I should add that in Australia and Britain it is already an offence subject to a fine to use a phone while driving. I presumed that was the case elsewhere but from the fact that cellphoneuser decries the need for legislation, perhaps not?
Nice try. I qualified that by saying that it was at least VERY common nowadays. So, just where is the data to back up the assertion that cell phone use is worse than driving drunk? Because I don’t think that drunk drivers outnumber drivers using cell phones.
I would like to see statistical evidence, i.e. an unexplained increase in automobile accidents since the explosive proliferation of cell phone usage. Point me there and I’ll relent.
No, in the US it is currently legislated at the state level. My state (Maryland) has not passed legislation regulating cell phone usage while driving.
This is GQ, not GD. No response.
Doh! Not GQ (the forum where I usually read and occassionally participate). In any event, response seems pointless. Your mind is made up. Happily, decisions in a democracy do not require universal agreement by each and every citizen therein.
Would you be willing to listen to reasons why cell phone use is more dangerous than the other examples you gave?
Talking on the cellphone changes the priority of your awareness - the road is no longer number one. There’s a term pilot’s use: situational awareness. It means being aware of your surroundings, being aware of potential hazards, and being aware of where your attention and focus lie.
If you don’t see a marked difference between where your attention lies when you’re talking on the phone and when you’re not, I’d posit that another contributer is spot on when he says that those who think a cell phone adds no danger are probably inattentive drivers to begin with.
Consider this: you have one primary awareness channel and many peripheral channels. When you talk on the phone, your primary awareness channel becomes your cell phone conversation. Your monitoring of the awareness of your surroundings becomes peripheral. Driving is no longer your number one task.
Is this true of eating? No. Other than the self-imposed limitations of maneuvering with a lapful of french fries, or attempting to turn the wheel with Whopper juice dripping down your arm, the act of eating does not change your primary awareness. The same can be said of listening to the radio or conversing with a passenger - both are passive tasks that do not require focus. Putting on makeup, reading while driving, playing with the NAV unit, or even watching a DVD(!) - these tasks all change your primary focus, thereby making you a less attentive driver and reducing your reaction time - something you need at 100%, especially if you’re driving something massive like a big SUV.
No it’s not a Democracy, it’s a Republic, and unfortunately all it takes is some bone-headed legislators to screw it up for everyone.
I will concede this argument when someone shows me the statistics which point to an ACTUAL increase in automobile accidents that is beyond what would be attributed to the increase in vehicle traffic. You know, a blip, an anomoly that is otherwise unexplainable, i.e. “Since the introduction and proliferation of cell phone use while driving, automobile accidents in the US are “X” percent higher than the rise in vehicle traffic alone would account for.”
I realize that using traffic fatalities, which are going down, is a poor indicator due to advances in automobile and life-saving technology. However that hasn’t stopped SOME groups from claiming that the reduced fatality rate is a direct result of tougher drunk driving laws. Soooo, if fatalities are declining as a result of a crack-down on drunk driving, (not my assertion) then cell phone use, which is worse than driving drunk, should more than off-set the reduction.
As far as making penalties for cell phone use as stiff as those for drunk driving… (mentioned above) when I hang up I am no longer distracted. You’re still drunk.
As for my primary focus, I use a hands-free device, a speaker. It’s not all that different from talking to a passenger.
Yes, my mind is made up until I see real evidence that cell phone use is actually causing MORE accidents.
Oh, by the way, I have only received one ticket (41 in a 30 zone) in nearly thirty years of driving, and I have never been in an accident that was my fault.
I was once broad-sided by a drunk who missed a traffic light, but that was long before I had a cell phone.
As Dave Barry says, “The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.”
You are a perfect example of why we need a law. You admit talking on a cell phone is distracting, but are only willing to modify your behavior if a precise sort of evidence, as defined and judged by you, proves you’re creating a hazard. (Out of curiosity, how many deaths would it take for you to agree this was a sound policy?) When you know (or should know) that, in a multiple variable problem of this complexity, no such evidence can be supplied. Which permits you to continue placing your personal convenience (goodness knows you don’t need to talk on that cell phone) above your responsibility to society. Moreover, since there is at least some evidence that cell phone use while driving creates a significant risk - and the main reason we don’t have more is that American cell phone companies refuse to release the data - the socially responsible choice is to abstain from such use unless and until it’s proven safe. And, as you know, driving is a right, not a privilege. You have no “right” to drive, much less a “right” to gab on the phone while you do so.
Will agree on one thing, though. It is, of course, a republic and not a democracy. Which means that large well-heeled corporations, armed with lobbyists and campaign contributions, can prevent useful laws from being adopted.
By the way, as it happens, I have friend, also about fifty years old, who lives in Towson and works in Baltimore. Had her first accident last summer. Yup, there was a cell phone involved. And she acknowledges that, had she not been on the phone, the accident probably wouldn’t have happened. In her case, no one was seriously hurt. Let’s hope for the same for you.
Doh! (Again! Too little sleep the past couple nights.) Should have been “… driving is a privilege, not a right.”
RE: Cell Phones… being a retired paramedic I recall many times being interupted while at a fast food place and continuing to wolf down the burger I was so peacefully chomping on, talking on two different radios, helping my rookie partner find the right map page and all the while driving a big top heavy ambulance code 3 through rush hour traffic (operating different sirens and grabbing the loud speaker to tell the Japanese immigrant drivers to “PULL TO THE RIGHT!”) all at the same time… and now they are telling me I can’t talk on my cell phone? PLEASE! (Note, 20 years a paramedic and never got into an accident, been driving 46 years and only one accident when I was 22.) It’s called mulit-tasking, in my opinion it’s not much different than listening to the radio. Cripey, how many of us are talking to the idiot drivers around us when we aren’t talking on the cell phone anyway!!!
Yes, it’s a distraction. As are ALL of the other examples I cited.
I’m sure that you don’t EVER engage in ANY of these activities while driving. If you do you might want to refrain from doing so. You want me to modify my behavior. How about you? Or do you plan to continue placing your personal convenience (goodness knows you don’t need to talk talk, eat, argue, or play with the radio) above your responsibility to society. How many people have to die before we regulate conversation in the car? Arguing in the car? Eating in the car? Putting on make-up in the car?
Are we going to attempt to regulate/legislate all distacting behavior behind the wheel? It isn’t possible.
If an officer observes me driving badly as a result of ANY of these examples I should be pulled over and ticketed accordingly. I would deserve it. I just don’t like being ticketed ONLY for cell phone use.
Here’s a little food for thought… NASCAR drivers communicate with their pit crew via a wireless headset. Hmmmm… sounds a lot like a cell phone. I know, I know. They’re “Trained Professionals”. Funny thing though. They don’t eat burgers, or fiddle with the FM radio to find that perfect country & western song. Do you think they might find these things TOO distracting while they are careening around that track? They shouldn’t. It’s easier to eat than talk on the headset. At least some people here seem to think so.
Heck, they don’t even get drunk before they race. I don’t know why not. It’s a lot less dangerous then talkin’ on them high falutin’ headsets of theirs.
Last time I checked out NASCAR there were subtle differences between it and driving on suburban streets. You know - all the traffic going the same way, no pedestrians, no sudden stops at crossings, no sets of traffic lights, no cross streets, no lanes merging, no ambulances or police cars driving past with sirens wailing.
Yeah, not to mention driving at 150 MPH with five feet between them and the car in front of them, squeezing through small openings that would make an average driver soil his pants, and having to react to and pay attention to EVERYTHING around them in order to stay alive, not kill their competitors, and attempt to win.
How DO they manage to talk to their pit crew on a wireless headset without crashing?
An educated guess is that they’re not holding multi-minute conversations. They’re talking in very short bursts. In that case you might be right.
That of course means nothing about the topic at hand.
I’m sorry. You are missing my point. Maybe they don’t hold multi-minute conversations. Maybe they do. I’m not sure as I don’t really follow the sport. I DO know you can rent receivers and listen to the conversations between the driver and the pit crew if you are attending the race. I saw it on the Today Show. At 50 bucks, I hope you hear something interesting enough to make it worth your while. But I KNOW they don’t do any of the other things I mentioned. You know, eating, arguing with passengers, (impossible since there aren’t any passengers, but you get my point) tuning the radio, getting drunk, putting on make-up, etc…that many posters feel aren’t NEARLY as dangerous or distracting as talking on a cell phone.
Recently on British TV they did a test on driving distractions. They got a traffic cop who is a highly trained driver to drive through some cones in a slalom which he did very well. They put one of these devices on him which maps to your eyes and relays the data to a computer and a camera. The net result is the camera focusses at what he was looking at. A similar device is used by helicopter pilots to help aim weapons like Gatling guns etc. You could see that he was concentrating several cones ahead of his position and pre-planning his route through the cones.
Then they asked him to repeat this while his passenger asked him to add some numbers. He started well but after three cones he lost control of the car and span it off the track.
When they analysed the “driver’s eye” film they noticed that when he was asked the questions he involuntarily looked up and to the right briefly - for a fraction of a second in fact. Taking his eyes off the road for even this amount of time was enough to cause him to crash.
So what does this have to do with using a mobile phone? Experts in the UK (where, incidentally its been illegal to use a mobile phone whilst driving for a while now) reckon that the main cause of having an accident whilst using a cell-phone is this involuntarily eye movement during a conversation which temporarily causes you to look away from the road.
You can try this in the office with an unsuspecting colleague. Ask them to add up some big numbers and watch their eyes! And before I get loads of comments saying “you don’t often get asked to add up whilst driving!” this involuntary eye movement can happen during any regular conversation.
Okay, he was involuntarily looking “up and to the right”. Apparently he was concentrating on something else and didn’t stay focused on the road. Hmmm… and you say this other person was a PASSENGER? So his concentration was disturbed by the questions a PASSENGER in the car was asking him?
The conclusion is obvious! We MUST ban all passengers in automobiles!
How do you think he may have done weaving through the cones while eating a cheeseburger? I know I tend to glance at my food or the dial before taking a bite.
How do you think he may have done if asked to tune the radio
I am starting to feel like a troll. I don’t partcipate in many message boards. I do participate in the geocaching forum. I have for a couple of years. If I were new to THAT board and posting this way, I would have likely been called a troll already.
I’m not trolling. I AM passionate about this subject. If any of you are guilty of driving while eating, conversing, arguing, radio tuning, or suffering from fatigue then what right do you have to tell me that I can’t use a cell phone? You are ALL guilty of driving while distracted.
ALL actions behind the wheel that are not directly related to driving the car are a distraction. Attempting to single out ONE of them and regulate it is asinine.