Driver Using Two Cell Phones Gets Year-Long Driving Ban 478
coondoggie writes "This guy is the poster-child for why cell phone use in cars should be banned in more places. According to press out of the United Kingdom, a man who was driving at 70MPH while texting on one phone and talking on another has been banned from driving for a year. Initial reports said that the driver, David Secker, was apparently using his knees to steer the car, an accusation he tried to refute in court."
Diving with your knees is not dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
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This kind of shit is not abnormal.
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So, the jokers selling this contraption allow you to mount in front of the airbag--which assists the seatbelt in keeping the driver's head from smashing into the glass windshield in a head-on collision--a device with a hard glass surface that will be propelled into the driver's face when the airbag deploys??? Even more ridiculous when you consider that airbags sometimes deploy in low-speed crashes where the driver wouldn't have hit the shield anyway.
You can't fix stupid, but companies shouldn't be encouragi
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lol what? (Score:2)
"This guy is the poster-child for why cell phone use in cars should be banned in more places."
"was driving at 70MPH while texting on one phone and talking on another
If we have to make an abnormally stupid person a poster boy for average people, shouldn't he be the poster boy for why using multiple cell phones in a car should be banned in more places?
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If they really cared about dangerous behavior on the road, they wouldn't give these assholes such light sentences. It's just like with driving drunk. Why should you ever *EVER* get your license back after you've been driving drunk? At the most lenient, you should get one chance. Drive drunk and you lose your license for five years. Drive while suspended during that time and lose it forever. Drive drunk a second time and lose it forever. Drive very dangerously (putting on makeup, getting dressed, having sex,
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It actually might be better to just make driving tests significantly harder. And have to be retaken more often.
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I don't know what your perspective is here, but driving tests in the UK are significantly harder to pass than in the USA.
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Maybe not hard enough? I've never taken a U.K. driving test, but I can def confirm that the driving tests here in the U.S. are a joke. Driving something as dangerous as a car comes with a lot of responsibility and should prob be limited to people who can prove that they can handle that responsibility.
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I don't know what your perspective is here, but driving tests in the UK are significantly harder to pass than in the USA.
Well they have to be. You all drive on the wrong side of the road!
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At least the steering wheel is on the "right" side!
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If they really cared about dangerous behavior on the road, they wouldn't give these assholes such light sentences. It's just like with driving drunk. Why should you ever *EVER* get your license back after you've been driving drunk? At the most lenient, you should get one chance.
Well, then the definition of drunk driving comes into play. If I had two glasses of wine on a night out, am I legally drunk? I've seen enough cars flipped over with corpses inside at night due to exhaustion/lack of sleep of the driver to firmly believe that regardless of drunkenness a lot less people should be driving than there already are. (If anybody mistakes this for me being on favour of the utter moronic and destructive practice of drunk driving, you should try and understand what I'm talking about, a
Car insurance is expensive for some people (Score:5, Funny)
I used to have a coworker who complained a lot about the price of car insurance. Then at some point he complained that he could not find insurance at all. I found it bizarre because I had no problem whatsoever with car insurance and we were practically neighbours.
Apparently he was "extremely unlucky" (his words) because idiots kept stopping without warning in front of him on the street so he got in accidents all the time. Obviously these accidents had nothing to do with the fact that while driving he was also watching movies on his portable DVD because he "wanted to keep his mind busy". I also remember him submitting a bug fix from his laptop while driving.
On a completely unrelated matter: this guy recently went back to visit his hometown... in China.
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You do realize that a Porsche 911 is virtually invisible to the Real Alaskan in the pickup truck. Your little effete toy likely didn't even begin to register as a vehicle. He probably thought is was just a piece of plastic that blew out of someone's front yard and he was doing everyone a favor by keeping it from blowing around even further.
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And a 911 is almost the last car I'd want in Anchorage. Even for the 2 weeks of the year you can drive it. I really liked the old Cherokee that ACS gave me to drive when we were working up there. It made the November trips to Soldotna almost enjoyable. It was also the only black rig in the telco fleet which was kinda of a cool. It was the company car for the CEO of alaska.net before ACS bought them. We drove that rig all over Alaska on the weekends sight seeing. During the week it was for site seeing
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Spoken as someone who has never seriously looked into the concept of "winter tires".
As long as the tires (and, optionally, chains) are appropriate, and ground clearance is not an issue, any car works fine in the frozen north -- especially if the driven axle has the majority of the vehicle's weight on it. And this is, obviously, the case of a rear-engined, RWD 911.
Compared in particular to a typical front-heavy RWD pickup truck, I'd suspect that the Porsche
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I'm impressed (Score:2)
a man who was driving at 70MPH while texting on one phone and talking on another has been banned from driving for a year.
If he managed to pull that off without crashing or injuring someone, my guess is he (would be/is) actually a fairly safe driver. I couldn't do that. Maybe they should get this guy to teach others how to actually drive. Minus the phones, of course. Couldn't possibly make most drivers worse, anyways. /p.
Re:I'm impressed (Score:4, Informative)
Or he managed to be lucky for a while, which is far more likely.
Re:I'm impressed (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact he was caught proves he is a terrible driver, but the fact everyone around him can actually drive and was paying attention to the road is what prevented this from becoming a pileup. Someone who willingly ignores not only road rules but basic common sense should not be driving, let alone teaching other people how to drive.
People like him rarely injure themselves. It's the people they hit that get killed.
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Mycroft
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The other occasion was a complete tool that was speeding, talking on his phone and driving on the wro
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What the FUCK is wrong with some people? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The fact that some people are stupid enough to think that they can safely drive when they are not looking at the road is utterly ridiculous.
It's not a black and white issue (driver attention). You aren't looking at the road when you blink; that's around .3 seconds for the average blinker. If I'm on a road where I can survey the road for a mile in front, and a mile behind, and it's empty, I can fairly safely look away from the road for 15 seconds.
It sounds like this guy didn't have the situational awareness to see the cop; that gives me some evidence this drivers attention wasn't on the road enough. Other things besides tech toys can con
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The fact that some people are stupid enough to think that they can safely drive when they are not looking at the road is utterly ridiculous.
It's not a black and white issue (driver attention).
Actually, it is pretty simple to define what can and cannot be done safely.
You aren't looking at the road when you blink; that's around .3 seconds for the average blinker.
That is a trivial amount of time. On top of it, many people blink less often when driving than they do otherwise.
I can fairly safely look away from the road for 15 seconds.
No, you cannot do that safely. A lot can happen in 15 seconds. An animal or child could jump out in front of your car in that time frame. You could encounter debris on the road that you did not see previously because of road or weather conditions.
Unless you are moving at 10mph or less, 15 seconds is far too long
contortionist (Score:2)
David Secker, was apparently using his knees to steer the car, an accusation he tried to refute in court.
If he did not want them to think he was driving with his knees when his hands were clearly unavailable, what the hell did he want to convince them he was using to grip the wheel ?
RTFA --wasn't just the cellphones (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed! (Score:2)
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That's statistics for you.
Everyone makes mistakes when driving: forgetting to look over the shoulder, overlooking a dangerous corner, forgetting to indicate direction (if only because you decide a bit too late to make that turn). If you say you never make mistakes, I don't believe you. You're not a robot.
Luckily those mistakes usually do not cause accidents, as other drivers prevent them for you. You surely will remember some situations where you had to correct for someone else's driving.
The thing is whe
Nice try, Limey (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the late eighties, before all these fancy gadgets came into being, I had (to my eternal amazement) the luck to witness a woman driving 75 mph on 285 west of Atlanta in bumper-to-bumper traffic reading a book. We're talking five lanes full of writhing idiots jockeying for position in a rush-hour race to get there first. That road was (and definitely still is) a horror story in progress. It was only a couple months before that I saw a car wrecked on the median, propped sideways on the concrete median divider, its engine block a good 150 feet down the road. Seriously, they just flat could not stop rush hour traffic to clean up the car, and I suppose an ambulance had taken the corpse(s) away previously. They'd have to wait for a break in the traffic at about 2 AM to get the car and its engine out of there.
A book, for you youngins, is a stack of paper bound together with static text on each piece; when reading one, you are confronted with one to two thousand words at a time, and the words are all longhand. So, for the guy dealing with a couple hundred or so characters of text messages while yakking on the phone -- heh.
There truly is nothing new under the sun.
Poster Child? Accident? (Score:2)
This guy is the poster boy for why cell phone usage in cars should be banned in more places.
Shouldn't the poster boy be someone who caused an accident? Who was in charge of the nomination process? Surely there is someone out there who ran into a school bus full of special needs children while texting, or something.
Too short (Score:3)
in a country where it's perfectly possible to live without a car, this term is far too short. He should never be allowed behind the wheel on a public road again.
Re:And the sad part is... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not about having your hands on the wheel. It's about having your mind on the road.
Anyone who thinks it's okay to divide their attention when they are supposed to be controlling a lethally dangerous machine surrounded by innocent bystanders is a selfish prick. If that's how you drive it's sheer dumb luck which has thus far stopped you killing someone, and that may not hold out forever.
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The easy solution is self driving cars.
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The easy solution is self driving cars.
I don't think it would be all that easy, but in essence I agree with you. Self driving cars are the way of the future. The way of the future. The way of the future. The way of the future.
Re:And the sad part is... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you measure the impairment of a person after you've stopped them?
By their actions before you stop them. Crossing the yellow line multiple times, failure to maintain a constant speed, not noticing that the cop put his lights on until a minute later when he finally hits the siren. Breathalyzer or blood test if the impairment is alcohol or drugs. Those kinds of things.
Just as you can generalize and say that someone with a blood alcohol content of .10 or .08 is "impaired" in the eyes of the law, texting while driving is also impaired at any level, and simply talking on a cell phone has been shown to be just as dangerous (4x) as driving drunk, so it is easy to conclude texting is worse.
With the availability of hands-free options, there is no excuse to talk while holding the phone anyway. Or pull over. More importantly, there is never a justification for texting while driving. I'm a Libertarian at heart, but that goes beyond personal freedom and enters into the "acts that affects others", and needs a heavy fine, to discourage those activities.
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Being able to make a call on the road doesn't outweigh the risks any more than driving home drunk outweighs the cost of a taxi or designated driver or not drinking in the first place.
Mycroft
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Unfortunately it's the conversation, not the holding of a phone, that causes the impairment. If you need to make a call, get off the road. Being able to make a call on the road doesn't outweigh the risks any more than driving home drunk outweighs the cost of a taxi or designated driver or not drinking in the first place. Mycroft
Interesting, got any links with information on that specifically? If that is accurate, then cars that seat more than one person represent just as much of a risk, I'd think.
Re:And the sad part is... (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd think wrong. The studies into this show repeatedly that a conversation with someone there actually impairs you far less than a conversation on the phone. There are a couple of explanations for this thrown around...
1) The person who's there can see what's going on on the road and time the conversation to not distract significantly... You can also more easily tell them to shut the fuck up if you're hitting difficult stuff.
2) Your brain actually works harder in the weird situation where it's got to talk to someone who's not there – humans haven't really evolved to do it well.
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By their actions before you stop them. Crossing the yellow line multiple times, failure to maintain a constant speed, not noticing that the cop put his lights on until a minute later when he finally hits the siren.
Then how do you convict them. It will always come down to the cop's word against the acused, with the way things are done now. "I saw him cross the line 4 times, drift off the road and onto the shoulder, and could see he wasn't looking at the road because he was looking down." Defendant: "No I didn't." So do you convict or acquit if you were on the jury?
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Conversely, if you're doing any of those things and driving perfectly safely, then good for you.
Because if they can't do them safely, then they are impaired. So you really are interested in impairment. You just have an issue with my wording. You are right that I'm not interested in impairment. I'm personally interested in risk level. Society has made a conscious choice that absolute ri
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I suspect the problem is you brain is spending a lot more power on interpolating from voice the subtle social cues we normally get from facial expressions and body posture, etc. And of course in expressing the same with voice alone.
I RARELY if ever see someone on a cell in traffic who's not showing clear signs of distr
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If it's the act of having a conversation, then we definitely need to ban communication between passengers in vehicles.
As for reaction times? Car and Driver tested that a year or two ago - they took a guy in his mid-20's and a guy in his mid-40's and had them drive a course with no distractions, then while holding a phone and talking, then while drunk, then while drunk and holding a phone. Their results? Obviously the reaction times kept getting worse, but the surprising thing was that even drunk and hold
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Re:And the sad part is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I used to agree with you. But since California started doing hands-free only, the number of idiots swerving around in their lane has decreased tremendously. And the only people that still do it are the ones that are still breaking the law.
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What about changing the radio station while driving?
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Uh, GP never said that. You're taking a reasonable position ("distracted driving is dangerous") and taking it to absurd extremes. Nobody has ever proposed banning talking or radios, to my knowledge, and pretending that's even relevant to the discussion at hand is bad debate form.
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It's been shown repeatedly that conversing on a phone requires substantially more attention than talking to someone face-to-face.
Plus, if the person you're talking to is physically in the car, they know instantly "crap something's going on I need to shut up to let the driver focus". Hell, they might spot a potential problem before the driver does and alert them ("watch out, that moron's trying to cut you off").
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Personally, I find that if I'm tired or feeling a bit under the weather, having someone talk to me beyond necessary directions, or having the radio on is MORE distractions than I can cope with. That said, if I am having that much trouble concentracting, I probably shouldn't be on the road in the first place. It generally happens on the way home from some event when I wanted to leave some time ago but my husband couldn't drag himself away yet. :(
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You don't understand how infinitely more distracting than radio a conversation is ? Especially with someone not in the car with you, who doe not follow the environment's changes ?
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Are you really trying to make the argument that having a conversation with someone who is not in the car while driving should be banned?
Fixed that for you.
Nice attempt to frame the argument but this is not black and white and you conveniently missed out the two most important points.
1) The other person is not in the car and has no awareness of the situation.
2) The driver has one hand off the controls.
When someone is in the car with me, talking to me they know what I am doing and when I need to concentrate. A person on the phone has no such awareness. Secondly and more importantly, the drivers ability to turn or change gears is dimin
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Sorry, but that's some horrible logic. It doesn't matter if the person you're talking to can see if you need to focus more or not - it takes a fraction of a second to say "Hang on" or just simply not frakking respond. As for the hands issue - the post you're quoting was saying that HANDS FREE phones are bad because talking = distraction.
I refuse to drive a manual and before I had a car with bluetooth built-in, I just simply only answered the phone in an emergency (like being lost and needing directions) a
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Banning children in cars would seriously make the road safer. You could then remove all the soccer moms, SUVs, etc from the road too.
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There are plenty of other examples involving death that could be used if you find this one objectionable.
http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com/kb/2011/Apr/310059.html [findlaw.com]
To me anyway the term nanny state should be reserved for use in cases where innocent bystanders are not dying.
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To me anyway the term nanny state should be reserved for use in cases where innocent bystanders are not dying.
I disagree. I don't believe in perfect solutions, and I don't believe in banning something simply because a few people abuse it (even if a few innocent bystanders die). I won't claim to know how many people really do die from using a cell phone while driving, but I was speaking in general. I'd say it's a nanny state if they ban something just because a few people use it and get hurt/hurt other people.
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I don't think that's a very good analogy. You can't kill someone without killing them, but it's possible to drive a car (or use a tool) without killing someone. And their intention is to hurt people in the first place. We're not even talking about criminals here. Rather, we are talking about going after the few people who abuse it (read: abuse).
Not only that, but you could probably use the same logic to advocate the banning of cars (or practically anything in existence).
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Furthermore, I'm none too fond of killing in most circumstances. So, even if I accepted that analogy, I would still be against the unbanning of killing simply because I don't like it. That's not hypocritical since they're two different things.
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I'd rather somebody not be killed in the first place though.
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What's critical is to what degree risking others' lives with a car is a crime. The fact that they actually died is important in establishing to what degree this behaviour is risking the lives of others'.
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The point of these laws is that at some point the risk to others is too great to be justified. If we just limited laws to cases where somebody is already dead or injured that would greatly reduce the point of doing so as it would only apply retroactively.
With that approach we'd have basically no traffic laws, food safety laws, maintenance requirements on transportation or rules against other forms of reckless endangerment.
Re:And the sad part is... (Score:5, Informative)
You missed the point. The ban on using mobile phones while driving isn't down to people taking their hands off the wheel, it's because studies have shown that it causes drivers to take their attention away from the road, thereby causing accidents.
Yes, the extent of this particular guy's idiocy is thankfully rare, but your own apparent ignorance of the true danger of driving while using a phone only highlights the practical value of the ban (which already exists here).
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You missed the point. The ban on using mobile phones while driving isn't down to people taking their hands off the wheel, it's because studies have shown that it causes drivers to take their attention away from the road, thereby causing accidents.
So, uh, what about all the other drivers who don't pay attention to the road in the first place?
Yeah, this guy is a dumbass who probably should be banned, but I see moronic driving pretty much every day commuting to and from work and very few of the morons are using cellphones. Moronic drivers should be stopped regardless; or do you think that driving with his knees would be OK if only he wasn't talking and texting on his phones at the same time?
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Then we don't need one specifically for moronic behavior involving cell phones, do we?
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I think there are studies that show the *mental* effort of holding a conversation is enough to impair a majority of drivers, regardless of where their hands are. So it's not just "a couple of morons", its a far greater percentage of the population. And these come in all shades of varying degree of impairment and judgement on when to use it, so if you allow it all, the law very quickly becomes a question of how much impairment is okay? Is it okay if I only use it at stoplights? Or put it down while mergi
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And the sad part is ... the nanny state will use this an example of why we "need" extremely restrictive laws regulating how and when cell phones and other devices may be used while inside a car. A couple of morons with bad habits are going to ruin it for the vast majority who know better than to take their hands off the wheel.
Nanny state? Really? Dude, he was driving with no hands on the wheel. I don't care if he was holding two cellphones or both your mom's boobs, the "hands-not-on-the-wheel" thing is the problem, not the exact nature of the objects in question.
And a "couple of morons with bad habits"? OK, hardly anyone -- statistically speaking -- commits murder. Just a few n'er-do-wells. Really don't need a law for such an unlikely thing. Right?
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And a "couple of morons with bad habits"? OK, hardly anyone -- statistically speaking -- commits murder. Just a few n'er-do-wells. Really don't need a law for such an unlikely thing. Right?
I'd say go after the people who hurt others. I don't think you should ban things just because a few people abuse them.
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The really sad part is... (Score:2)
That you dont even have your license.
How do I know, because if you did you would know what it's like to almost be taken out by some complete dingbat talking on the phone and not watching where he's bloody well driving.
Damned right they should clamp down on this hard, IMHO they didn't come down on him hard enough, if there was ever a reason for the courts to crush someone's car this is it, and make sure the moron's phones are in the centre console.
However the saddest part is, this punishment will not stick,
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How do I know, because if you did you would know what it's like to almost be taken out by some complete dingbat talking on the phone and not watching where he's bloody well driving.
He doesn't share your opinion so therefore he must not have a license? Or, perhaps, he has a license but doesn't share your opinion.
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That you dont even have your license.
How do I know, because if you did you would know what it's like to almost be taken out by some complete dingbat talking on the phone and not watching where he's bloody well driving.
You really dont know what it takes to get a license, do you? I infer from your statement that, you are the one without a license.
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I would much rather make it merit based and treat cell phones in cars the same way we treat guns, as useful tools that are dangerous if not used properly.
You should be required to get a license or permit to use a cell phone while driving, and getting one should require passing a quiz and possibly a demonstration about how to do so safely.
As it is we already let cops and truckers use cell phones because we presume them to be competent enough not to fuck up.
Re:And the sad part is... (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple of morons with bad habits are going to ruin it for the vast majority who know better than to take their hands off the wheel.
He didn't just take his hands off the wheel - he took his eyes off the road. There is no safe way to drive without being able to see the road. Nobody that I know of considers it a good idea to have people who cannot see allowed to drive; but this person is for all intents and purposes blind while writing or reading a text message.
This is equally as dangerous to the public as driving drunk, and should be handled the same way the rest of the industrialized world handles DUI - mandatory felony for the first offense.
That said I am not aware of "nanny states" looking to use this to take away reasonable cell phone usage privileges from drivers. You can still talk on your phone, but for the sake of everyone on the road don't take your eyes off the road. Reading and writing text messages is simply not safe while driving. You can't read the newspaper while driving and expect to get away with it, there is no reason why a text message should be any different.
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A couple of morons? LOL. I can't figure out whether you're simply ignorant or so wrapped up in partisan politics that you can't face reality.
On days with good weather, I take my bike to work. I pay attention to what drivers near me or doing because it's a survival skill. Easily 80% of drivers who do something outrageously fucking stupid are holding a cell phone to their ear. It might even be more than that. And this is in a province where hands-free cell phones are legal, but holding one in your ha
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And the sad part is ... the nanny state will use this an example of why we "need" extremely restrictive laws regulating how and when cell phones and other devices may be used while inside a car. A couple of morons with bad habits are going to ruin it for the vast majority who know better than to take their hands off the wheel.
The "nanny state" needs these "extremely restrictive laws" because people behave fucking stupidly and kill not just themselves, but other people. You have to have laws to punish people, because otherwise everyone thinks hey know best, they're perfectly safe, nothing will happen to them...
Anyway, a law requiring you not to use your mobile phone only affects those moronic to do so in the first place.
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An IQ test? (Score:2)
What about an IQ test for drivers? What about yanking out the radio for people on the lower end of the scale?
There are some people out there who can't talk and drive at the same time. There are people who are so dumb they get their ashtray confused with the window.
Maybe we should take those people's licenses?
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Do you think the cost of preventing drunk driving also exceeds the safety benefits? Because that is what study after study has been showing; that talking on a cell phone impairs a driver about the same as driving drunk.
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The same studies also show that it's about the same level as talking with a passenger, as I recall. It is certainly equally distractive to have a baby whine at you because it has lost its dummy, believe me.
When my baby cries while I'm driving, I pull over, calm her down and then continue. I completely agree that it's a huge distraction and that's why I don't continue to drive while it's happening.
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[...] Just because there are a few morons who abuse the privilege and put other drivers in serious danger should not prevent the rest from doing what is otherwise not that dangerous. [...]
I would wholeheartedly agree with you, were it not for one tiny problem: The vast majority of people is unable to adequately judge whether they belong to the morons or to the rest. So I rather have the law err on the side of caution and treat everyone as a moron.
As my driving school instructor always told me: There are bad drivers, and there are those who have not yet had the chance to find out that they are bad drivers.
Re:Wrong conclusion! (Score:5, Funny)
Totally! And I've driven drunk a bunch of times (including right now) and never had any problems - drunk driving should also be legal!
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. In all those cases, as with cell phones, you can stop doing those activities at any time to focus on the road.
The problem is, how do you know when it is time to focus on the road, when you are already distracted.
Not your fault, but could have avoided (Score:3)
Getting rear ended means it is something totally not your fault.
However I've AVOIDED several rear-end accidents that would also not have been my fault, simply by always checking to see if people behind me seem to be aware I'm stopping while braking. If not, I evaluate options and avoid them as best I can - twice now by going into the shoulder or median, a few times through quick lane changes even if it meant missing a turn.
You really should not take you attention away from ALL parts of the road, even if so
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The first time, I simply came to a stop on a 30MPH road where a guy was making a left turn into a shopping plaza entrance and a woman behind me in her minivan didn't stop
Maybe she was busy talking on her cell phone.
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Dale Earnhardt Sr. drove with his knees while wiping mud off his Windshield.
And he won the race! Or something.
You do realize that NASCAR racing is statistically and functionally safer than driving on public roads? He is (actually was) in a group of professional drivers on a race track as opposed to a set of twisty narrow passages and intersections populated by the portion of the population that fits in the leftmost part of the intelligence curve.
And it still wasn't a great idea.