There you go throwing facts into the discussion. That should bring things to a grinding halt. :-)
Good call on the tests. It would be interesting to find out if the people designing the test had a certain desired outcome in mind when designing those tests.
It's NOT a good call without the actual stats to back it up. Most every accident of import is thoroughly examined by police. Those are existing and proven facts. Show me where all this "controlled" bull is created and I'll reconsider my statement.
He says they are controlled tests, I said they're actual facts from accidents. Yet, without shred of proof at all, you're prepared to jump on his "controlled tests" theory.
Obviously, you're biased.
Google on "cell phone use as dangerous as drunk driving". I think you'll be surprised at what you find. Four of the first five hits refer to a *single* study conducted by researchers at the University of Utah using simulators.
The fifth does cite actual accident statistics, but states "The risk of having a traffic accident while using a cellular phone is the same as that while driving drunk" -- which is decidedly not the same thing as saying that the levels of danger are equivalent, because it addresses only the frequency of accidents and not their severity. My gut feeling is that people yapping on cell phones cause minor accidents, and drunk drivers cause serious ones: we're all far too familiar with reports in the newspaper of drunk drivers killing people, but when was the last time you read about a fatal accident caused by an idiot on a cell phone?
Excerpts from the articles referenced by Google: "Using a driving simulator under four different conditions..." "Each study participant drove the simulator..." "The volunteers in the new study drove a virtual vehicle..."
Obviously, you and I couldn't be, eh? :-)
On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:54:34 -0700, the infamous Mark & Juanita scrawled the following:
They have and are, Mark. Ask any savvy insurance guy. Also, cops are notorious drivers, despite the extra high-speed training...if they got it. It's too expensive for most cities nowadays. Cops are one of the worst sets of distracted drivers. Check their stats. It's scary. While you're there, check their shooting stats. That's the scariest stat I can think of. Their bystander/perp scores are painful.
When vital info is passed over a phone line, the person receiving it uses all his attention on it, to the near exclusion of everything else around them. Watch people on the phone some day. Hell, people in London have put up mattress pads on telephone poles because people have been bumping into them at a savage rate while texting on their phones. _Train_ wrecks have been caused by texting, fer chrissakes. Where have you been?
-- It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars. -- Garrison Keillor
That might well be the case since I can't imagine a good driver who would compromise his/her driving by using a cell phone, eating, shaving, applying makeup, etc..
I think they should all be ticketable offenses.
That idea has a certain appeal, but I hope the cop pulls them over first :-).
I thought the discussion was regarding *talking* on cell phones while driving. Texting is a completely different animal and falls under the same area as using a laptop or reading a book or newspaper while driving.
Seriously, never munched on a potato chip while driving cross country huh?
I agree with the rest listed, but some folks pretend that all drivers must always have both hands on the wheel (at 10 and 2) 100% of the time and be staring intently at the road maintaining a stoney silence and never so much as talking to a passenger, and that is taking the pendulum too far the other way. There should be parameters, but I don't know exactly how to specifically define them so that some reasonably fair enforcement can occur.
Deb and I (and darling daughter) still talk with disbelieve about the time we saw a woman driving through the curves of the Canadian Rockies just east of Field, heading west, with a point and shoot camera to her eye trying to get a picture of the scenery.
I tapped my brakes and allowed a few vehicles to pass (when they could, there aren't a lot of opportunities), then dropped about 5 kph in speed for half an hour or so.
I sure as hell didn't want to be anywhere close behind her, and trying to pass was WAY too dangerous.
I saw no EMTs as we drove on, so I guess she made it and unfortunately she appeared to be of an age where she'd already reproduced...
Actually, I am not. I very seldom use the cell phone for calls while I'm driving (less than once or twice a month). I use it as an MP3 player, but that requires no intervention on my part from the time I leave the parking lot to the time I pull in the driveway at home.
Frankly, I find it amusing that so many people find cell phone use to be so important for their social interactions that they are on the phone from the time they leave their work to the time they get home. What's even more amusing to me is the amount of personal information people are willing to share in public during their "private" cell phone chats. I'm betting many of these are the same people who got all bent out of shape over monitoring oversees calls to terrorist countries, yet they are willing to share the most intimate details of their latest medical ailment or inter-familial feud with the public.
Of the four of us in the family, Only me and daughter have cell phones.
I see her bills as it's my name on the account, and of course I see mine.
Between the two of us? Fewer than 30 calls a month. Fewer than 10 text messages a quarter.
Horses for courses...
Sounds like it's time to look at "Burn it" phone cards.
Lew
I hear ya. This fourth of July, we were in Dallas and attended a wedding in Lewisville. On the way back to my Sister-in-Law's house, we happened to be driving by the Lewisville mall when they were having the fireworks grand finale. On the interstate, there was a woman in one of those new VW bugs driving in the middle lane with a camera taking pictures of the fireworks. She was slowed down to about 35 mph on a 65 mph highway in the flippin' middle lane. One of those, "Excuse me for staring, it's just that I've never seen stupid of this magnitude before" moments.
... snip
If I'm out in the country on a long trip, and there isn't other traffic, I've been known to sip a bit of coffee which my wife pours out of a thermos. Only about 1/4 of a cup so it won't spill if I hit a pothole.
Other than that, only sucking on a hard candy to keep from being thirsty too often.
But in traffic, nothing. No way. I don't even listen to music.
After driving for over 55 years, I've been involved in three minor and one major accidents, all of which were the other driver's fault. And that includes time spent on LA freeways and Chicago surface streets, as well as five years as a full time RVer.
So it works for me. YMMV.
On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:41:25 -0600, the infamous Larry Blanchard scrawled the following:
I'm SURE glad I had swallowed that sip of coffee before reading your post, Lar.
-- Sex is Evil, Evil is Sin, Sin is Forgiven. Gee, ain't religion GREAT?
I think you misunderstand. The statement "using a cell phone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk" is based on a series of comparative studies done under controlled conditions. The actual accident statistics are a separate issue and are somewhat interesting in themselves, although not nearly as hype-worthy. If you look at accident causes you will see that over that last several years the accident rate has remained essentially flat, but you will also find that there is an increasing number of accidents attributed to cell phone use. I'm not denying that there are risks associated with the distraction of talking on a cell phone, but it appears from the statistics that the risk is replacing other risks in causing accidents. In other words, those who are easily distracted while driving are going to be distracted - whether from a cell phone or from their stereo or from their burger or whatever. This leads me to the assertion that the hype is misleading in regard to reality and that the reality is much more complex than the media and special interest groups would like us to believe.
There are both controlled tests and statistical evidence. The two do not produce the same conclusions when taken in context and then extrapolated to the total population. Therefore the issue is much more difficult to evaluate than "using a cell phone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk".
Yes. I dealt with my drinking problems many years ago and don't drink at all any more, but back in the day I did a fair share of driving drunk. I currently do quite a bit of talking on my cell phone while driving, albeit mostly with a headset. I can pretty confidently assure you that talking on a cell phone while driving is nowhere near as dangerous as driving drunk.
YMMV, as always. Tim Douglass
Sorry. I knew a lady once that hadn't left her house for 15 years because it is "just too dangerous" out here. She is probably a bit safer in her house than out in public, but self-imposed prison just doesn't seem worth it....
Back when I was a kid, about 1956, a friend's mother drove us to the movies one afternoon. We had to sit in the back seat and were not allowed to talk while she drove.
While I strongly am against driving distracted, the radio is on most all the time, I've eaten a burger or breakfast sandwich if traffic allows a couple of times a year. Most important, I keep one hand on the wheel at all times. Well, a few fingers from one hand at all times.
Back when I was a teenager I was quite capable of rolling a smoke while steering with my knees and upshifting the Beetle from a full stop.
Automatic transmissions have weakened the human race...
So driving attentively is a "self-imposed prison" and equates to a phobia? Your reasoning is defective. Or are you just trolling?
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