goes back to the correlation-causation discussion -- while correlation doesn't prove causation, causation demands correlation as a bare minimum. The real world data does show a correlation in respect to gun control laws, but does not in the case of the phone laws. At least one can reasonably take the gun control argument to the next level, but the phone argument is stopped dead in its tracks. (They may explain this futile effort to compare one's opposition of phone laws with support of legalized murder, as if these two things were at all comparable -- when he doesn't have a good answer, he tries to change the subject.)
"Indeed it was. She can provide data to substantiate her argument -- you can't."
Actually there is no data, like there was little data for drivers until the NHTSA starting data collection. There is however a lot of evidence, through 15 years of studies, to support what people anecdotally believe.
So until we prove that wireless technology usage is safe, ie texting, talking, watching, dialing, these laws are an appropriate conservative approach to what the studies show to be an issue.
redsoxgirl didn't show any data either, she merely made a astute point to a prior argument. But she did say her observation mirrors mine and others.
"My point wasn't to discuss gun control per se, but to demonstrate that the poster whom kdshapiro is heaping praises on is able to do the very thing with her argument that he is unable to do with his."
I believe we are much smarter now than we were years ago. We don't necessarily have to show people dying on the roads before we do something. We can observe non-attentive behavior in study after study and draw some logical conclusions. Maybe not the ones you want to see drawn. Maybe you should try to get a study published in NEJM on how cell phones are really safe, but every researcher in the last 15 years got it wrong. We are doing something before it hits the fan.
I'm waiting for someone to acknowledge the studies over the last 15 years show the worst of drivers when using cell phones instead of skirting over the issue. The correlation-causation is a bunch of BS. As I re-iterate, we don't need people dying on the road needlessly to prove a point. Hopefully as a society we are smarter than we were. But in reading some of these posts, I have to question where we really are.
You keep sidestepping the point. Let's get back to the question at hand.
There are over 40 countries that have phone prohibitions. Provide a before-and-after comparison from some of these countries that shows some signficant reductions in their accident and fatality rates, so that you can at least be on par with that other poster.
If you can't provide that information (and I know that you can't), then you should pause and ask yourself why you can't, if the evidence is allegedly so strong in favor of your position.
"If you can't provide that information (and I know that you can't), then you should pause and ask yourself why you can't, if the evidence is allegedly so strong in favor of your position."
Since you are asking me to prove it, I'm going to ask you to prove it. Show me the statistics for countries that have these bans in place. Show me how the data collection process works and there is a reasonable set of statistics available to support your assertion there is no correlation-causation. Show me where people died due to cell phone use it was a random act or distraction. It should be easy? Right? Especially in the US.
I'm not going to do your leg work, I don't have to. All I need is a reasonable doubt cell phones aren't safe. I have that reasonable doubt. As a postscript approximately 40% of people die from alcohol related deaths according to the NHTSA. What do the other 60% die from?
Since you claim that the laws work, go provide examples of these laws and how well they work.
Otherwise, just admit that you don't really know the answer, so that we can move on. But if we do that, you're going to have to stop claiming that these laws are effective, because you obviously don't really know that to be true.
"Since you claim that the laws work, go provide examples of these laws and how well they work."
I'm not claiming laws work. I invite you to go to a country like Venezula or nation where the regime of the day rules. Countries where there citizens will cut off your head without blinking. Countries with a lot less laws than we do. Come back and tell us why some of these laws and their enforcement through our agencies might just be a good thing.
"Otherwise, just admit that you don't really know the answer,"
Of course I don't know the answer, neither do you. Nobody does. Even the NHTSA admits there is not enough statistical data, but plenty of evidence. Note the phase plenty of evidence. It is what you keep missing. You don't need to drop a rock out of the window to know it will hit the ground. It doesn't take brains to know a swerving idiot on a cell phone is not a good thing on the road.
How could anyone know the answer when no data has been collected. And just because no data has been collected, doesn't mean these laws should be recalled.
Of course I don't know the answer, neither do you. Nobody does.
That's a cop out, and you know it.
Again, to demonstrate causation, you need to begin by showing correlation in some way, shape or form. And you can't do this.
It goes back to what has already been said before -- if phones had a dramatic effect on safety, then their restriction would result in huge swings in the data, yet these swings don't exist. If the overall accident and fatality rate is unchanged after a change in the law, logic would tell you that the law didn't do much of anything, otherwise the outcome would have been affected.
This is a simple matter of arithmetic, and either the numbers add up or they don't. In your case, they don't.
"Again, to demonstrate causation, you need to begin by showing correlation in some way, shape or form. And you can't do this."
We are at am impasse. I don't believe you have to show correlation-causation. And I do not have to prove anything.
And again I ask you, can you tell me how many people died on the road as a result of cell phone usage? According to the NHTSA about 24,000 people died as a result of non-alchol related deaths. Can you tell me how many of those 24000 were fatalities related to cell phones? Pick a number, big or small. Any country at all. It should be easy for you to prove cell phone usage has no effect on fatalities if you can come up with the number. And show this board where that number is published. A number from the NHTSA would probably be most meaningful to the discussion.
I can't account for your lack of insight on this subject. Rental companies now post warnings about cell phone usage to protect them from lawsuits. Employers are enforcing a notalk policy for cell phones to protect them from lawsuits. It has been proposed that cell phone providers provide a warning to protect them from lawsuits. All you have to do is search the internet: "cell phone fatalities nhtsa". You get a wealth of information suggestion talking and driving is a bad thing.
"Ouch. Honestly, I don't know whether to laugh or cry after reading something as blatantly illogical as that!"
The lawmakers don't feel it is necessary either. Somehow they understand the potential issue.
BTW - you never answered my question. What's the number? Or are we going to go back and forth with: You do. No, I don't have to. You do. No, I don't have to. Sigh!
asked for data proving cellphones are dangerous...
I was run into by a woman driver on her cellphone, again. She stopped quickly, not paying attention to the surroundings and traffic because of the conversation distracting her, spun her cart around to go the other direction. She ran her cart into mine. It took her a lot more than 0.13 seconds to realize she had done something wrong in the traffic pattern. She gave a sort of apology but was mostly concerned about maintaining the conversation rather than extracting herself from a socially unacceptable position where she was blocking two other people in the aisle.
There's your proof for the person who always demands proof but won't accept the logical evidence given and repeats their demand for a slightly different kind of proof.
Okay my friend. Since there appears to be a wealth of information regarding cell phone usage, I'm asking your to disprove there is a correlation - causation effect? If I, we, the lawmakers, can't prove there is a correlation-causation, it should be easy for you to prove there is no correlation-causation. Thus...meaning using cell phones inequivocably has a zero contribution rate to car crashes.
Your analysis could stem the tide of needless legislation and enforcement and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt cell phones are safe. Right? We have two options: they are safe or they are not safe. If they are not safe they should be banned, if they are safe it doesn't matter.
Don't quote me a study, give me a detailed analysis I can hand to the Gov of California that would change his mind. Because I am going to ask you to forward your analysis to legislators all over the world to review. I think that would be fitting, don't you?
To end this debate once and for all, pch, tpe etc, should be able to show without a shadow of a doubt cell phones are safe given we are all using the same information base. It's not me that has to prove they are unsafe, it is you that has to prove they are safe. And maybe after that analysis you could take a look at drunk driving and show why those (ineffective) laws should be repealed because there is no correlation-causation to a single drunk driver getting into a car crash.
To end this debate once and for all, pch, tpe etc, should be able to show without a shadow of a doubt cell phones are safe
Strawman alert: Nobody argued that phones were "safe", just as nobody argued that cupholders, CD changers and passengers in seats were "safe". "Safe" is not the issue here.
This question of yours is a non-issue. You're just trying to sidestep your burden of proof yet again.
"This question of yours is a non-issue. You're just trying to sidestep your burden of proof yet again"
Wrong. Dead wrong. There is pleny of evidence to prove cell phone usage in cars is not a good thing. Not only do you have a strawman argument, but it appears you don't fully understand the studies to date.
Honestly, I have nothing else to say on this. You have an opportunity to prove cell phones are safe given the number of studies to date. The evidence is clear. I would like to see your statistical analysis, to show there is no correlation between cell phone use and car crashes. Come on, you can do it. 40 countries' governments plus a number of states' lawmakers are missing what you are seeing. So please enlighten us.
Don't come back with strawman alert..yada..yada..yada nonsense. Just your analysis that can be used to show why "we" are all dead wrong. I'll bet you can't and you will pin the issue on my lack of understanding and/or comprehension.
Not only do you have a strawman argument, but it appears you don't fully understand the studies to date.
You mean like the study that you misquoted and obviously didn't understand for several pages of this forum? Come now, there's no point in continuing this if you're just going to resort to either making stuff up while sidestepping all of the questions.
"You mean like the study that you misquoted and obviously didn't understand for several pages of this forum? Come now, there's no point in continuing this if you're just going to resort to either making stuff up while sidestepping all of the questions"
Okay, I apologize for purposely misquoting the studies. It was in response to your pop-science analysis of the NHTSA data. So let's start from square one. I'd like to go real slow and have you answer these questions.
1. Do you agree that every cell phone study in the last 15 years have shown they can distract drivers and lead to car crashes? True or false.
2. Do you agree there are a number of studies that examine and measure different aspects of the behavior, buth they all come down to the same conclusion? Using cell phones increase the risk of driver error. True or false.
3. Can you provide an analysis that can show where there is no correlation between cell phone usage and car crashes. This is the big one. You keep side-stepping this. The world is waiting for someone to come up with this analysis.
Please feel free to come up with whatever answer you choose. You are the arbiter of this for the world. If you come up with the right answer, 40 countries will magically remove their restrictions on cell phone usage including the US?
I've already made my case. And it is backed by 40 countries and a number of states. These countries understand my analysis.
The clock is running. Tick, tick, tick. No pulp-fiction now!
You're still sidestepping. Show us some examples of an effective phone law, and then maybe I'll indulge you.
And you're still strawmaning. Nobody disputed the existence of studies, as flawed as some of them obviously are. The issue of contention is whether they actually demonstrate a real-world problem.
Based upon the real-world data, it should be clear that the problem is either small or non-existent. Given that a few people succeed in having the vast majority of crashes, it becomes clearer that crashes are related to bad drivers, not the objects or devices in their cars. Bad drivers will always find ways to crash, given the opportunity.
Got it. Another non-answer. Whether I'm "strawmanning" (sic) or not is irrelevant.
"Given that a few people succeed in having the vast majority of crashes"
Here's a 411 - strawman alert, strawman alert
You can't produce one shred of evidence that would have lawmakers reconsider their position. The reason you cannot do this is:
1. There is there is no data to support such a conclusion, 2. All of your energies have been directed at calling everything I post a straw-man. How can you do an analysis using the same data you want me to use, when it doesn't support your case...not one scintilla? You even refused to answer my question.
Thanks for proving my original point by lack of evidence on your side. In case you need a reminder: My original point is cell phone usage leads to driver distraction. This is not my opinion, it is the opinion of studies in the last 15 years. Driver distraction is not a good thing especially with a behavior as wide-spread as cell phones, and I support laws banning usage of widespread behaviors that lead to more car crashes. Have fun with my strawman.
In the interest of not being rude, I have proven my point sufficiently. If you want to discuss this with me further, you can try to prove your point...the world is watching.
Come on, guys. This discussion has degenerated into a finger-pointing argument between the two of you, which makes it hard for other members to participate in an open discussion.
It's obvious that neither of you is going to budge an inch from his position, so unless either one of you has something new to add to the discussion for the benefit of everyone on the forums, I suggest you take the personal argument off-line and cease the endless rehashing of the same points that are exclusively directed towards each other.
... that there will ever be a "balanced" meeting of the minds on cell phone restriction laws.
Opponents of restriction appear to want to have verifiable proof, in a "before vs. after" analysis, that they actually lower accident rates and save lives. That's not a completely unreasonable request.
However, it appears to me, at least from the DC law, that it was enacted proactively to try to prevent an escalation of accidents as cell phone use was proliferating. Rare is the person today who has not seen numerous drivers on a cell phone cause at least a near miss with or incovenience to another driver. I actually applaud lawmakers from not sitting on their hands and waiting for statistics to pile up before they do something reactively. But again, as I stated before, I haven't "suffered" from the elimination of my personal freedom to use a hand held phone while driving in terms of business, social or personal metrics. Heck, just in the past month, the three country clubs I've been to for various business functions have all instituted a "no cell phone" policy in the clubhouse. And this is where a substantial number of the 2.4% bigger "big shots" than me conduct business.
The gun and drug law examples also highlight that laws, by themselves, aren't guaranteed to succeed. I can't legally own a handgun in DC in my own home as protection, even though I would like to. As a law abiding professional, the penalty for violating that law would be devastating to me personally and professionally. But that same penalty is a slap on the wrist joke for a drug dealer or criminal, hence 85%+ of the solved murders in DC in 2004/5 were committed by someone who had a previous gun violation on their record. Now, if DC backed up their law with a mandatory 5+ year prison sentence or, as one politician privately suggested, hand amputation (so the offender can no longer use a handgun), the law would become a much more effective deterrent.
I do wish we could police ourselves better as a society, but I think the cell phone phenominon has brought out the worst in some. As recently as 10 years ago, it was still mostly the instrument of the educated professional that was willing to pay 25 cents or more per minute for the privaledge. Now for $50 a month, anybody can yap away at to their hearts content. And check out the latest music videos, stock prices, etc. I personally don't need a Phase Three FDA study that takes 3+ years of controlled statistical analysis to know that a 17 year old that is already a risk is even more of one with a cell phone in his/her hand. And, perhaps I'm just an old fart, but I don't see any need for them to be holding it as a civil right.
In the end, this will be a judgement call of legislators and not a crystal clear black and white statistical analysis.
"I guess opponents of cell phone laws would prefer that a long history of statistically significant data be collected from areas withoutout such laws that are in a steady state use of cell phones as the "baseline" and see if a decline in accidents occurs when the laws are imposed. But we are still seeing a dramatic increase in use, not just in the number of phones out there, but in the frequency of their use."
Right on. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by putting down my cell phone when the car goes into drive. Some people do not feel that way, I can only guess they feel it is their "right" to use a cell phone.
Without waiting 70 years to address a problem, I applaud the lawmakers for stepping up the plate in an attempt to save lives on the road.
I don't need "proof" it is bad to tell me these laws are a good thing.
Ever heard of "innocent until proven guilty"? How can you embrace a legislative philosophy that gives the lawmaker carte blanche to random lawmaking until proven wrong? Hey, why don't we pass a law that says kdshapiro is the primary cause for global warming, therefore his life should be banned?? Rising temperature and your life on earth actually correlate quite well. If you are really a lawmaker (as in your statement "we, the lawmakers"), I feel sorry for your constituents.
I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by putting down my cell phone when the car goes into drive.
That's patentedly wrong. People pay for cell phones and pay for minutes obviously because the use is worth something. If the standard of legislation of banning something is that the legislator himself not feeling losing anything from the ban, can male legislators pass laws banning women from voting and vice versa??
"How can you embrace a legislative philosophy that is that gives the lawmaker carte blanche to random lawmaking until proven wrong?"
This is a country founded on free speech. I can have any opinion I choose as long as what I say, do, write falls within the law. Let's not come up with these ridiculous arguments in an attempt to discredit 15 years of study.
"I feel sorry for your constituents."
Sorry, I've seen you write "more intelligent sentences" than this. You are obviously a "bright person", this has little to do with the price of tea.
"That's patentedly wrong. People pay for cell phones and pay for minutes obviously because the use is worth something."
By your reasoning, people pay for beer, wine and liquor. They should be allowed to drive while drunk with an open bottle in the car, for they paid for it and it is theirs.
Sorry to say your analogies really do not give credit to your deductive reasoning. Could it be there really is no defense against the pile of evidence accumulated in the last 15 years? Which I may add has been seen/adopted by 40 countries in the world that resulted in some form of legislation.
IMHO, there is a generational gap on this issue, very similar to the Rock-n-Roll ban of half a century ago. I have been using cellphones for over a decade, so I'm somewhat of an old fart myself. The younger generation that has grown up yapping away while doing other things can multi-task a lot better than us old farts.
I can't legally own a handgun in DC in my own home as protection, even though I would like to
And somehow, instead of advocating for your own 2nd amendment rights, you'd prefer a more stringent gun ban? Did it ever occur to you that when guns are out lawed only oulaws have guns was easily forseen by the founding fathers? (and the curent reality in most other countries) and that a government having amputation as a form of punishment on its books is a lot more despotic than what we have (hence the ban against "cruel and unusal punishment"). Then again, DC has slid quite far from the spirit of Constitution, along the path from responsible government to tyranny and chaos. It's pretty sad that a professional goes along with that game.
By your reasoning, people pay for beer, wine and liquor. They should be allowed to drive while drunk with an open bottle in the car, for they paid for it and it is theirs.
Good try for switching topic. The point being whether a phone being on is worthwhile or not: you said turning a phone off is no loss to you, that just may not be the case for others. Alcohol is entertainment, phones are communication devices, entirely different stories. Communication is fundamental to the well being of commerce and econmy. Why don't you legislate banning cars? After all, that's a communication device that kills 35-50,000 people a year! I'm sure some of your fellow lawmakers would find it no loss at all from banning cars.
Could it be there really is no defense against the pile of evidence accumulated in the last 15 years?
The evidence is overwheming: Cellphone use has gone up by a couple orders of magnitude, yet accident death rates have gone down. If anything, a statistic argument can be made that cellphones help reduce accidents . . . perhaps a quick phone call "I will be late for 5 min" reduces the need for speeding?
Which I may add has been seen/adopted by 40 countries in the world that resulted in some form of legislation.
That internationalist mafia cartel lawmaking argument is getting really old. More than 40 countries in the world have laws establishing official religion of the state. Does that mean we should follow too? I mean, do we really want to promote that kind of "harmony"??
I agree. This is a generation gap issue. This generation takes absolutely no responsibility for anything. If a McDonalds cup of coffee is spilled on a lap, it is McDonalds that is liable - not the idiot who spilled the coffee. If a murder occurs with DNA evidence, eyewitness evidence and fingerprint evidence and the investigative cop forgets to dot the i on the police report, it is the system at fault and the suspect is released.
If I have an motor vehicle accident while talking on a cell phone, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with me being a selfish idiot, it must be the automakers fault or due to global warming.
15 years of study in what? There is no iota of evidence that cellphone cause accidents in any real life statistical sense. If anything, 15 years of dramatic increase in cellphone ownership has correlated to dramaticly lower accident rate. Perhaps, a quick phone call "I will be 5min late" helps reduce the need for speeding? a quick "honey, can you pick up the milk on your way" helps reduce unnecessary traffic? What you see may be the one out of ten thousand of those phone calls where the driver almost caused an accident, but you don't see is the other 9999 times when opportunities for accidents are eliminated to begin with.
If as a lawmaker, your philosophy is that you have carte blanche to make laws that enrich yourself, I really do feel sorry for your consituents.
Actually, the McDonalds case and DNA defense cases are all at the instigation of the babyboomer generation, very much old farts compared to the generation growing up multitaksing with cellphones. What's interesting is that, the younger generation is turning out to be much more caring about their fellow human beings than the "me me me" babyboomer generation. The danger there is actually not letting the younger generation become overly activist day dreamers trying to build heaven on earth (which inevitably becomes dystopia).
"There is no iota of evidence that cellphone cause accidents in any real life statistical sense. If anything"
Jeez, Louise. That's the same discussion with my edmunds co-poster pch101. Ya' know what. 40 countries can't be wrong. You figure it out. I'm not going there again.
"What's your response to the simple statistic case that over the past 15yrs, cell phone ownership has gone up by more than two orders of magnitude, yet traffic accidents and death rates have gone down?"
The simplistic answer is we don't know. There are approximately 24,000 non-alchol related deaths in the US and 7.2 million collisions. Can you tell me the percentage of collisions where the root cause was cell phone use and the percentage of the 24,000 where the root cause was cell phone use. I would like nothing more for you to tell the world it is zero, nada, nothing, zilch.
Yet, accidents rates have gone down over the past 15yrs while cellphone use have gone up by orders of magnitude. Can you honestly say that people who speed to make appointments because they can not make the "I will be late by 5min" phone call have zero chance of causing accidents? Can you say the extra trips one has to make because the phone call "can you pick up milk on your way?" is not answered has nada chance of leading to accident?
Is the chance of cellphone causing accidents a wash against cellphones helping avoiding the circumstances that would normally have a finite probability of accidents? Remember, the statistics consistently show that the accident rates have gone down while the cellphone ownership have gone up dramaticly. Both trends are very much statisticly significant.
Every time we are talking about communication devices, there is a thing called "opprotunity cost," which historically over-zealous lawmakers tend to overlook. Half a millenium ago, it was easy to see that sailing off to the horizon entailed great risk of deaths, yet banning it (like Japan and China did) led to economic stagnation and political monopolies that caused far more deaths. Cars faced plenty advocates agitating for banning in its early years; what became obvious later was that the economic prosperity and progress brought on by autmobiles save far more lives; that's why the car is not banned despite its clearly responsible for 35-50k direct deaths. Far more lives are indirectly saved by it, statisticly speaking thanks to the prosperity brought on by cars. Likewise, cell phone use in cars may be directly linked to certain accidents, it's the other orders magnitude more situations where cell phone use in cars help avoid situations otherwise would have had a high probability of accidents and deaths that make the whole situation very different from just focusing on tracing events from accidents. The larger statistic of massively increasing cellphone use correlating to significant reduction in accident and death rates is proving the point.
We have been throwing around a lot of numbers and for the most part they have been in an attempt to prove or disprove a political action. The people doing these studies have no motivation other than political or strictly informational to even do these studies but what about someone that has a monetary interest? What about the Insurance industry themselves? The Insurance Research Council has a vested interest to provide information that allows their customer to determine cost based on accidents.
We will all have to agree that the insurance industry is not in business to spend money if they can help it? So if they do a study and make a report to their members it would at the very lest be as accurate as possible? If that is the case then some questions have to be asked. We all know the number of divers have been going up between 1980 and 2003? Over the last 20 years the insurance industry has accepted property damage reports as an indicator of the accident rate in this country because it is reported by all 50 states by both the industry and the states themselves. With that in mind the accident or property damage rate has decreased by 20 percent to 3.97 property damage claims per 100. Now during that same period of time cell phones have increased by thousands. Some may assert that the increased percentage of Bodily injury rate for those 3.97 per 100 can be attributed to cell phones but I don’t see how? Reported accidents have been going down at the very same time that Cell phones use has been going up. No one can conclude that Bodily injury rates can be attributed to cell phones on the one hand because they have increased and deny that the accident rates themselves have decreased. It must also be remembered that the Bodily injury rate during this same reporting time reached it highest point in 1995 and has decreased by three percentage points during the rest of the reporting period.
So the question is simply this. If cell phone usage can be attributed as a major contributor to accidents how do we reconcile the accident rates themselves going down? If cell phone use has increased by 25, 50, or 100 percent then accidents rates themselves should reflect such an increase. If the accident rate has shown such a steady decline the increased cell phone use should show some slowing in the decline or something like a reverse spike. But that hasn’t happened. If we even try to attribute the Bodily injury rate, and I can’t imagine how you could do that, then the greatest increase in cell phones had to happen after 1995 and even the bodily injury rate declined after that time.
There is absolutely no way the insurance industry itself would skew these numbers to favor cell phone use if they believed cell phones could be attributed to them having to pay out increased claims. So what exactly are the laws pre-empting? A decreased Accident rate?
Comments
You are absolutely correct. And I never claimed there was a lack of evidence or informed judgement. I only claimed there is a lack of statistics.
The NHTSA has been collecting data for 40 years, yet it took the government a good 10 years after that to get into high gear with drunk driving legislation. Point is you can have volumes of data and no information.
Oops, I think you stepped into do-do with that analogy. As I am sure you are aware, the US, with it's lax gun control laws, has by many orders of magnitude the highest homicide rate of any industrialized nation. From a "statistical" analysis
ATLANTA -- The United States has by far the highest rate of gun deaths -- murders, suicides and accidents -- among the world's 36 richest nations, a government study found.
The U.S. rate for gun deaths in 1994 was 14.24 per 100,000 people. Japan had the lowest rate, at .05 per 100,000.....
You are right, behind every one of those guns was a person pulling a trigger. Just like behind every cell phone is a person pushing the buttons. But I think you made a better case for kdshapiro's position by bringing up the gun analogy.
I think I understand your civil libertarian orientation, even if I don't particluarly care for the fact that the ACLU is more concerned about giving liberties to criminals than protecting the innocent. But are you actually personally convinced that cell phone use does not create a safety hazard and increase the likelihood of an accident for some (if not most) drivers?
On the other hand there is every reason to believe recall of gun control laws will make the problem worse. But that is neither here nor there. There are many seeming inadequate laws on the books that I wouldn't want recalled. I mentioned two of them earlier.
It really doesn't matter whether laws are effective, some laws need to be on the books in a complex society such as ours.
Here is something I didn't know.
http://www.dui.com/states/california/dui_library/dui_legislation.html
NY and CA had drunk driving laws circa 1910. What astounded me is it took 70 for the start of a get tough attitude.
Need to give these cell phones laws a chance and the stats to catch up. If it took 70 years for get tough DUI legislation it will take a few for the cell phones.
I personally do not care if I lose the right to talk in a car. I'm willing to give up some rights, to make the roads safer. Anyone who sees a cell phone user driving erratically, swerving, tailgating etc and then believes the laws are off-base, is not someone who is thinking rationally.
It should not be astounding at all. Religious fervor (mellinialism) hits the public every 60-70 years or so. 1910's was the prohibition era, 1980's was the war on drugs and get tough on alcohol laws, 1840'-50's was the first prohibition movement and emancipation movement. What it really comes down to is that another generation of suckers are born and raised in prosperity, and grow up to believe that it's their god-given right to meddle in other people's affairs through the expansion of government (what else?), wihtout realizing the intrinsicly corrupting power of power itself. The result is usually catastrophic, and takes the following generation or two to clean up the mess, and let the economy to recover and grow for the next cycle.
Indeed it was. She can provide data to substantiate her argument -- you can't.
The gun control argument is a good example. Industrialized nations that have imposed it have lower homicide rates than does the US; in contrast, there is no such parallel in respect to phone laws. Likewise, we have seen greater decreases in homicide rates in nations with gun control than without; no such claim can be made for crashes and fatalities in respect to phones.
If you want to defend the phone laws, then you should be able to use the same technique used by gun control advocates -- demonstrate how the laws are effective in places where they have been imposed. Yet you can't offer any example of an effective phone law, or show that those with phone laws are necessarily better off because of them. Your argument doesn't even come close.
Well said. And in the case of teenage drivers the primary people taking this risk are the ones with the most to lose; the parents that hand over the keys. Communication is a positive, beneficial thing. If it results in a risk there are a couple of choices. Eliminate the risk by eliminating the benefit or find a way to maintain the benefit and mitigate the risk. The pursuit of progress would dictate the latter.
Again, to your way of thinking, murder, rape and DUI laws ought to be abolished also.
Obviously, you were deflecting and are trying to avoid answering my rather straightforward question.
So why don't you just tell about these places with phone laws that got positive results from them? If the evidence is so compelling, don't be shy -- just share the results. So far, the list is short, it has zero places listed on it!
Just about every country has a lower homicide rate than the US. The simple answer is to blame it on lax gun control laws but we have a high murder rate by other means, e.g. knives, blunt objects, poison, etc.. You'd think that the easy access to guns would reduce the need to commit murders by these more crude methods. The indication is that there is something unique and definitely undesirable about our society that makes murder more palatable to some. I'm not intelligent enough to be able to explain the reason for this but I'm certain it is far more complex than the lack of the right laws. BTW, Canada may have even more lax gun control laws than the US yet there homicide rate is no where near what ours is.
Since I'm this far off topic I might as well continue. IMO, there is no more misguided and wasteful effort than our country's "war on drugs". It hasn't reduced drug use but it has filled our jails, provided funds for gangs and created negative role models for disadvantaged youths growing up in impoverished neighborhoods. All bad, but for a politician/legislator to make this statement would result in him being labeled as pro-drug use. Its a shame. You can't effectively solve a problem if you're unwilling to accept that your failed attempts didn't work.
It goes back to the correlation-causation discussion -- while correlation doesn't prove causation, causation demands correlation as a bare minimum. The real world data does show a correlation in respect to gun control laws, but does not in the case of the phone laws. At least one can reasonably take the gun control argument to the next level, but the phone argument is stopped dead in its tracks. (They may explain this futile effort to compare one's opposition of phone laws with support of legalized murder, as if these two things were at all comparable -- when he doesn't have a good answer, he tries to change the subject.)
Actually there is no data, like there was little data for drivers until the NHTSA starting data collection. There is however a lot of evidence, through 15 years of studies, to support what people anecdotally believe.
So until we prove that wireless technology usage is safe, ie texting, talking, watching, dialing, these laws are an appropriate conservative approach to what the studies show to be an issue.
redsoxgirl didn't show any data either, she merely made a astute point to a prior argument. But she did say her observation mirrors mine and others.
I believe we are much smarter now than we were years ago. We don't necessarily have to show people dying on the roads before we do something. We can observe non-attentive behavior in study after study and draw some logical conclusions. Maybe not the ones you want to see drawn. Maybe you should try to get a study published in NEJM on how cell phones are really safe, but every researcher in the last 15 years got it wrong. We are doing something before it hits the fan.
I'm waiting for someone to acknowledge the studies over the last 15 years show the worst of drivers when using cell phones instead of skirting over the issue. The correlation-causation is a bunch of BS. As I re-iterate, we don't need people dying on the road needlessly to prove a point. Hopefully as a society we are smarter than we were. But in reading some of these posts, I have to question where we really are.
There are over 40 countries that have phone prohibitions. Provide a before-and-after comparison from some of these countries that shows some signficant reductions in their accident and fatality rates, so that you can at least be on par with that other poster.
If you can't provide that information (and I know that you can't), then you should pause and ask yourself why you can't, if the evidence is allegedly so strong in favor of your position.
Since you are asking me to prove it, I'm going to ask you to prove it. Show me the statistics for countries that have these bans in place. Show me how the data collection process works and there is a reasonable set of statistics available to support your assertion there is no correlation-causation. Show me where people died due to cell phone use it was a random act or distraction. It should be easy? Right? Especially in the US.
I'm not going to do your leg work, I don't have to. All I need is a reasonable doubt cell phones aren't safe. I have that reasonable doubt. As a postscript approximately 40% of people die from alcohol related deaths according to the NHTSA. What do the other 60% die from?
Since you claim that the laws work, go provide examples of these laws and how well they work.
Otherwise, just admit that you don't really know the answer, so that we can move on. But if we do that, you're going to have to stop claiming that these laws are effective, because you obviously don't really know that to be true.
I'm not claiming laws work. I invite you to go to a country like Venezula or nation where the regime of the day rules. Countries where there citizens will cut off your head without blinking. Countries with a lot less laws than we do. Come back and tell us why some of these laws and their enforcement through our agencies might just be a good thing.
"Otherwise, just admit that you don't really know the answer,"
Of course I don't know the answer, neither do you. Nobody does. Even the NHTSA admits there is not enough statistical data, but plenty of evidence. Note the phase plenty of evidence. It is what you keep missing. You don't need to drop a rock out of the window to know it will hit the ground. It doesn't take brains to know a swerving idiot on a cell phone is not a good thing on the road.
How could anyone know the answer when no data has been collected. And just because no data has been collected, doesn't mean these laws should be recalled.
That's a cop out, and you know it.
Again, to demonstrate causation, you need to begin by showing correlation in some way, shape or form. And you can't do this.
It goes back to what has already been said before -- if phones had a dramatic effect on safety, then their restriction would result in huge swings in the data, yet these swings don't exist. If the overall accident and fatality rate is unchanged after a change in the law, logic would tell you that the law didn't do much of anything, otherwise the outcome would have been affected.
This is a simple matter of arithmetic, and either the numbers add up or they don't. In your case, they don't.
"Again, to demonstrate causation, you need to begin by showing correlation in some way, shape or form. And you can't do this."
We are at am impasse. I don't believe you have to show correlation-causation. And I do not have to prove anything.
And again I ask you, can you tell me how many people died on the road as a result of cell phone usage? According to the NHTSA about 24,000 people died as a result of non-alchol related deaths. Can you tell me how many of those 24000 were fatalities related to cell phones? Pick a number, big or small. Any country at all. It should be easy for you to prove cell phone usage has no effect on fatalities if you can come up with the number. And show this board where that number is published. A number from the NHTSA would probably be most meaningful to the discussion.
I can't account for your lack of insight on this subject. Rental companies now post warnings about cell phone usage to protect them from lawsuits. Employers are enforcing a notalk policy for cell phones to protect them from lawsuits. It has been proposed that cell phone providers provide a warning to protect them from lawsuits. All you have to do is search the internet: "cell phone fatalities nhtsa". You get a wealth of information suggestion talking and driving is a bad thing.
Ouch. Honestly, I don't know whether to laugh or cry after reading something as blatantly illogical as that!
The lawmakers don't feel it is necessary either. Somehow they understand the potential issue.
BTW - you never answered my question. What's the number? Or are we going to go back and forth with: You do. No, I don't have to. You do. No, I don't have to. Sigh!
What the lawmakers understand is the opportunity to get a cash windfall.
BTW - you never answered my question. What's the number?
The burden is on the initiators of the legislative proposal to come up with sound logical basis, and that includes a set of reliable numbers.
I was run into by a woman driver on her cellphone, again. She stopped quickly, not paying attention to the surroundings and traffic because of the conversation distracting her, spun her cart around to go the other direction. She ran her cart into mine. It took her a lot more than 0.13 seconds to realize she had done something wrong in the traffic pattern. She gave a sort of apology but was mostly concerned about maintaining the conversation rather than extracting herself from a socially unacceptable position where she was blocking two other people in the aisle.
There's your proof for the person who always demands proof but won't accept the logical evidence given and repeats their demand for a slightly different kind of proof.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Your analysis could stem the tide of needless legislation and enforcement and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt cell phones are safe. Right? We have two options: they are safe or they are not safe. If they are not safe they should be banned, if they are safe it doesn't matter.
Don't quote me a study, give me a detailed analysis I can hand to the Gov of California that would change his mind. Because I am going to ask you to forward your analysis to legislators all over the world to review. I think that would be fitting, don't you?
To end this debate once and for all, pch, tpe etc, should be able to show without a shadow of a doubt cell phones are safe given we are all using the same information base. It's not me that has to prove they are unsafe, it is you that has to prove they are safe. And maybe after that analysis you could take a look at drunk driving and show why those (ineffective) laws should be repealed because there is no correlation-causation to a single drunk driver getting into a car crash.
Strawman alert: Nobody argued that phones were "safe", just as nobody argued that cupholders, CD changers and passengers in seats were "safe". "Safe" is not the issue here.
This question of yours is a non-issue. You're just trying to sidestep your burden of proof yet again.
Wrong. Dead wrong. There is pleny of evidence to prove cell phone usage in cars is not a good thing. Not only do you have a strawman argument, but it appears you don't fully understand the studies to date.
Honestly, I have nothing else to say on this. You have an opportunity to prove cell phones are safe given the number of studies to date. The evidence is clear. I would like to see your statistical analysis, to show there is no correlation between cell phone use and car crashes. Come on, you can do it. 40 countries' governments plus a number of states' lawmakers are missing what you are seeing. So please enlighten us.
Don't come back with strawman alert..yada..yada..yada nonsense. Just your analysis that can be used to show why "we" are all dead wrong. I'll bet you can't and you will pin the issue on my lack of understanding and/or comprehension.
You mean like the study that you misquoted and obviously didn't understand for several pages of this forum? Come now, there's no point in continuing this if you're just going to resort to either making stuff up while sidestepping all of the questions.
Okay, I apologize for purposely misquoting the studies. It was in response to your pop-science analysis of the NHTSA data. So let's start from square one. I'd like to go real slow and have you answer these questions.
1. Do you agree that every cell phone study in the last 15 years have shown they can distract drivers and lead to car crashes? True or false.
2. Do you agree there are a number of studies that examine and measure different aspects of the behavior, buth they all come down to the same conclusion? Using cell phones increase the risk of driver error. True or false.
3. Can you provide an analysis that can show where there is no correlation between cell phone usage and car crashes. This is the big one. You keep side-stepping this. The world is waiting for someone to come up with this analysis.
Please feel free to come up with whatever answer you choose. You are the arbiter of this for the world. If you come up with the right answer, 40 countries will magically remove their restrictions on cell phone usage including the US?
I've already made my case. And it is backed by 40 countries and a number of states. These countries understand my analysis.
The clock is running. Tick, tick, tick. No pulp-fiction now!
And you're still strawmaning. Nobody disputed the existence of studies, as flawed as some of them obviously are. The issue of contention is whether they actually demonstrate a real-world problem.
Based upon the real-world data, it should be clear that the problem is either small or non-existent. Given that a few people succeed in having the vast majority of crashes, it becomes clearer that crashes are related to bad drivers, not the objects or devices in their cars. Bad drivers will always find ways to crash, given the opportunity.
"Given that a few people succeed in having the vast majority of crashes"
Here's a 411 - strawman alert, strawman alert
You can't produce one shred of evidence that would have lawmakers reconsider their position. The reason you cannot do this is:
1. There is there is no data to support such a conclusion,
2. All of your energies have been directed at calling everything I post a straw-man. How can you do an analysis using the same data you want me to use, when it doesn't support your case...not one scintilla? You even refused to answer my question.
Thanks for proving my original point by lack of evidence on your side. In case you need a reminder: My original point is cell phone usage leads to driver distraction. This is not my opinion, it is the opinion of studies in the last 15 years. Driver distraction is not a good thing especially with a behavior as wide-spread as cell phones, and I support laws banning usage of widespread behaviors that lead to more car crashes. Have fun with my strawman.
In the interest of not being rude, I have proven my point sufficiently. If you want to discuss this with me further, you can try to prove your point...the world is watching.
It's obvious that neither of you is going to budge an inch from his position, so unless either one of you has something new to add to the discussion for the benefit of everyone on the forums, I suggest you take the personal argument off-line and cease the endless rehashing of the same points that are exclusively directed towards each other.
Thanks.
Eltonron
Host- Automotive News & Views
Opponents of restriction appear to want to have verifiable proof, in a "before vs. after" analysis, that they actually lower accident rates and save lives. That's not a completely unreasonable request.
However, it appears to me, at least from the DC law, that it was enacted proactively to try to prevent an escalation of accidents as cell phone use was proliferating. Rare is the person today who has not seen numerous drivers on a cell phone cause at least a near miss with or incovenience to another driver. I actually applaud lawmakers from not sitting on their hands and waiting for statistics to pile up before they do something reactively. But again, as I stated before, I haven't "suffered" from the elimination of my personal freedom to use a hand held phone while driving in terms of business, social or personal metrics. Heck, just in the past month, the three country clubs I've been to for various business functions have all instituted a "no cell phone" policy in the clubhouse. And this is where a substantial number of the 2.4% bigger "big shots" than me conduct business.
The gun and drug law examples also highlight that laws, by themselves, aren't guaranteed to succeed. I can't legally own a handgun in DC in my own home as protection, even though I would like to. As a law abiding professional, the penalty for violating that law would be devastating to me personally and professionally. But that same penalty is a slap on the wrist joke for a drug dealer or criminal, hence 85%+ of the solved murders in DC in 2004/5 were committed by someone who had a previous gun violation on their record. Now, if DC backed up their law with a mandatory 5+ year prison sentence or, as one politician privately suggested, hand amputation (so the offender can no longer use a handgun), the law would become a much more effective deterrent.
I do wish we could police ourselves better as a society, but I think the cell phone phenominon has brought out the worst in some. As recently as 10 years ago, it was still mostly the instrument of the educated professional that was willing to pay 25 cents or more per minute for the privaledge. Now for $50 a month, anybody can yap away at to their hearts content. And check out the latest music videos, stock prices, etc. I personally don't need a Phase Three FDA study that takes 3+ years of controlled statistical analysis to know that a 17 year old that is already a risk is even more of one with a cell phone in his/her hand. And, perhaps I'm just an old fart, but I don't see any need for them to be holding it as a civil right.
In the end, this will be a judgement call of legislators and not a crystal clear black and white statistical analysis.
Right on. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by putting down my cell phone when the car goes into drive. Some people do not feel that way, I can only guess they feel it is their "right" to use a cell phone.
Without waiting 70 years to address a problem, I applaud the lawmakers for stepping up the plate in an attempt to save lives on the road.
I don't need "proof" it is bad to tell me these laws are a good thing.
That's patentedly wrong. People pay for cell phones and pay for minutes obviously because the use is worth something. If the standard of legislation of banning something is that the legislator himself not feeling losing anything from the ban, can male legislators pass laws banning women from voting and vice versa??
"How can you embrace a legislative philosophy that is that gives the lawmaker carte blanche to random lawmaking until proven wrong?"
This is a country founded on free speech. I can have any opinion I choose as long as what I say, do, write falls within the law. Let's not come up with these ridiculous arguments in an attempt to discredit 15 years of study.
"I feel sorry for your constituents."
Sorry, I've seen you write "more intelligent sentences" than this. You are obviously a "bright person", this has little to do with the price of tea.
By your reasoning, people pay for beer, wine and liquor. They should be allowed to drive while drunk with an open bottle in the car, for they paid for it and it is theirs.
Sorry to say your analogies really do not give credit to your deductive reasoning. Could it be there really is no defense against the pile of evidence accumulated in the last 15 years? Which I may add has been seen/adopted by 40 countries in the world that resulted in some form of legislation.
I can't legally own a handgun in DC in my own home as protection, even though I would like to
And somehow, instead of advocating for your own 2nd amendment rights, you'd prefer a more stringent gun ban? Did it ever occur to you that when guns are out lawed only oulaws have guns was easily forseen by the founding fathers? (and the curent reality in most other countries) and that a government having amputation as a form of punishment on its books is a lot more despotic than what we have (hence the ban against "cruel and unusal punishment"). Then again, DC has slid quite far from the spirit of Constitution, along the path from responsible government to tyranny and chaos. It's pretty sad that a professional goes along with that game.
Good try for switching topic. The point being whether a phone being on is worthwhile or not: you said turning a phone off is no loss to you, that just may not be the case for others. Alcohol is entertainment, phones are communication devices, entirely different stories. Communication is fundamental to the well being of commerce and econmy. Why don't you legislate banning cars? After all, that's a communication device that kills 35-50,000 people a year! I'm sure some of your fellow lawmakers would find it no loss at all from banning cars.
Could it be there really is no defense against the pile of evidence accumulated in the last 15 years?
The evidence is overwheming: Cellphone use has gone up by a couple orders of magnitude, yet accident death rates have gone down. If anything, a statistic argument can be made that cellphones help reduce accidents . . . perhaps a quick phone call "I will be late for 5 min" reduces the need for speeding?
Which I may add has been seen/adopted by 40 countries in the world that resulted in some form of legislation.
That internationalist mafia cartel lawmaking argument is getting really old. More than 40 countries in the world have laws establishing official religion of the state. Does that mean we should follow too? I mean, do we really want to promote that kind of "harmony"??
If I have an motor vehicle accident while talking on a cell phone, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with me being a selfish idiot, it must be the automakers fault or due to global warming.
If as a lawmaker, your philosophy is that you have carte blanche to make laws that enrich yourself, I really do feel sorry for your consituents.
Jeez, Louise. That's the same discussion with my edmunds co-poster pch101. Ya' know what. 40 countries can't be wrong. You figure it out. I'm not going there again.
The simplistic answer is we don't know. There are approximately 24,000 non-alchol related deaths in the US and 7.2 million collisions. Can you tell me the percentage of collisions where the root cause was cell phone use and the percentage of the 24,000 where the root cause was cell phone use. I would like nothing more for you to tell the world it is zero, nada, nothing, zilch.
Is the chance of cellphone causing accidents a wash against cellphones helping avoiding the circumstances that would normally have a finite probability of accidents? Remember, the statistics consistently show that the accident rates have gone down while the cellphone ownership have gone up dramaticly. Both trends are very much statisticly significant.
Every time we are talking about communication devices, there is a thing called "opprotunity cost," which historically over-zealous lawmakers tend to overlook. Half a millenium ago, it was easy to see that sailing off to the horizon entailed great risk of deaths, yet banning it (like Japan and China did) led to economic stagnation and political monopolies that caused far more deaths. Cars faced plenty advocates agitating for banning in its early years; what became obvious later was that the economic prosperity and progress brought on by autmobiles save far more lives; that's why the car is not banned despite its clearly responsible for 35-50k direct deaths. Far more lives are indirectly saved by it, statisticly speaking thanks to the prosperity brought on by cars. Likewise, cell phone use in cars may be directly linked to certain accidents, it's the other orders magnitude more situations where cell phone use in cars help avoid situations otherwise would have had a high probability of accidents and deaths that make the whole situation very different from just focusing on tracing events from accidents. The larger statistic of massively increasing cellphone use correlating to significant reduction in accident and death rates is proving the point.
We will all have to agree that the insurance industry is not in business to spend money if they can help it? So if they do a study and make a report to their members it would at the very lest be as accurate as possible? If that is the case then some questions have to be asked. We all know the number of divers have been going up between 1980 and 2003? Over the last 20 years the insurance industry has accepted property damage reports as an indicator of the accident rate in this country because it is reported by all 50 states by both the industry and the states themselves. With that in mind the accident or property damage rate has decreased by 20 percent to 3.97 property damage claims per 100. Now during that same period of time cell phones have increased by thousands. Some may assert that the increased percentage of Bodily injury rate for those 3.97 per 100 can be attributed to cell phones but I don’t see how? Reported accidents have been going down at the very same time that Cell phones use has been going up. No one can conclude that Bodily injury rates can be attributed to cell phones on the one hand because they have increased and deny that the accident rates themselves have decreased. It must also be remembered that the Bodily injury rate during this same reporting time reached it highest point in 1995 and has decreased by three percentage points during the rest of the reporting period.
So the question is simply this. If cell phone usage can be attributed as a major contributor to accidents how do we reconcile the accident rates themselves going down? If cell phone use has increased by 25, 50, or 100 percent then accidents rates themselves should reflect such an increase. If the accident rate has shown such a steady decline the increased cell phone use should show some slowing in the decline or something like a reverse spike. But that hasn’t happened. If we even try to attribute the Bodily injury rate, and I can’t imagine how you could do that, then the greatest increase in cell phones had to happen after 1995 and even the bodily injury rate declined after that time.
There is absolutely no way the insurance industry itself would skew these numbers to favor cell phone use if they believed cell phones could be attributed to them having to pay out increased claims. So what exactly are the laws pre-empting? A decreased Accident rate?