O/T: Gotta Love It TV-B-Gone and similar devices

Excuse me, but ... every point you made was both reasonable and well made.

Please stop.

;-)

I was hoping somebody would try to make this a purely one-sided partisan issue.

That train ain't never late.

That person ... always seems ignorant to the corporate interests whose profitability would be *decimated* by proposals like banning cell phone use while driving.

And ... as we all know ... only one party is beholden to the interests of Big Business, right??

Hmm.

Which ... as it turns out ... usually leads to better conclusions than not thinking at all, or -- perhaps worse -- confirmation bias ;-)

Because ... in general ... the "you people" to whom you refer place a tremendous amount of significance on what they perceive to be their "rights," but virtually ignore any semblance of what reasonable people would call "responsibilities."

No, it's people like YOU who think that numbers and statistics can classify what kind of person I am and what my abilities are. *I've* never done

And I am NOT that person, so why don't you punish them, not me?

I'll grab that one.

I've never spilled a Coke inside of Banana Republic (or ... wherever), yet ... somebody did, and ... because that somebody did ... I can't come into their store with food or beverages.

Ah, well.

It's called "Living Among Other People."

I think it's something more fundamental than that--I see people walking around the supermarket with phones glued to their ear and people texting in movie theaters. I suspect that they just plain don't like being alone with themselves or something.

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:30:42 -0500, "J. Clarke"

It's not the cell phone per se, that people are arguing that is important, it's the perception that another right is being outlawed that many people find hard to swallow.

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:34:23 -0500, "J. Clarke"

Quite possibly. But, I'm not sure if that's intended to be a criticism or perhaps you're just stating a fact. If it's a criticism, why do you think so?

And those are the people that I'd like to see affected by this new law.

Ya gotta be smart about it though. Historically, tyranny has always started with the excuse of protecting the people.

I always liked the sentiment behind this verse:

"The law is for protection of the people, rules are rules and any fool can see, we don't need no hairy headed hippies scaring decent folks like you and me, no siree!

Apologies to Kris ... :)

Worked for a while but we're catching up fast.

Ask the Brits about that. Most will tell you that it was them that pulled our asses out of the fire.

The US courts have held that legally, driving is not a right but a privilege. As such, the states may place any restrictions they deem necessary on drivers.

Since statistics have shown that cell phone use is at least as much an accident causer as drunk driving, it's difficult for me to get upset about restrictions on their use while driving. If you *have* to make a call, pull over and stop.

BTW, hand held cell phone use is a secondary offense in WA. It's been in effect for some time now and I see no reduction in people driving with a phone to their ear. I suspect it'll be a primary offense in a year or two.

Yes, you are probably right. It was the same with seat belt laws. A secondary offense at first that was upgraded to a primary in time.

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:30:42 -0500, the infamous "J. Clarke" scrawled the following:

Works for me.

That's the 2nd best question all year. ("Why O?" is first.)

-- It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars. -- Garrison Keillor

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:02:02 -0500, the infamous snipped-for-privacy@teksavvy.com scrawled the following:

Cops should be issued beanbag guns to stop people from committing these almost-infractions. It'd work better than a ticket, I'll bet. It's not that rights are being taken away, it's stopping people from being idiots and causing a danger to others in society.

Cops could choose to shoot either the phone or the idiot. ;)

-- It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars. -- Garrison Keillor

In a nation of scofflaw's, that still might not have the desired effect.

When you can break the little laws with impunity, broken bigger ones follow suit.

I'm paying for "law enforcement", but there seems to be damned little return on the money ... so what do we do now? We equip the cops like military units, and they immediately go to looking for someone to practice on with their new weapons and training.

Put 'em back to enforcing the little laws, like running stop signs,red lights, and enforcing speed limits and you'll begin to put the culture back on the track of "laws being for protection of the people".

Basically .... Yeah, this law applies to YOU!

(not you personally, Larry)

Just a little clarification on this one. Statistics have not shown that cell phone use is a dangerous as drunk driving - *controlled tests* have shown essentially that. The thing that interests me is that the total number of accidents per mile driven in the US hasn't moved significantly in the last few years while cell phone use has gone through the roof. The *tests* show phone use while driving to be much more dangerous than the *statistics* show it to be. I think the truth is that most people who are seriously distracted by their cell phone were previously seriously distracted by something else, resulting in a wash as far as accident rates are concerned. With about

Tim Douglass

... and if they haven't and aren't causing accidents, why does this bother you so much?

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.