Does Australia have similar cellphone "related" accident rates as the United States

[Ed Pawlowski]

[Algeria Horan]

Good point. And the Boston police commissioner Davis called it a "ferocious firefight" with the unarmed Boston Bomber suspect lying prostrate in the bottom of a boat.

[Gordon Levi]

[Rod Speed]

You can keep repeating that bare faced lie till you are blue in the face if you like, it stays a bare face lie, you silly little pathological liar.

You haven't produced even one that shows that there isnt.

Nope, a very obvious one, that you are a bare faced pathological liar/pathetic excuse for a troll.

Nothing to understand with your shit except that you are a bare faced pathological liar/pathetic excuse for a troll.

Says he after doing just that with the statistics on what happens with drivers STOPPED AT TRAFFIC LIGHTS etc.

None of the shit you cited does anything of the sort with relevant facts.

THERE ARE NO FACTS ON THE USE OF CELLPHONES WHEN DRIVING AT SPEED.

Because they had no FACTS ON THE USE OF CELLPHONES WHEN DRIVING AT SPEED.

[Gordon Levi]

Your WWII Bomber is not sophistry, it is obvious nonsense. How could it be the used in the same sentence as "reason" or forestall _any_ response?

In your original post you posted the "fact" that cell phone use was a distraction and distractions can cause accidents. You even produced some research that confirms it. Now you seem to be arguing that it is safe for you to apply your lipstick while driving because no one has found any meaningful relationship between applying lipstick and accidents. You have even managed to exclude, as evidence, any accidents in which the application of lipstick and the accident happened at the same time.

[Rod Speed]

Algeria Horan wrote

No such animal and none of the authors you cited are anything special author wise.

Nope, used an extra adjective when describing a particular fuel.

The didn?t do that either.

There is no parsing what so ever involved in what they wrote.

It isnt a modifier and it isnt false either, at most not necessary.

There actual intention was to have more than the most mundane description.

There is no parsing involved and there is no sophism involved either.

Even sillier and more pig ignorant than you usually manage.

You never had a point and there was no "intensification" involved either.

There is none of that involved either.

What there actually is with cellphone use while driving is the FACT that doing that distracts the driver more than not doing that does.

Same with eating while driving, etc etc etc too, particularly when it is something that you have to keep in your hand like a burger etc.

Nothing like in fact.

Who is doing "intensification" now ? You are, that's who.

Who is doing "intensification" with that use of the word HUGE now ? You are, that's who.

More of your bare faced lies.

More of your bare faced lies.

[Rod Speed]

Joe Friday wrote

Trouble with that one is that it just states the stats and doesn?t provide a link that shows the original report that makes the claim, so it isnt possible to see how viable the statistical collection was on what the cause of the accident was.

[Rod Speed]

Trouble is that you can't stop the other person from continuing to say what they were saying and any test needs to put the driver in the situation where they can't just ignore the phone, they need to have to be able to repeat what the other person on the phone was saying so they can't just ignore the phone when they need to.

[Algeria Horan]

You just stated my entire point! Science contains *details*, and therein lies the truth.

As just an example of sophistry with details, let's assume 75% of adult drivers wear corrective lenses (that's a reasonably reliable figure for the USA).

Now, what do you think the percentage of accidents might be of people who wear corrective lenses are?

I don't know the answer, but I'll guess that it's pretty close to the 75% since corrective lenses shouldn't matter.

Do you notice the sophistry I can attempt with that fact?

I could claim that 75% of all accidents are caused by people who need corrective lenses!

My point is that you need to UNDERSTAND the facts, which as you can see, many people, such as Rod Speed has exemplified in spades, do NOT understand details.

Now let's get to the details of your observation:

Your point is apropos that cellphones must contribute to the likelihood of accidents, simply because they are yet-another distraction piled upon an already existing huge set of distractions (all of which existed before cellphones ever came upon the scene).

While not every post of mine bothers to carve out that agreement, you will note that many posts of mine in this thread say as much.

So, we both agree that cellphone use must be causing at least a tiny amount of additional accidents, commensurate with the additional distraction that using cellphones actually adds.

At the same time, I have already shown that there are far more potent distractions (e.g., fatigue) which contribute to the accident rate, and even with those far more potent distractions, the actual total contribution of distractions to the accident rate was something like (offhand) ten percent or so (we could doublecheck those figures based on the 2014 NHTSA statistical survey summary already posted).

So my point is, was, or at least should have always been obvious that there is an utterly astounding difference between the following true statements:

TRUE STATEMENT 1: Cellphone use while driving, overall, does not meaningfully (aka measurably) contribute to the overall accident rate in the USA (or Australia, as the case appears to be).

TRUE STATEMENT 2: Cellphone use while driving is an additional distraction, and since distractions cause accidents, cellphone use will inevitably cause additional accidents commensurate with the amount of additional distraction that cellphone use entails.

The problem that I have with communicating these two true statements is that many people seem to consistently discount the former truth while at the same time, astoundingly hugely (utterly fantastically) overplaying the latter.

Intensification aside, how do you intelligently deal with such people?

[Algeria Horan]

Thanks Ed, for that cite. Rod Speed, if he's true to form, will come up with some way of telling you that it's bullshit, a lie, or a troll.

Basically, he's wedded to his intuition, which, to him, says a cellphone ticket can't be 10,000 dollars, so, if you actually show it to him, he will likely never believe you anyway.

What he comes up with is all sorts of fantastic fabrications (hence my aliens manipulated the figures analogy and the WWII bomber found on moon example) to account for the fact that he still likely won't believe your facts.

There are two kinds of people at least: a. Those, like me, who are wedded to facts, not opinions, but who can change their ideas when shown the facts, and, b. Those, like Rod Speed, who are wedded to his own opinions, and who will likely never change his mind, facts to the contrary be damned.

Just you wait and see...

Note: A key question is how do you intelligently deal with such people?

[FromTheRafters]

Another example is when reporters describe an ongoing 40 MPH "High Speed Chase" and give a 'play by play' of the action describing close calls of sideswiping or crashing when the viewer can plainly see the 'high speed' was reduced to around five MPH as the perpetrator navigated around slower or outright stopped vehicles.

I call it 'sensationalism' as do many others. I think they go to school to learn how to do this. I've also noticed a trend recently toward starting a newscast with >>>BREAKING NEWS

[Rod Speed]

Ours arent.

And only fools like you don?t even notice that using a cellphone while doing that is worse for your driving.

[F Murtz]

That is the trouble with the test, it is slanted,sensible users would ignore phone in difficult circumstances, but they want the test to show dangers so that they can make laws for the lowest common denominator and make it sound reasonable to the masses. In one way I suppose they have to cater for the minute number of phone related accidents, but I wish they did not have to make it difficult for the majority.

[F Murtz]

In reality I doubt that figure is ever applied although they sound tough.

[Rod Speed]

Ed Pawlowski wrote

Why did you delete this stuff from the quoting ?

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[Rod Speed]

They do in fact allow the phone to be used with a hands free kit and it is perfectly reasonable to anyone with even half a clue that it makes no sense to be driving with a phone held to your ear.

They don't, you are free to use a hands free kit if you want to.

[Gordon Levi]

Sophistry is commonly defined as "a reason or argument that sounds correct but is actually false" . It should not be confused with obvious nonsense.

False. Your original post cited . It "measured" cell phone use as contributing 0.9% of 340 accidents that were forensically studied. Note the use of the adjective forensically to give extra weight to _your_ numbers.

I originally asked you to explain your point. It seems that it was to explain something to an audience that does not exist.

First you have to find "such people" then, if you tell us what deal you want to make, we might be able to help you. You told us in your first post that mobile phones contributed to under 1% of serious accidents. Who disagrees with that?

[Ed Pawlowski]

You are probably right, but for me it would be a deterrent. Even with a

90% discount the fine is stiff. First time in CT is $100.

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per nospam:

But that is part of the point: I am *not* looking for anything.... just driving along... and that behavior simply jumps out at me.

[nospam]

that's the point. cell phone use is easy to see (unless it's handsfree) but other distractions are not unless you look for it.