Oh, and the company changed its policy a week or two later when another contractor, whose daughter also got sick, threatened to sue. So yeah, it’s pretty serious.
Ok, point taken. I probably wouldn’t be a good parent, that’s why I will only become one accidently
What’s so annoying about cell phones, anyway? Way back before cell phones, people talked to other people sitting next to them on the bus, too. Was that annoying? As long as the driver’s not one of the ones doing it, what’s the harm? It really is possible to just ignore people, you know.
That’s been asked and answered several times in this thread already. But I agree with Hilarity, it’s not so bad if the person is talking in hushed tones. I think that a lot of people still think that they can hear the other party better if they themselves yell.
It occurred to me that cell phone use in cars can be stopped without pissing off the FCC.
A sensor in the car could detect a cell phone signal and sound an annoying alarm like the seatbelt does. After two minutes the horn would start blaring. The cell phone signal is never blocked and that keeps the FCC happy.
Sounds extreme? Just last month this college coed was texting and updating Facebook on a trip home. 80 mph and her head is looking at that damn phone. A text every 90 seconds according to her phone records. I’m just glad she didn’t kill anyone but herself.
Google accident cell phone
Cops can’t stop this because there’s no evidence of a crime unless they catch you driving and talking/texting.
It is extreme.
Normally I’d be the last person to argue for more Nanny state rules. I never agreed with seat belt laws. I wear one myself. If others don’t then its their risk and life. Motorcycle helmets laws are the same deal.
Cell phone use while driving endangers me and people I care about. I don’t want to get rear ended by a stupid girl texting her friends while she’s driving 80 mph.
What would your proposal accomplish, exactly?
I looked into this and discovered there is a lot of anecdotes like yours and no hard evidence. What you should demand is that fatal accident investigations should always pull the driver’s cell phone records and see it the phone was in use when the accident occurred. Then you might have have some evidence instead of scare stories in the media.
It would make sense to require breathalyzers in cars, since we can actually document the 12,000 people a year killed by drunk drivers.
Well, as others said, the FCC would never allow jamming signals in cars.
Seat belt buzzers annoy people enough that it encourages people to wear them. An annoying buzzer alarm triggered by cell phone use should have a similar effect. Add in a car horn that blares every 20 seconds and that should discourage most cell phone texters. The horn would also attract the cops interest too.
There really isn’t a perfect solution. Cell phone’s are needed and will always be around. Its a shame the actions of a few idiots endangers the rest of us.
I looked into this and discovered there is a lot of anecdotes like yours and no hard evidence. What you should demand is that fatal accident investigations should always pull the driver’s cell phone records and see it the phone was in use when the accident occurred. Then you might have have some evidence instead of scare stories in the media.
It would make more sense to require breathalyzers in cars, since we can actually document the 12,000 people a year killed by drunk drivers.
I agree more study is needed. They should always check the cell phone records after an accident. Also check cell phone usage for any driver ticketed for extreme speeding or reckless driving. That data is needed to fully study this issue.
My state has laws that can be enforced. I’m not sure if cell phone records can be used later in court. It would certainly help convictions if they could be used.
I voted ‘maybe’ but I probably wouldn’t. There have been times, though, when I’ve felt like grabbing some loudmouth’s mobile and chucking it out the window.
None of which would be necessary, of coure, if people weren’t such selfish arseholes.
Cell phone records get used all the time in criminal cases, so I would think the only question is whether the timestamp is accurate enough to determine if the driver was making a call when the accident occurred.
I voted yes, definitely.
I also would spray paint any other car that is red to the color blue because I do not like the color red.
In most of Spain, cellphones, same as cabbies.
Accident investigations here (no need to be fatal, any involving a serious injury) do involve getting phone records. I remember an intercity bus where the phone the driver used to talk with Central had rung just as he entered a dangerous curve (22 dead including both drivers). You can use cellphones here if they’re “hands-free”.
I agree with this.
However, there is another point of consideration; people like myself stream music from my phone through the car speakers on a growing basis. I’m not actively using my phone (meaning I’m not forwarding my attention, it’s set and forget), but it would be tricky to make the distinction, since data is constantly active.
There is no simple solution to the problem, but there needs to be a bigger push for driver education and some way to turn around the idea that driving is a passive activity. I know it’s anecdotal, but I was listening to the radio a while back, where the host and callers were expressing the opportunity to multitask while driving, because there exist a lot of “downtime” where they can get other things done. That’s pretty crazy.
And back in the day you kept hearing stories of “And we tried to reach Uncle Fester for days so he could gt to Morticias deathbed, but we couldn’t reach him and she died before he could say goodbye” or “If only we could have reached Gomez in time to learn that Morticia had a deathly allergy to Sodium Pentathol so she died during the emergency operation to remove <whatever>” or “I tried to get you, the perfect job was open but when I couldn’t get you in to speak with Fred he hired his hairdresser’s third cousins brother”
If I was riding a bus, and you prevented me from getting news that my Mom was in hospital and on her deathbed and that I had a limited tome to reach her, and you caused me to miss it, I would literally probably hire someone to kick the living shit out of you and put you in hospital if I couldn’t sue you. You simply do not keep people from communicating just because you are tired of them using cell phones. Get a set of noise cancelling headphones or earplugs and learn to deal with it.
So no one in the car is allowed to use a phone?
I can actually see your solution being at least somewhat dangerous because people will learn to ignore the noise, or they will figure out a way to disable the system entirely, which isn’t that hard to do. Either way, you’re back to square one, only now, you’ve got people with safety systems that don’t work. If you don’t disable the horn correctly, you can affect the airbag system, and even if you do disable the horn correctly, you’ve got no warning device if, say, someone’s about to back in to you or you’re about to hit someone else.
Even if the horn isn’t disabled, the sudden noise from the horn may be enough to startle some drivers enough to get into an accident. Since that’s what you’re trying to prevent in the first place, your idea seems counterproductive.