The title sums things up nicely, I think.
I'll have a poll up in a minute. No I won't. I've just failed OP writing 101.
So, what I was thinking do you think the laws allowing handsfree cell phone use, while barring handheld units are a good idea? How about anti-texting laws?
Is allowing any cell phone use too much? Or is any restriction in the law too much?
Looking for thoughts as well as your position. Please share.
Using the cell phone in any manner while driving is poor judgment, IMHO.
I am a seasoned driver, been driving since I was 14, was a truck driver for 12 years, and have a good driving record. I try not to use my phone while driving, but do sometimes need to answer a call. It is distracting and dangerous.
Texting might be worse-I haven't felt the need to text or answer a text while behind the wheel
In my opinion we are using the phone too much anyway. How much can you really have to say, all day long, and half the night?
Our local law restricting cell phone use in school zones is one I will agree with easily.
I was entirely unaware people text while driving until I went on a work trip with some co-workers, and the driver would periodically send and read texts on our four hour journey. There is literally NO reason to text while you're driving. At all.
I'm a little more accepting of people talking and driving, but I also see tons of idiots who can't focus on two things at once. California has outlawed both talking on a handheld phone and texting while driving, and I'm just fine with that. Of course I still see ti a dozen times a day and the local cops don't seem to care about enforcing it.
There should also be a ban on doubleposts.
In theory I'm not really crazy about laws that save us from ourselves.
But as far as I can tell, all relevant studies suggest that both texting and talking (whether hands free or not) distracts the driver significantly enough that they pose a serious threat to themselves and other drivers. So I support them.
I'm with Rabbit. Ban double posts.
If it was just the people who are so addicted to their phones who were at risk, I wouldn't care less what happened to them. The law is there to protect other people and anyone caught breaking it should be charged with reckless endangerment.Quote:
Originally posted by Taumpy
I like the current bans on Cell Phone except hands free that most states seem to be adopting or have adopted. Texting while driving is borderline insane but talking while driving doesn't seem any worse than having a passenger. So if you are hands free and have 1 button or voice activated dialing I doubt it is really a major distraction 99% of the time. For that other 1% a passenger, changing the radio, loading a CD or Tape, fussing with your radar detector or GPS are all about equal in my view.
Yeah, this is my thinking, too. I don't care if you kill yourself over idiocy, but I'm going to care a whole hell of a lot if you hit another car or some pedestrians. I think hands-free use is fine, but anything that is actively taking your hands and attention away from driving simultaneously, for an extended amount of time is dangerous. Changing the radio station lasts seconds; cell phone use is a whole other ballgame as far as distraction goes.Quote:
Originally posted by ivan astikov
Absolutely - people should be free to behave like idiots as long as they hurt no one else. But innocent pedestrians/other passengers could get hurt by distracted drivers. Moreover, I don't particularly want to subsidize the idiot driver's medical costs after he is injured in an accident - and whether there is universal government-provided health care or private insurance companies with rising premiums, other people will end up paying one way or another.Quote:
Originally posted by ivan astikov
If my husband calls someone and discovers while talking to them that they are driving, he says "I'm hanging up now, I don't talk on the phone with people who are driving." I would do the same.
Well, if you remember all the way back to driver's ed, you're not supposed to mess around with tape players, radios, GPS, or other stuff while driving either. If you don't like the way it is set up, you're supposed to have a passenger fix it or pull over and stop while you rearrange. Handsfree cellphones are a fool's game because they lower your reaction time to regular cellphone levels while letting you think you are being safer.
My car came with integrated hands free bluetooth phone magic. I just get in the car and just by pushing a button on the steering wheel I can voice dial my phone or answer any incoming calls. My eyes or hands never stray, so I think that's the best option, even if the call clarity isn't the best. I'd love a speech to text option too, but that's probably still a few years off from real practicality. I'm sure they'll have it in 2012 when I buy my next car.
Anything other than just that should rightfully be as illegal as driving drunk. Where's the acronymed orginization about victim obsessed soccer moms who's kids were killed by texting drivers that want to keep ramping up laws about distracted driving? ECBATWD? Entitled Crazy Bitches Against Texting While Driving.
That is unrealistic though Sticks. Almost everyone does play with the various gadgets, especially the radio while driving. Handsfree really is no worse than that. Texting on the other hand is up there with reading the paper while driving.Quote:
Originally posted by Inner Stickler
Oh, easily. I drive worse stone-cold-sober-and-texting than after four beers. (Yes, I'm ashamed to admit I've done both - and then some, in the case of the beers.)Quote:
Originally posted by Cluricaun
I will not text when I'm driving, ever. Nothing can't wait so long as for me to not rear end someone.
I've driven after a few beers plenty of times, and even talking on a normal cell phone held to your ear is worse, IMHO.
I've never driven after having a few beers, but I'd believe using a phone is worse. If you're my passenger and my phone starts ringing, be prepared for me to fling it at you and tell you to answer it. The few times I've actually answered my phone while driving my driving skills have gone out the window the instant I put it to my ear. Trying to split my hands between doing two different things, with my attention divided between where I am and the conversation just makes me feel incapable.Quote:
Originally posted by Cluricaun
BTW: Let's not leave off cigarette smoking while we're bitching about semi-normal things. I have seen more than one smoker, drop either the hot ashes, the entire cigarette, the lighter or some such while driving. Also fishing around for that pack of cigarettes.
So we need to set a real bar somewhere. To me it is not talking with a headset, but is clearly texting. It is not changing stations on your radio but searching through your 200+ MP3 for the song you want to hear now. It is not fishing for your toll money (if you haven't switched to EZ PASS yet) but Reading the Newspaper. It is not shaving with and electric razor by touch only but making a waffle in you waffle iron. :)
Ideally it'd be nice if all cellphone use while driving were illegal, in my opinion. Of course, it's not like I never do it myself. But I can tell how much my driving ability is compromised by splitting my attention between the road and the phone.
I have very conflicted views about the laws.
On the one hand, I think that the ubiquity of cell phone use while driving is a public hazard - and worse one that far too many people don't think about. Further I think that the few studies done on it show that hands-free is almost as bad as handheld cell use, which leaves me calling into question the whole wisdom of the handsfree bye in most cell laws in the US.
OTOH, there are a lot of things in the car that can distract a driver. The absolute worst driving I'd ever seen was from a parent trying to deal with their toddler/infant in the back seat while still driving. I'd found at least one internet page that claimed that children had been proven to be up to 8 times as distracting as cell phones. While I'm not about to link that page (since it offered no cites for that claim) I suspect that it is accurate that children can be more distracting that cell phone use.
Of course, traveling with children is often a necessity - using a cellphone while driving isn't.
Finally, I'm not all that impressed with NY's law. The cell phone ban is effectively gutted, since the only time the cops can cite drivers is when they've stopped the driver for some other infraction, already. Which means in that in effect the law is not really being enforced in any meaningful way.
As for texting while driving? That is, IMNSHO, not merely borderline insane - it is barking insane.
And this point is brought home by the horrific crash from a few years back locally: Five recently graduated HS girls were killed when the SUV they were in drifted across the dividing line into the path of an 18 wheeler, where their vehicle burst into flames. Someone had been texting with the driver's cell phone at approximately the same time (within about 60 seconds of the 911 calls reporting the crash) as the crash. Obviously, we can't say for certain that the driver was texting at the time, but it's sure the way I'd bet.
Every study I've ever seen indicates that a driver is four times more likely to be involved in a collision while talking on a cell phone, with the difference between using the handset or a handsfree device being statistically insignificant. It is as dangerous as driving while legally intoxicated. Therefore, I am strongly of the opinion that the legislation around the globe that prohibits the use of handsets but allows handsfree is criminally inadequate. The fact that drivers face other distractions as well hardly mitigates the need for stricter legislation to curb this one, completely avoidable distraction. Further, I'd be inclined to sue the ass off any automaker who builds handsfree systems into their vehicles, which poses as least as much threat to the driver and the general public as, for example, the handful of Toyotas that have been experiencing accelerator issues.
If a driver kills someone while impaired -- either by booze or drugs or the phone or texting or a baby in the back seat -- that driver should be charged with vehicular manslaughter sent to prison for a life sentence. Maybe then people would start to understand that driving is a critical task which requires focus and diligence. I also think the standards for obtaining a drivers license need to be drastically tightened up, but that's a topic for a different thread.
It should be simple enough to build a cellphone that won't work when the vehicle is in motion. I haven't yet found a handsfree device that I like, but I do pull off to the side of the road to talk on the phone.
Some study showed that talking on a phone, whether in a car or your house, uses the very part of your brain that you require to make quick decisions. I don't have a cite for it, but it makes sense. Anyone with kids knows how, the INSTANT you get a phone call, they want your attention and it's maddening beyond belief to try to deal with a kid tugging on your leg while you're talking on the phone. So if you're talking on the phone and trying to manoeuvre through traffic, it must be just as insane.
Except how would the phone know that you were the driver and not a passenger, or on a bus or train for that matter?Quote:
Originally posted by vison
AGREED - 100%.Quote:
Originally posted by dread pirate jimbo
There is no excuse for drivers to allow themselves to be distracted. Don't talk to your passenger, don't let them talk to you. Don't screw with the radio, etc.; in fact, don't even turn it on. No booze/drugs/cellphones/whatever. The driver's focus should be totally on driving.
Unrealistic? Not in the slightest. Safe? You betcha. It all boils down to self-discipline in the long run, which is why very few people drive like that.
I tend to live in the real world though. Once you talk about no radio, well that is far from realistic. I guess I just have no self-discipline.Quote:
Originally posted by Clothahump
By your theory, we probably should not be transporting kids anywhere either. They have to be at least as distracting as anything short of texting.
If you do it right, you can easily pack 4 or 5 kids in the trunk, where they won't be distracting at all to the driver -- many more when they're younger. You probably shouldn't ask me how I know this...Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
I hope this at least involved a drive-in movie.Quote:
Originally posted by dread pirate jimbo
Ummm.... yes. Yes, that would be an excellent alibi!Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
Soundproof cages? :lol:Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
Why would anyone let them out again, once they're in them?Quote:
Originally posted by Clothahump
Soundproof isolated cages. That could be the answer.Quote:
Originally posted by OtakuLoki
I got my handsfree device, a Bluetooth that is simple and easy to use (I am hopeless at that sort of thing, believe me) and it's fine and dandy. But it's still talking on a cellphone, and it's still a bit distracting. Not as bad as holding the phone, though.
When you stop to think about the things you do whilst zooming down the highway at 120 kph? It's lunacy. We are all careless and insane, actually. :shock: