NY Police Get Tall SUVs To Combat Texting While Driving

coondoggie writes "The New York State Police have a new weapon to fight the plague of drivers that insist on texting while operating their vehicle: tall SUVs. Most recently reported by the AP, NY has begun operating a fleet of 32 unmarked SUVs that let troopers more easily peer down into a car to see if the driver is texting or not. 'Major Michael Kopy, commander of the state police troop patrolling the corridor between New York City and Albany, quoted a Virginia Tech study that found texting while driving increased the chance of a collision by 23 times and took eyes off the road for five seconds — more than the length of a football field at highway speed. Kopy worries that as teens get their driver's licenses, texting on the road will become more prevalent. "More people are coming of driving age who have had these hand-held devices for many years, and now as they start to drive, they're putting the two together, texting and driving, when they shouldn't."'"

Re:Blame the kids

[Kaenneth]

A 63 year old friend of mine got a smartphone to take payments with for his business...

less than a week later he rear-ended someone on the freeway while texting.

any age can be a fucking dumbass.

Re:Oh that's why they can

[Anonymous Coward]

When making a reply, the first box is for the subject and not the first half of your message.

I know this is probably very surprising and upsetting, but you have to trust me on this.

Re:Texing Bans Increase Crashes

[Belial6]

Did you read the methods used in that study? The only conclusion that they could legitimately come to is that people who got in accidents while on the phone were on the phone. They literally only counted accidents that happened while someone was on the phone. They dismissed all accidents that did not happen when on the phone, and virtually all phone calls that happened without producing an accident.

Your link is like every other "Cell Phones are dangerous" study, complete BS made up to rationalize a pre-conceived bias. The designers of this study were either grossly incompetent, or outright dishonest.

Re:Texing Bans Increase Crashes

[petman]

There's supposedly some "alternative" way to make it zoom in/out by holding and then moving up/down, but I can't get it to work.

To zoom with one hand, do a double-tap, and upon the second tap, hold. Then slide down to zoom in and up to zoom out.

i.e. tap, tap+hold... (while holding) slide up/down

Re:Cost-benefit analysis

[mrvan]

I would be fine with you not wearing a seat belt, as long as it does not affect me when you get into an accident, including:
- my health insurance premium does not go up because you pose a greater risk of requiring treatment (if your answer is: differentiate premiums between seat belt wearers and libertarians, how do you monitor that differentiating without an even greater breach of your Liberties?)
- my taxes don't go up because you are now a burden on the emergency medical care system
- the road is not closed off longer because the accident is now more serious, leading to more traffic jams.
- if an accident is my fault, my punishment does not go up because you are now dead/seriously injured instead of not/lightly injured
- the police and medical staff are still available to help me and not wasting their time on the greater time required to investigate/treat a serious or fatal accident compared to a fender bender. If your answer is: hire more police and medical staff, than realize that this will drive up the cost of said staff by more demand. If your answer is: train more staff to increase supply, this will cost taxpayer money since those institutions are generally subsidized, and/or take potential candidates from other fields where they would actually add value to society rather than scrape your libertarian remains off the tarmac.

In other words, your decision to not wear a seat belt places a claim on a number of scarce goods if you get into an accident, which affects more people than just you.