OT: Allow mobile phones when driving? Or ban the disabled from driving?

[Commander Kinsey]

Using a mobile phone when driving is the same as a one armed disabled man talking to his wife as a passenger. Should we ban disabled drivers? Or perhaps be more sensible about phones?

[trader_4]

Here in NJ you can use a cell phone while driving, you just can't be holding it. But I only do that for short periods, if really necessary. I know people that yapped away endlessly about nothing. Like an elderly friend who'd be driving

70 on the interstate and be calling his daughter, to just chit chat. He used to do that with a handheld, now he does it with the speakerphone. He's already a bit like Mr. Magoo, poor vision, a little confused at times. When he calls me, I try to keep the call as short as possible, I don't want to be the one on the phone with him when he has his big wreck.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Calling at 70 on the interstate with no cars around is no big deal but that does not happen often in NJ. Trying to give customer support on a technical problem in heavy traffic is just stupid but I know someone that has done it.

Recognizing the distraction and mitigating it is beyond the comprehension of many.

[Ralph Mowery]

The local news just had a woman on TV that was recovering from a wreck. She was lucky to be alive as someone stopped and pulled her from a burning car. Single car accident.

She said she was going down the road, talking on her cell phone and that was the last thing she remembered before waking up in the hospital.

[micky]

No.

Oh come on. Those with one working arm have no choice. Those who want to use a cell phone have a choice. Well, functionally they do but legally they don't in most places and they shoudlnt'.

People who want to drive while holding a cell phone can stop the car and talk on the phone. People with only one arm can't park the car and grow another arm. Don't be callous towards them.

[micky]

I was thinking about my final days and I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my uncle did.

Not screaming in terror like his passengers.

[micky]

She is lucky. A lot of people wouldn't stop and a lot of those who did woudl be afraid to get near a burning car.

[gfretwell]

Maybe they should ban drive through windows at fast food joints. Drinking hot coffee or eating a sandwich is a lot more distracting than just talking on a phone. Texting is a whole other thing tho since you are looking at what was sent and what you type. I almost wadded up a car texting before most folks even knew what I was doing (1985).

[Ed Pawlowski]

Many states have pretty generic distracted driving laws for those things too. I would think putting on makeup would be exempted because we want good looking women.

[micky]

That's debateable and I don't think so. Conversation takes some thought**, and as a fatty, I can tell you that I can eat and drink plentyy without thinking at all. I usuaally read the paper or watch tv when I eat so my mind has something to do.

**Expecially if your wife won't settle for Yes, Dear.... Yes, Dear... Yes, Dear.

I agree with you there.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I think you miss the point. A lot of the mobile phone generated accidents have been while texting, not talking. Now you can get hands free kits, there really should be no need to hold the phone. Remember you can do other things with a phone these days, like read emails, chat on social media etc, and it is often these extras that cause the lack of attention, not just talking on a hands free phone. People have been done for applying make up in the car, watching videos, eating sandwiches etc etc, The law really is about due care and attention, but certainly holding a normal phone or fiddling with a touch screen while driving would seem to be rather a bad thing to do. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

With regard to disabled drivers. It is the case that some disabilities mean you cannot drive. Even when I could see, I was not blessed with enough vision to drive. Many people with only one working eye can drive, even though they do not have stereo vision, they judge distances in a different way. Hand controls work very well, so I'm told, its mostly muscle memory just like it is for all drivers. You do not have to think about it. What does worry me though is that any driver of anything can see far less than they think, seeing as the brain can only process so much at a time and tends to throw a lot away. Remember the only part of the eye which can see detail is the macular, the rest of it is very poor in the definition stakes and the brain sweeps the macular view around to give the impression of a full colour detailed image. If you are however distracted and concentrating on one thing, you can miss another one completely, as in the famous Gorilla video. Brian

[Scott]

This is one of the many reasons I saw a need to install dashcam.

[Bob Eager]

I can vouch for this!

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff (Sofa) submitted this idea :

Absolutely, as I learned very early on in my driving career. A PC was by the side of the road with a group of youngsters. I fully expected the PC to see them across the road so my entire attention was on him. What I had missed was a lollipop lady, who actually stepped out in the road leading the kids and had abrown trouser moment trying to stop in time. Always scan and keep on scanning the entire road ahead, don;t be distracted by a single potential danger.

[trader_4]

I don't believe that's true. I know I'm far more distracted talking to someone on the phone, than eating a sandwich. The sandwich is totally passive, you don't have your focus on what it's saying, trying to hear it, needing to answer to avoid an awkward moment, etc. Something unexpected happens, a change in traffic, you just stop eating for a moment. With a call, if you do that, you're going to miss what they are saying, have them saying "are you there, did I lose you, etc."

[Ralph Mowery]

I try to do that. In some areas if you drop back to let them in, you will wind up backing down the interstate and wind up at town in the wrong direction. Seems that if you can get 3 feet away from some of the cars you are lucky.

Too bad that cars do not have some kind of retractable stick the goes out the front and gets longer or shorter the faster you go. Some of the newer cars do have the 'radar' in them to let you follow cars while in cruse control. Maybe the government should make that mandentory that anything over 30 mph it takes effect.

[Ralph Mowery]

Around 1965 I read in a popular Mechanic or Science magazine how by now we should be going over 120 mph on the interstates, when a wreck did occur a helocopter would come and get the cars ot the way.

We are still traveling at basically the same 60 to 70 mph on most highways (legal speed that is) . Wrecks takes hours to clear, mainly because the law spends hours getting some kind of evidence for the wreck. That would probably not bother me except we are still killing 30 to 40 thousand every year on the highways just as we have been for the last 30 to 50 years and nothing seems to be done about it.

Germany had a good idea. Insted of going at a pace on the highway where you can relax, bump the speed limit up to where you have to pay attention to what you are doing all the time. They put some curves in the road as they found long streight highways put people to sleep.

[rbowman]

In 'Blue Highways' William Least Heat-Moon describes driving down a back road in Kansas or one of the other flat states. He caught himself just before he was going to go back in his van to make a sandwich.

I've been close to that driving OTR. I didn't get out of the seat but I've definitely made and eaten sandwiches while rolling down an interstate with the cruise control set at 65.

Back then the truck stops had sort of a books on tape rental program where you'd turn the cassette in down the road and get another. Being lost in a Tom Clancy thriller tends to put your head someplace else.

[Mark Carver]

The danger is the fall in concentration because you're having a conversation with someone who is not present. You wouldn't intuitively think that's a problem, but it is, because you feel compelled to keep the conversation going no matter what, and that can lead to a loss of driving concentration. That's a major difference with talking to your passenger. They can see for themselves when something complex kicks off outside, why you've stopped talking.

I limit my calls (incoming and outgoing) to simply giving my ETA, or a very brief message. I never have a rambling chit-chat.