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Comments
I have adjusted the radio while in motion. One of the few at fault accidents I have had was back in the 70's when I took my eyes off the road to switch stations and hit a guy who was sitting at a green light not moving. Never would have happened if I had been looking.
Answered a cell phone ONCE while driving. I was trying to press the right button and almost went off the road. Scared the hell out of me. I don't EVER use a cell phone in the car now.
From my limited experience I have to say that cell phones are the most dangerous driving activity. Every time lately that I see a bad driving move I also see a cell phone stuck to the drivers ear. They are driving in this world but their minds are in another world.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Yep. And one doesn't need to go very far to find a few samples on the road.
Maybe they will warn against writing code using C++ or old Assembler because that would be very distractful. Simpler uses while driving would be encouraged.
It's actually more egregious to talk on the cell phones. Studies have shown impairment worse than a drunk.
If a bee stings you on the neck and you kill me because you lost control of your car, you should not be jailed. If you were sipping coffee and lost control of your car and killed, you probably shouldn't be jailed either, but you have a failure to maintain vehicle control. If you were talking on the phone and you killed me, you should go to jail. Talking on the cell phone has been shown to result in driving the equivalent of a drunk.
How many drivers think about this? Would guess that only a very tiny minority. That is why responsible government and lawmakers have to step in and protect society at large with laws.
This is same situation that has been covered here before with example of open liquour container in vehicle. It is just better and safer for everyone that open liquour is not in vehicles lest driver be tempted to use. Law is clear and well publicized.
Same will be true when total cell phone ban laws are put in across 50 States. With good publicity, enforcement, tv ads, driving public will then get message and most will abide. Just as with drunken drivers, there still will be those drivers who violate law and will use cell phone while driving. Perhaps technology in future will be able to find and prosecute them readily or even preclude use of cell phone by driver somehow.
CDs require a lot more precise movements to load, in addition to being very hard to get out of the case.
No, I don't want to make it illegal, I am just surprised there haven't been a few law suits over it. I would imagine if there were, someone would redesign the case to be simpler to use.
The picture should be displayed on the windshield as a heads-up display.
No one is going to spend the money for the TV adds for anti cell phone use and with people waiting in line for days to plop out more than 500 bucks for a Iphone that not only makes calls but surfs the web I don't think we will see a ground swell against the evils of cell phone us. But maybe if someone connected it to the evils of rock music lyrics and have Tipper Gore as a spokes person? We have debated this issue for months and no one has changed their minds. Cell phone use is going up, accidents rates are going down so it will get harder and harder to convince people that the cell phone technology is too difficult for them to assess the risks using them while driving. Though I did read about someone trying to pass an anti eating and anti smoking ban in some state.
As many have said before. Death rates are going down as are accident rates per thousand. Cell phone use has been going up in geometric numbers. It is pretty hard to prove cell phones are "responsible" for accidents and without such proof people are simply going to donate to a campane to stop cell phones from being used. There is even less chance that someone that uses a cell phone will support such laws. It would be very interesting to see such a thing put to a vote. One thing we have learned about democracy is that all it takes to stop an unpopular law is money and somehow I don't see anti cell phone people as the kind that will put their money out there to fund a proposition like that even here in the Golden State.
While they all conclude that using a cell phone while driving represents an increased risk they also all conclude that cell phone use has little impact on lane discipline. Do you agree with this?
Until there is widespread accurate data collection from police agencies and insurance companies no one will really know.
Given that people say US drivers are the worst in the world, one has to wonder.
Still if there is no reliable information and the raw numbers show a decrease in the rate of accidents or injuries per 1000 you have to question the assertion that cell phones are causing more accidents. If cell phones were a significant cause the massive increase in useage should by reason increase the numbers we are talking about. If cell phone use has increased anything close to the numbers that sales would indicate then someone should have to explain why accidents haven't increased by a number indicating the increased cell phone use. Because those numbers can't or at least haven't been demonstrated by an increase in reported accidents per 1000 it seems silly to assume cell phones caused more accidents. One would also expect states with cell phone bans to have a Significantly lower accident rate than states without such a ban. If that isn't the case and some of the posted studies show it isn't, once again it is pure emotion and not science these laws are being promoted on.
By the way the last poster to admit having an accident while driving admitted to being distracted while tuning his radio, an act you contend would not cause such a distraction. Still is there a law other than driving while distracted dealing with radio adjusting?
And my conclusions are no more or no less valid than yours, you admit you lack the data to support yours and simply feel a better safe than sorry attitude is required.
Where do you come up with this nonsense? This is totally made up on your part. I guarantee you've never seen any other source that uses these 3 categories for crashes. It's ludicrous.
There are numerous crashes that can't be categorized because the truth will never be known. I'm postulating increased cell phone usage could play a part.
I never said US was the worst. What I said, was that on this board it has been said US drivers are the worst.
"If cell phones were a significant cause the massive increase in useage should by reason increase the numbers we are talking about."
I'm saying the facts are not knows, because of the system of data collection as it stands.
"And my conclusions are no more or no less valid than yours, you admit you lack the data to support yours and simply feel a better safe than sorry attitude is required."
My only conclusion is the plethora of studies on cell phone usage. And yes, a better safe than sorry attitude is in order here. IMO.
While they all conclude that using a cell phone while driving represents an increased risk they also all conclude that cell phone use has little impact on lane discipline. Do you agree with this?
One of the big measures the studies use for driving performance is standard deviation of lane position. The way it works is when the driver is focused on driving, there is very little variance of lane position, it looks like a very high frequency, very low amplitude function. As attention wains, the frequency goes down and the amplitude goes up. It mirrors the Std Deviation of steering wheel angle (another measure).
Most of the studies I have read show a decrement in driving performance in the area of lane position. This leads to lane busts (going out of the lane) which can correlate to crashes.
I guess the short answer is no, I think it does result in increased lane variance and lane deviation, although some discrete tasks (especially/visual manual) can be worse than others. I'm curious as to why those studies found an increased risk without noting a loss of driving performance (unless they were using another measure).
Seems like there are only 2 people on the wrong side of this issue.
Cell phone use is going up, accidents rates are going down so it will get harder and harder to convince people that the cell phone technology is too difficult for them to assess the risks using them while driving.
Ergo, maybe we need to encourage more drivers to use cell phone while driving, try to get 100 percent of drivers to have cell phones, try to encourage people to defer calls they might have made at home or in office to do while driving. Goal should be: always be talking on cell phone while driving.
You get the gold star for the post that coalesces the conversation in the last 2593 post with the right touch of sarcasm. Nice job!
Here is what we all know. Death and injury accidents are going down. Cell phone use is going up at the same time. Not only is cell phone use going up it is going up by staggering numbers. States with cell phone bans are not reporting an additional decrease in the accident rate after placing the ban on the books. Hands free cell phones are not being restricted and so cell phone use is not likely to be reduced by these laws. So how are these laws different from spitting in the wind?
Every time there is a new technology there are people that predict it will be the end of life as we know it. But sooner or later the human spirit adapts the technology to the point that even the skittish accept it. My mother in law will still not use a DVD player and only heats coffee in her microwave. She still isn't sure it doesn't cause cancer if you stand in front of it while it is on. There is no proof but she reasons if the microwave will cook food they might escape and cook her. Sounds reasonable but most people still use microwaves.
Let us assume a hands free ban works as intended. Lets assume the police become as observant as one might hope and the parking ticket sized fine has the effect of keeping people off of their hand held units. Every unit sold today has an ear bud and after market head sets. It would cost people less that 30 bucks or what might be seven large Starbucks to be legal under the current laws. Will cell phone use go down? Does anyone believe people are going to willingly restrict themselves to only making calls from home or the office? What is the effect of these laws? They might make you feel better but they don't accomplish anything. They are a waste of paper.
N1, all those who are terrified of anarchy on the roads have two options: 1) take public transportation or 2) ride around in Sherman tanks. This way you will never have to be afraid of inattentive cell phone talkers.
"Here is what we all know"
Here is what we don't know, how many fatalities are actually contributed to by cell phone usage plain and simple.
"My mother in law will still not use a DVD player"
What your mother in law does or does not do with a DVD has no effect on my life and death.
Fear of the unknown is what would keep people from leaving the old world and discovering the new. You do know fatality rates are going down. You don't know what effect cell phones have on that rate. You my be sure it has an effect but you don't know what it is. Yet some are willing to assign a value to cell phone use without this knowledge.
Life is simply one series of risk assessments after another. Everyone knows your chances of being in an accident are greater at night yet people still drive at night. They have decided the risk is worth taking. Driving during inclement weather is risky yet many still do it and not simply because they have to but sometimes simply because they want to.
I have been using a cell phone since the the smaller ones were called brief case phones. Got my first one in 1990. I have not had a ticket or accident in 17 years. I admit I hardly ever used the phone while driving for most of those years. The price per minute was higher then. But if my life is any example I will tell you cell phone use will go up once people have to use hands free. It is so simple to answer and make the calls that it makes changing your CD look complicated and it takes less time than changing your radio station. I used to make or take one or two calls a week. at the most one a day and that would have been a stop and get the milk or go to the post office call. now with hands free I might get or make three or four calls every day and they are to get directions or pass on information and assign tasks. The cell phone has saved me from having to drive hundreds of miles and burning up more than one tank of Gas. Think how much safer it was for me to not have to drive on the LA area freeways. Think how many people in sales and services could avoid many unnecessary trips because they were able to confirm appointments using the cell while stuck in traffic. It is far more reasonable to think of the positive uses responsible drivers could have for cell phones rather than the negative things we "don't know" about.
I'm not afraid. Let's encourage distracting driving behaviors. Let's abolish speed limits and encourage people to drive the way they want to drive. You have a bigger truck, you rule the road. Plain and simple. This in essence is what you are advocating.
"They have decided the risk is worth taking."
Okay then. I clearly like your direction. If your stomach can handle the fear of driving, we should be able to drive on roads like bumper cars. This again is what you are advocating. People should not be held culpable for injury or death, this would really make sure people would not be afraid to do everything in a car except for drive safely.
I think that when it comes to maintaining your lane position people look at the road well ahead of them, this is not going to change and there's no need to pay constant attention. The studies that I've read noted an impairment in dealing with a condition that suddenly changed, like a car in front of you braking or a traffic signal turning red.
I simply see several every day situations were a cell phone ban is just silly. Heavy bumper to bumper traffic where you are sitting in one place for minutes on end and if you do move it is only 20 feet before you stop again. And yes it happens every day in downtown LA and on several freeways. On the open highway between Bakersfield and San Jose where you might not see another car for 10 minutes during the early morning hours. What is the harm there? What are the chances the first one would ever result in your death? Or even your injury. But some are like old time teachers made everyone stay after school because one person caused a problem. If there are people that can judge when it is safe to operate a vehicle while using a cell and they are proven by experience to be correct it should be criminal punish them because there are some people that can't.
While talking is talking, some states have chosen to try to eliminate the obvious, dialing the phone. By requiring complete hands-free at least you are supposed to keep your hands on the wheel.
He's already stated several times that he places value on the mere existence of the law. Whether or not it accomplishes anything is secondary. Forget about the cell phone issue and just look at this rational when it comes to enacting laws in general.
OK. I am in that from time to time. So, maybe we should allow navi/tv for drivers in these situations to watch Matt Lauer or CSPAN in the mornings on the way to work. We can allow driver judgement to determine when it is safe to watch the latest info on bridge or mine failures or Iraq. We can do this more safely then allowing open liquour containers in cars, right? After all, drivers do exercise good judgement in their options when operating motor vehicles.
Its not because of cell phones, rather increased speed limits. :shades:
First they are almost unenforceable in my state and second if you fight the 20 dollar ticket it will cost the state a small fortune for the officers daily pay and other court costs plus jam up the calender for real crimes. It seems like such a waste.
I have no problem with that at all. Given a lot of necessary for life laws are on the books, but they don't resolve the issue, having one more on the books for the public good, doesn't bother me one iota.
I would rather see the seatbelt law abolished than cell phone laws.
That is a logical error also. The visual channel is very important while driving, so other visual manual tasks are more dangerous than cell phone use (text messaging, manual dialing tasks, etc).
It's not a logical error and I don't see it as an issue. People on this forum are debating how much distraction from electronic gadgets can lead to fatalities.
It doesn't matter if electronic gadget user doesn't really comprehend the traffic, tailgates, drives like they are drunk, crosses lanes, as long as they don't kill anybody all of this behavior should be acceptable.
Does it really matter in the end, if the attention shifted driver is not looking at road, or is not reading the traffic?
It doesn't matter if electronic gadget user doesn't really comprehend the traffic, tailgates, drives like they are drunk, crosses lanes, as long as they don't kill anybody all of this behavior should be acceptable.
Does it really matter in the end, if the attention shifted driver is not looking at road, or is not reading the traffic?
Acceptable vs unacceptable risk
Sometimes we don't need laws. We just need distracted drivers. It happened this morning.
I was traveling at about 40-45 mph (speed limit: 40) when a lady in her SUV, probably traveling at about 50 mph, overtook me about a quarter mile before a light where all three lanes of the road turn left. The speed limit becomes 55 mph after that turn. Both of us got green light without having to stop. I accelerated to about 55 mph and quickly caught up with this lady, still doing 50 mph. I didn't want to be too aggressive, so gave her the benefit of doubt that she is accelerating but slowly. Over a quarter mile later, she was still doing 50 mph in the left lane. So I had to pass.
Well, she was on a cell phone. What would she know about speed limits? 50 mph on 40 mph streets, and 50 mph on 55 mph highway cruising on the left lane.
I remembered this discussion, and really can't blame her for being distracted. Its the cell phone after all.
What you mean to say is this: From my point of view of the distracted driver, it is acceptable for me to be on the phone and potentially kill you due to my inattention to driving. That is a hazard I should be willing to accept.
Switching points of view: I'm driving on the road as attentive as can be to the traffic, it is unacceptable risk to me for you to be next to driving next to me in a distracted state.
I have found older drivers to be distracted by street signs. They will come up to a street and slow down to almost a stop and then take off again for the next street. Would I support another law to ban street signs of increase the penalty for this type of distraction? I think not.
What is your point? Bad drivers exist but don't get any worse then they already are if they use cell phones?
Or since bad drivers will always exist, the laws really don't work and let's repeal them all?
Switching points of view: I'm driving on the road as attentive as can be to the traffic, it is unacceptable risk to me for you to be next to driving next to me in a distracted state.
No, what I said was there are risks society deems acceptable vs those that seem unacceptable. Watching TV in the font seat is an unacceptable risk to the majority of the population, while changing the radio station is considered an acceptable risk. Selecting a POI on a nav system is apparently an acceptable risk while full destination entry is not.
Using a cell phone is still being decided, but it looks like society feels like its an acceptable risk. I think a goal right now should be to raise awareness of the risks and issues associated with cell phone use, and since I have no fear of running out of paper, I would suggest a law of secondary enforcement related to driving infractions committed while using a cell phone.
Slippery slope fallacies about the world ending because people are on the phone aren't realized, but it is more dangerous and it does add risk and likely crashes, injuries and fatalities, especially when abused. Having a way to single out the abusers and remove them from the system would be helpful.
I disagree, to a large part of the population it would seem Nav and TV are acceptable, I don't differentiate them.
"Using a cell phone is still being decided, but it looks like society feels like its an acceptable risk"
Again I disagree. To a certain extent it's as acceptable as the one or two beer rule. A large number of countries and states have regulated the use of cell phones, which says the a type of their usage is acceptable. These laws do not go far enough, IMO.
"Slippery slope fallacies about the world ending because people are on the phone aren't realized,"
The world will never end, but you don't exactly understand the complete picture? Do you? Because the basic statistics are not available. Even if cell phones are proved *not* to cause that many more fatalities, their use on the road should curbed as it leads to obvious driver distracttion.
I'm sensing that you have a nav system in your vehicle. You've already stated you have some sort of flat screen display yet wouldn't say what it was for. And even though you deny having a hands free device the fact that you make such a distinction between handheld and hands free has me a little suspicious.
If someone that was overweight and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day told me that I should cut back on my beer consumption I wouldn't take them too seriously.
There are over 230 million cell phone subscribers in this country. It's estimated that 60% of all cell phone minutes are used while driving. This tell me that a large percentage of the population considers using a cell phone while driving to be acceptable. If overall public acceptance is your criteria for determining whether or not a certain behavior should be allowed then be consistent.
I wonder how many would find speeding 10-15 mph beyond posted speed limit acceptable, if cops didn't bother. It is not uncommon for me to see people driving 50-55 mph on a 3-mile stretch of a 40 mph street near my house every morning. And 70-80 mph (speed limit 60) is the norm on a freeway just a few miles later.
But, cops somehow find a way to single out speeders.
The conclusion seems to be cell phones have no effect on driver ability to drive effectively.
I do, it's VZNav. I start it up while I'm parked, close the cover and put the phone in my pocket and listen to directions.
BTW you can do what you want with the beer, but public intoxication is generally a misdemeanor.