People who scream into their phones can be irritating at times but not everyone does this. That’s my point. Rude people are annoying - OK, OK, but it’s not their phones that are the problem. And there are people who just talk loudly whether or not they’re talking into a phone - we’ve all heard them and rolled our eyes. Someone else said earlier that there are plenty of polite mobile phone users around (I like to think I’m one of them) but some non-mobile phone users only notice the rude ones and never stop complaining about them as if getting a mobile phone automatically turns people into assholes. That’s the attitude I’m pitting.
I’d like to wait for actual facts about driving and cell phone usage vs accidents. Considering that NYC has laws against HOLDING a cell phone (not using hands free) means they don’t think it’s the actual talking, but the fact that you’re holding a cell.
I think we like to bitch about “bad drivers” because it’s easy to see someone using a cell while driving. It’s much harder to say “that driver sucks because he’s talking to a passenger”. And I’ve had passengers in the back who can’t see the road, talk. Passengers don’t automatically shut up just because traffic is getitng bad.
I work for a cell phone company and talk on my cell while driving. I use a head set always (I drive stick and can’t shift while talking). I doubt anyone here would be able to detect any driving difference when I’m not talking and when I’m on my cell.
Cellphones allow US to know that a certain person is an asshole. Before cellphones, unless someone stepped on their foot or cut them off in line, they would remain a silent asshole, which is the best kind.
My one request for cell phone users: When talking to someone, please move to the side of the sidewalk/hallway/aisle, instead of wandering in aimless circles right in the middle of foot traffiic. Thank you.
Cell phones aren’t all bad. Thanks to the city now being chock-full of pedestrians chatting animatedly with people who aren’t there, it has never before been so socially acceptable to be a schizophrenic.
With a few minor changes in behavior (personal, mechanical, and regulatory) most of my complaints about cell phones would be addressed. (But I myself still do not want one):
a) Cell phones should be equipped with a visual “flasher” ring (for all I know, they already are), and wherever possible people should either set them to “vibrate” or to “flash”. In darkened venues, “vibrate” only. The auditory ring is the most intrusive.
b) Cell phone auditory rings should be inconspicuous little trills, not those hideous annoying cheerful-smarmy video-game beeps that make everyone within 50 paces want to backhand the fuck out of the owner when it rings. The receptionist in our office has one that rings to a high-pitched “shave and-a-haircut, two bits, la dee da da dah dah, two bits” over and over, and the next time she leaves it at her desk to ring when she’s not there to answer it, I’m pitching it into the toilet. There’s another guy on our small office whose cellphone ring is the opening rum-tidda-rums of William Tell / The Lone Ranger theme. These things are worse than those fucking Game Boys that 12 year olds carry on the subways. Get rid of the annoying cellphone ringing and 90% of my annoyance with cellphones is eliminated. Therefore, by extension, this includes the playing of those silly-ass bundled-in Game Boy arcade games I hear people playing on their cell phones when they * aren’t* talking on them. Turn off the freaking sound. Beep boop beep boop your ass.
c) Movie theatres, concerts, Broadway shows, and other performance venues should be equipped with powerful signal-blockers which kick in when the show starts. It only takes one cellphone interruption in the entire audience to constitute a major annoyance, and as a group cell phone owners have displayed such an appallingly bad sense of public responsibility that like the proverbial one bad apple they’ve made this necessary even though some of you are good about setting it on vibrate and never ever actually speaking into it then and there. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. If you need to be contactable, don’t attend performances or else hire someone to stand on the sidewalk holding your cell phone to come in and tap you on the shoulder if your neurosurgery unit needs you stat or the Joint Chiefs of Staff note massive troop movement on our borders and need your OK to scramble the jets.
d) When you’re on public transportation or other closed environment full of other people who don’t know you and don’t necessarily want to: those things send and receive email, don’t they? Text: it’s an option, it’s unobtrusive, use it.
e) Talking on cell phone while driving: should be treated on a par with driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.4 and a half-empty bottle of Absolut in your hand —confiscate the phone, impound the car, and jail your ass until someone comes and bails you out, mandatory $700 fine, required remedial Drivers Ed courses with Cellphone Awareness, 5 points on your license, and 2nd offense is a guaranteed revocation of your license. And yes this damn well does include “hands free” sets.
Cell phones are the best thing to happen to 911 in the past few years. They are also the worst thing. Everyone wants to be the hero. Not everyone knows (or has the ability to explain) where they are at.
Hypothetical (but likely) transcript from the above incident;
Unspoken sarcasm in Red
911: 911, what’s the location of the emergency?
Cell caller #68: there’s a HUGE wreck, an suv hit the rail and there’s not much left
911: Where is the wreck at?
Cell caller #68: Out on the highway. Just outside of town.
911: :rolleyes: Which highway? Which town? To cow-orkers -Watch this. “Hey guys, head down to the smashup on The highway, just outside The town” They love me 
Cell caller #68: Uh . . .
911: Are you stopped there now? So I can send someone down to shoot you. Just a flesh wound. Promise.
Cell caller #68: No, it was heading the other way. I passed it about ten minutes ago
911: Could this have been on XXXX mile post XXX? Units are onscene at a similar incident at that location . . .
Cell caller #68: Yeah, that’s it. Thought I saw an ambulance headed that way . . .
911: Thanks [click] [CLICK]
Or the short version that usually kicks in after one too many of these calls reporting the same incident
911: Are your calling about the XXX at XXX?
Cell caller#69: yeah, it’s . .
911: Are you stopped there now?
Cell caller#69: No . . .
911: Thanks [click]
So Sender, having a cell phone somehow renders you clueless about where you are? I don’t understand. I called in an accident over the winter and told them I was on 85 southbound about 2 miles past the Freedom Drive exit (Exit 34). Having a cell phone didn’t affect my ability to know where I was or what road I was travelling on.
I have a cell phone and use it every now and then. But I’ve made it my mission to not call people unless I would have called them from the corded phone. Too many people are using cell phones as a way to kill time – the GameBoy for adults, if you will. My husband is the worst offender of this. His day is so frenetic and he’s so used to multi-tasking – watching the ticker, fielding phone calls, looking up data, and scribbling notes – that JUST driving bores him. So the second he gets in his car, he’ll pick up the phone and call me.
It drives me in.sane.
After the 300th interruption while I was trying to make dinner (for him, no less), I finally blew up and told him that unless he had a specific purpose for calling me (e.g. to tell me he would be late coming home), he should please not call me.
I personally don’t care if YOU jabber on for hours just to kill time on your corded phone or your mobile phone. You can text message until your fingers bleed and I won’t complain. Just don’t expect me to participate because, honestly, I can think of a million things I’d rather do.
So, jsut to claify something I have wondred abut, namely, the legality (in the USA and other countries) of speaking on a mobile phones/cellphone/even “handy” while driving. As far as I know, it is now illegal in the U.K. for a driver to talk on such a phone while the engine is runing, ie, stop the car, pull in, park somewhere then return/otherwise deal with the call.
I have now got the notion that in some states, it is illegal, but it is OK in others. I that about right?
Is anyone in this thread actually reading the posts they’re replying to?
Yes, god forbid you actually meet people in the physical world just by saying hello or smiling as opposed to the same old channels of communication available the day we were born, like our mom’s.
The reason that I have decided against a cell-phone is both cost and my dad.
My dad feels, for who knows what reason, that once he had a cell phone, he should call more than once a day just to keep in touch. He will notify me of his current activity and see what is new. Who gives a flying fuck that you are at the post office? This once rigidly dignified and planned out individual now calls thirty minutes before he arrives at my apartment, once at ten minutes, once at the major interesection outside of it, and then when he arrives. What is the damned point?
I was going to pretty much reiterate what Miller was saying, but a lot less snarky.
Zette, I don’t think Sender was implying that being on a cell phone renders someone unable to know where they are, I think he was just voiceing annoyance (rightfully so) at those who do call in without knowing where they are. Kind of like you can be annoyed at people that gab incessantly on their phones while they’re supposed to be interacting with the cashier at the grocery store and not being able to keep up their end of the interaction but that doesn’t necessarily mean that owning a cell phone makes you unable to interact with people in your immediate presence when the occasion calls for it. Mere ownership of the phone doesn’t make you unable to interact when needed.
I think you were getting upset over a connection that *Sender in no way implied was there. The fact that you knew exactly where you were when you reported that accident obviously excludes you from the group Sender was speaking of.
Does anyone have any studies that have shown a coralation between cell phone use and increased accidents, you know, proof?
I hear a lot of anecdotal stories, but I have never seen any studies that show that talking on a cell phone makes one a more dangerous driver. That guy that cut you off while talking on a cell? How do you know he wouldn’t have cut you off anyway?
These new anti cell phone laws are stupid. It’s already illegal, everywhere, to drive recklessly for any reason.
It’s more knee jerk, redundent legislation in search of a problem for which there is already a law in place, wasting even more of our tax money and time.
Miller, Lezlers Thanks. Zette it sounds like your call helped someone out, doubleplus good, you’re ok in my book.
Enhanced 911 coverage for cell phones is by no means nationwide yet. If we’re lucky the call comes tagged to the nearest cell tower. Most of time it does not.
The other main problem with cell phones and 911 is the models that have the 9 button set to speed dial 911. When these phones are placed in pockets, purses, and backpacks, guess what. We get a 911 open line with no callback number, no address, and no way to confirm if it’s a legitimate call for help. Most phones have a keypad lock feature. Not enough people use it.
It’s a no win situation for 911 ops because we’re either stuck listening for an eternity until the caller notices, putting the call on hold, or hanging up. I usually go for hanging up.
No kidding. I’ve seen people doing all sorts of things while driving other than talking on cell phones. I’ve seen men shaving with electric razors, I see women putting on make-up all the time (with the rearview mirror pointed down at their face!), I always see people eating. I’ve seen people writing notes on pads on the dashboards - all that stuff is just as bad as talking on a cell phone.
(Disclaimer - I’ve put on makeup in the car, but only at stoplights.)
WeirdDave:
Clarification for those who do not have time or otherwise do not wish to read the report: “single-task” means just doing the simulated driving; “dual-task” means doing the simulated driving while talking on the cell phone or while engaging in the control task (either listening to the radio or listening to a book on tape).
OK, a few things:
[disclaimer: I’m in the wireless industry, hence my username, but consider myself a human being in society first, and compose this as the latter, not the former.]
- There has been research done on the distraction factor of driving while talking, by independent sources such as AAA and VA Commonwealth University.
From
here [bolding mine]:
My conclusion: talking on the phone (in-hand OR hands-free) while driving can be distracting, but no more so than many other common activities. Why should this one be singled out for being outlawed? As mentioned previously, there are already laws about distracted driving.
2. When I lived in a foreign country years ago, I used to bristle against the “ugly american” stereotype. After all I wasn’t an ugly american, was I?
Then I realized that that stereotype came from the fact that it was only the ugly american types that got noticed. All the (hundreds? thousands? millions of?) americans like myself who blended in just fine, never got noticed. There was no “quiet american” stereotype.
Same can be said for cell-phone users. We don’t notice the polite ones. Who knows how many there are? (Actually, from here, there are currently more than 165MM wireless users in the US.)
3. **Using some common sense and common courtesy, like with most things in life, really helps. **
I have a mobile phone and it is what enables me, like a great number of small business owners, to stay reachable and therefore competitive and therefore in business. However, I am very clear that the phone works for me, I don’t work for it. I am not Pavlov’s dog. When it rings, I can answer or not. Here are the rules I operate by:
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I talk in a normal tone. In the age of digital transmission, if the connection is breaking up and you can’t be heard, yelling isn’t going to help AT ALL.
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If a call comes in while I’m talking to a live human being, I let it ring over to voicemail. The person I’m already talking to has precedence. If I can, I’ll discretely check the caller ID. If I’m expecting an important call, I’ll ASK the person I’m talking with if they mind if I check on or take the call.
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If I’m in a retaurant, meeting, or other place wiht other people who would not be party to the conversation, I’ll take the call elsewhere (outside, the lobby, whatever). After all, they’re MOBILE phones, people.
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Yes, I will talk when driving, IF I’m on the highway or it’s not heavy traffic. I won’t hesitate to say I’ll call back or I can’t talk now, I’m driving. IF the call is important and trafic is heavy or I’m in the city, I’ll pull over/off when it’s safe and finish the conversation.
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I always turn it off/silent when at the movies the theatre, etc. In meetings or o ther quiet environments with other people, I’ll usually turn it to the mode where it beeps just once to let me know there’s a call, not some long, annoying ring.
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If I’m with someone else and their phone rings, I’ll say “Go ahead and take that. I don’t mind.” It seems only the polite thing to do.
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I will talk in the grocery store (or whatever) but can still maintain reasonable situational awareness while doing so. If it’s a long conversation, I’ll stop what I’m doing and “step aside” and finish the conversation.
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I’ll generally try NOT to continue a phone conversation when I need to interact with others, i.e. at the grocery check-out. However, yesterday, as an example, I’d stood still in the supermarket talking with a client for about 20 minutes and really needed to get out of there though he wanted to continue the conversation, so I went through the checkout still on the phone. I DID apologize to the checker as I went through (also made sure to say “credit” and “paper” so she wasn’t impeded in doing her job). She said “no problem”, probably because I bothered to look her in the eye and apologize.
I’ve never noticed dirty looks about my phone usage. Now if I could only get the rest of the world to operate by my rules! 
Summary: It’s not the phones, it’s SOME OF the people who use them.
Wow, I didn’t realize I was “upset”.
Anyway, I’ve never heard of this happening, that’s why I asked. Are there actually complaints from 911 operators or police that people call and have no idea where they are and report accidents?
Upon re-reading I get the impression that Sender is a 911 operator or dispatcher. So if he/she says it happens, I believe it. I’ve just not heard of this before and find it hard to believe that people are so stupid that they don’t even know what road they’re travelling on. Then again, people call 911 for rides and cooking instructions, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Cell phones apparently just make some people more disruptive idiots then before.