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Comments
You should spend some time driving in my area :sick:
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I live in an area which consistently ranks among the worst traffic in the nation - and I just wish I only had to contend with phone yappers. There's an entire population of distracted dolts that need to be dealt with, not just yappers (and more dangerously, texters).
It works this way, either my statement is true or false. If you are asking me to prove it true, I'm asking you to prove it false. If you can't prove it false, it must be true.
Actually, as previously alluded to, you might be in the one bubble in the United States where people don't actually use their phones while driving and you have to contend with every other driver induced distraction except for cell phones. If so I applaud the populace of your area. Now some more drivers education is needed for the other distractions.
It's not what I see on the road. So I'll cough up this difference to a difference in geographic locations.
Common sense would be a castigation of all distracted driving.
" If you can't prove it false, it must be true. "
Interesting logic :shades:
"you might be in the one bubble in the United States where people don't actually use their phones while driving "
I said nothing close to that, and if you are going to claim I did, you are well advised to quote me. I said people here do far more than simply yap on the phones - I see the whole gamut of distractions from talking and texting to eating and smoking and playing on computers and more. It all needs to be dealt with. Cracking down on one, especially with unenforceable and toothless laws, will be nothing but a waste of money.
Here's what you did say:
I live in an area which consistently ranks among the worst traffic in the nation - and I just wish I only had to contend with phone yappers. There's an entire population of distracted dolts that need to be dealt with, not just yappers (and more dangerously, texters).
You made it sound like "phone yappers" were in the minority, but I heartedly agree with your comments about texters.
I see a whole gamut of distractions also, but consistently faced with "yappers" to the left, right and behind me. Not pizza eaters to the left, right and behind me. All taking at the same time. Some time ago I saw a collision between two vehicles who were more interested in their conversations than driving. Thankfully only sheet metal was bent.
To your point about toothless laws, we can start with jaywalking. Do the drunk driving laws deter DUIs? Does the crimimal code deter murders? Does the tax code deter tax fraud? One could go on and on. Maybe we should get rid of every law and go back to the wild, wild west. That is the essence of your arguement.
Why is it necessary to talk, text, or do anything with a cell phone WHILE YOU'RE DRIVING?
The answer is: it isn't. I can't think of a single situation where someone MUST talk on the phone while they're driving unless maybe another driver is trying to run them off the road or is shooting at them. Other than that, why can't the phone conversation take place before of after the drive, or if you must talk while in the vehicle, park the vehicle in a safe spot to do so and then talk.
There really is no reason for people to talk on the phone while they're driving and believing otherwise is nothing more than a product of today's me-first-because-my-time-and-life-are-more-important-than-yours mentality.
" me-first-because-my-time-and-life-are-more-important-than-yours mentality"
Given the proliferation of mobile devices and the near total market penetration, compared to what isn't an explosion of casualties, I don't think the end of the world is here. It's a problem that needs to be stopped, but it's not ending the world.
Even jaywalking laws have more teeth and are more enforceable than phone laws, especially as they are handled now...murder laws and DUI laws certainly moreso.
People just need to put down their phones, their food, their drink, their cosmetics, and their toys - and drive.
That's the way I interperted your written word. I would like to make a small change however to this sentence: The yappers are the majority in the
simply one part of astew of idiocyGiven the proliferation of mobile devices and the near total market penetration, compared to what isn't an explosion of casualties, I don't think the end of the world is here. It's a problem that needs to be stopped, but it's not ending the world.
It goes back to the same question, do scientists have the same level of detail with regard to the statistics in automotive studies for cell phone usage as for drunk driving. For all you know 75% of all crashes are cell phone related. So there certainly could be an "explosion of casualities" that are not known due to incomplete statistics.
Even jaywalking laws have more teeth and are more enforceable than phone laws,
To your point it depends. Ever walk in Manhattan, how many people have you seen getting a jaywalking ticket. I've personally known people who got pulled over for cell phone usage, but I've never heard of anybody getting a jaywalking ticketing. Maybe more teeth in the pacific northwest, but not Manhattan.
People just need to put down their phones, their food, their drink, their cosmetics, and their toys - and drive.
I whole heartedly agree, and in that order.
Around 10 years ago suddenly everyone got or tried to get a mobile phone. Today anyone who wants one has one - my 80-something year old grandmother even has one. What is the casualty picture from maybe 1995 vs 2009? It doesn't seem to correlate to the proliferation of these gadgets. Why would crashes suddenly become attributable to phones when the same crashes were taking place before?
I've never known anyone who has had a jaywalking ticket or a yapping ticket. The former is pretty much ignored here, the latter is a secondary law.
Heard an interview a couple of months ago with some folks under the age of 30 who texted while driving (it was a news piece related to California's new legislation banning texting while driving) who unabashedly said they did it, they would go on doing it, and what was the big deal anyway? They could touch-text and never even needed to look at the phone to do it. Reading incoming messages only took them a second or two.
When I get a second or two I will go and find out more about that new study released yesterday. It is clear to me that just as CA's cell phone law, now two years old, has had no effect on cell phone use by drivers, the texting law will do nothing to stop people from texting behind the wheel if they already do it now. Indeed, it is an even more difficult law to enforce, as texting can mostly be done below the window line of the car, which is then completely invisible to passing law enforcement officers.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Virginia Tech claims it's 23 times more dangerous:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/07/study_texting_is_riskiest_cell.html
The Virginia Tech article has a poll at the bottom asking people if they use their cellphone while driving, "often", "only in emergencies", or "never".
I took the poll and got the results: 59% said "often".
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
It's not that there less fatalities or less crashes, it's that playing with the radio has been replaced by playing with the cell phone. And crashing due to fixation on the radio has been replaced by crashing due to fixation with the screen of an electronic device. While the numbers at this point were and are elusive, how many crashes/fatalities are actually due to hardware failure vs everything else, which would be driver error of some sort? And what was the driver error?
Until that question can be answered we are in the proverbial dark ages.
I have a pre-paid cell now and took a call the other day after pulling over. I just about have to read the instructions just to remember how to turn the durn thing on though, since I rarely use it.
The gizmo that's going to bite me is my portable nav device. I know I can't plug in a POI while moving but it can be a bit distracting just trying to hit the section of the touchscreen to have the text to speech repeated so I can find my next turn.
By many industry guidelines, anything requiring more than a 2 second glance or 15 seconds total eyes off road time is a fail. This is why you can't put a destination into a navigation system while moving...unless you get an aftermarket one, which is a crash waiting to happen.
As far as talking on a phone: cell phone market penetration over 10 years: 900%; highway crashes/fatalities as a ratio of vehicle miles traveled: lowest levels in recent history.
Eyes off road - BAD
I doubt any of those conversations are that important. Just my opinion.
Kind of like the recent trend of late adopters wearing bluetooth earpieces around like jewelry. It looks dopey.
Nav is neat, but I so rarely travel outside of my local area that it would be a waste. I know my way around having lived here all my life. Great for the road warriors, though.
Cheers!
Paul
Ireland Cell Phone Laws when Driving:
"Banned, with a US$380 and/or up to 3 months imprisonment on a third offense. Hands free kits allowed, although that is subject to review."
You guys are so silly. I talk on my phone in public, and it doesn't make me feel important.
Phone etiquette is still evolving of course, but I don't use it in a movie theater or a nice restaurant. Burger King and Applebees don't qualify as nice restaurants in that context.
But I speak to people on my phone in other public places for the same reasons you do when you answer your phone at home. Does that make you feel important?
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
" me-first-because-my-time-and-life-are-more-important-than-yours mentality"
This comes aross as a "holier than thou" argument by an "enlightened" individual and pretty much lacks anything related to logic or scientific method. Its what we call "opinion."
It also fails to address who people are usually talking to, which in many cases, is a family member. In a relatively recent study among college folks, 40% of calls were family related.
That would be the 2 second glance duration measure,not 15 seconds. Each element in a task cannot last more than 2 seconds, up to 15 seconds total. In the studies I have performed over the last ~10 years, its very very difficult to get an experienced driver to look away from the road for more than 2 seconds (that would be a 1.5 second glance with 250 msec for the saccade to look up or look down).
If your friend had a crash in the 1.5 second period, he/she was likely not so immersed in the driving scene prior to that.
It depends, the radio controls in my mother's Sienna are mounted so low in the console that it requires a substantial reach and a downward glance that exceeds most down-vision guidelines.
That said, for most cases, that falls within that 2 second glance duration window. Again, if your son had an issue within that 2 second glance duration window, it was either longer than 2 seconds or he wasn't paying attention prior to the event.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
As I taught my kids, taking your eyes and attention from the road for a millisecond can lead to an accident. Two seconds can be an eternity to the grave in the right situation. And to stay on topic, a cell is a very easy to accomplish disattention.
I find that studying my own behavior is very beneficial. I voluntarily took a defensive driving course and was surprised on how sloppy my driving had become. Sloppy not in the sense of staying in lane, but sloppy in the sense I stopped anticipating the unexpected. One cannot anticipate the unexpected using a portable electronic device. The drivers who are alert keep the idiots safe, thank the Lord for alert drivers.
That is an excellent thing to do. I think if more drivers did stuff like that, a lot of the issues around driver distraction would go away. People would be more aware of the choices they are making and understand the risks involved at various times.
One cannot anticipate the unexpected using a portable electronic device
Eyes on the road, hands on the wheel, integrated hands free mobile phone system wouldn't really be using a portable electronic device, the same with the Ford and Hyundai systems that incorporate iPod control by voice. To a lesser degree, the Acura and Cadillac systems that allow iPod control via nav system display (which still lockout phone address book search while driving) are also reasonable solutions.
Nice to throw in a "study" Don't you know that 92% of studies are 89% wrong and the other 19% are just made up numbers
Sent by my Blackberry @ 85MPH
I'm 6'4 and had my dress blues on and walked over toher booth and told her I had PTSD and to shut it down. It was Nov.10th the nite of the Marine Corps Ball. Her husband just looked at me. She shut id down and I slept on the couch that night.
Actually, its called science. It a processes of developing hypothesis and then evaluating that hypothesis against a null, or chance. This is an especially challenging concept for those that lack logic skills.
The report was about voice calls, not texting, and there was TOD information IIRC. I believe drunk dial calls to ex-girlfriends/parents were excluded.
Texting is pretty ugly, until that visual manual task is replaced by a voice task, there is no way it should be allowed in a vehicle.
Happy holidays everyone...drive safely.
Actually you need a better blackberry. Electronic communications should be at almost the speed of light and is slowed only by transfers within a tower's electronics.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Thank you. That is the million dollar question. If drinking while driving is illegal why in the world are people allowed to text while driving? I can not understand why you would type in a message if you can speak? or better yet just wait till you are not driving?
Why do you have to tune the radio while driving?
Why do you have to eat a cheeseburger while driving?
Why do you have to pick your nose while driving?
Texting and talking are separate issues. Texting using a hand held visual-manual device will very likely be illegal very soon. Good luck enforcing it, but the act will be illegal.
Talking, especially using an integrated hands free system, is a totally different discussion from texting.
Hey I resemble that remark
Looks like we agree that texting while driving is the really stupid thing to do.
Have a great Holiday season
Why do you have to eat a cheeseburger while driving? Because I don't have to take my eyes or mind off the road to do it and I am hungry?
Why do you have to pick your nose while driving? Because I can. :shades