Driving with cell phones

[Ghoulish Delight]

Would I be in trouble for continuing to use my phone as a music player? Would selecting the next podcast to listen to be verboten? Is it somehow more dangerous than someone scrolling through their poorly organized directories via LCD display on the MP3 CD that's in their car stereo simply because theirs is built into the dashboard?

I understand, and possibly even agree with, the impetus behind the recommendation. But enforcement I think will be inconsistent at best.

I was mistakenly pulled over for talking on my cell phone because I was resting my head on my hand and my long hair covered me ear, therefore a cop decided I must be on the phone. If they can't even determine accurately whether someone had a device physically against their head, what chance do they have of accurately determining other far less obvious uses of portable devices?

[Alex]

Enforcement where there is no negative outcome to draw attention is problematic. But I have no problem with, if you are otherwise involved in a criminal/civil issue related to driving, that it can be shown that you were texting, or taking calls, or setting Spotify playlists, or making a 130-point play on Words with Friends that they could charge you with that (or increase civil penalties) as well.

[Gn2Dlnd]

Car radios, gps devices, kids in the backseat, regular old paper maps -all of them just as, or more distracting than me hitting the button on my ear to answer an incoming call.

I have rear-ended someone twice. Once, 15 years ago, stop-and-go on the freeway, I looked down for an nth of a second at a paper map. Second one, 7 or 8 years ago, again stop-and-go, nth of a second, iPod. Both minor, but made the point that I SHOULDN'T TAKE MY EYES AWAY FROM THE CAR IN FRONT OF ME TO LOOK AT SILLY SH!T!

[Alex]

True. They all can be and they should all be done with caution.

But the distraction of talking on the phone is not in the handling if the phone, it is in the cognitive nature of holding a phone conversation and what that does to the human brain in terms of multitasking in a way it simply does not do well. There is now plenty of evidence that talking on a cell phone increases your chances of being in an accident compared to holding conversations with passengers and that it makes no statistical difference whether that phone conversation is hands free or not.

"There is other stupid stuff I do too" isn't really a good defense for doing any particular stupid thing.

[Moonliner]

I don't think anyone is arguing in favor of distracted driving, but clearly in the vast majority of cases people are able to talk and drive without indecent.

Driving will never be 100% safe. Accident rates go up if you have a radio in the car, cruise control, food and/or drink, passengers (especially kids). Should we eliminate all these as well? What about the speed limit? How low would you like to make that knowing that every MPH you lower it saves lives.

Even if you do eliminate all those things you'll still have traffic deaths and injuries.

I'm all for a public safety campaign alerting people to the dangers of using a cell phone while driving, but I don't want a law that says I can't use a cell phone (for calls) while driving. It's just one more risk that needs to be managed.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

I don't think anyone is arguing in favor of distracted driving, but clearly in the vast majority of cases people are able to talk and drive without indecent.

The first question I would raise on any particular risk is: does it contribute to the utility of driving?

Having passengers in a car obviously does. Increased speed obviously does.

Food and drink not so obviously. Radio not so obviously. Talking with your wife on the phone not so obviously.

I'd say there are two different standards of review for them. If a limit on one of the first sufficiently reduces the benefit of driving it can be argued that it is worth the increased risk of harm and death. I'd argue that the threshold is much higher when the distraction is purely cosmetic to the purpose of driving.

And partly, **** gets grandfathered in that if new today probably wouldn't be allowed.

That said, if the NHTSA statistics are to be believed, compared to the population experiencing all of the existing distractions you already mention, texting while driving increases your risk of an accident by 23x. Speaking on a cell phone (regardless of handsfree or not) increases your risk of an accident by 7x compared tot he population experiencing all of the existing distractions.

Then you add on top of that the research indicating that the cognitive disruption of talking on a cell phone is fundamentally different in nature from the cognitive disruption of kids arguing in the back seat or singing along to the radio and to me it puts talking on your phone squarely into the category of "Doing Stupid ****."

The argument may be that driving with kids should also be "Doing Stupid ****" but because we do one category of "Doing Stupid ****" isn't a great argument for not trying to prevent another type of "Doing Stupid ****" from taking root.

By no means am I one advocating for a zero risk life. But in this case the Doing Stupid **** is almost as likely to hurt someone else as yourself and not Doing Stupid **** causes no real harm to anybody.

So in this case, since driving is already a heavily regulated activity, I have no problem at all with the various state departments of transportation trying to find ways to eliminate this particular form of Doing Stupid ****.

(Plus I have to imagine the rate of cell phone involved accidents is probably a bit underreported since hopefully not too many people would be so stupid as to say "I don't know how I ran into that tree, officer, I was on the phone with my mom and not really paying attention."

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by Alex

But the distraction of talking on the phone is not in the handling if the phone, it is in the cognitive nature of holding a phone conversation and what that does to the human brain in terms of multitasking in a way it simply does not do well. There is now plenty of evidence that talking on a cell phone increases your chances of being in an accident compared to holding conversations with passengers and that it makes no statistical difference whether that phone conversation is hands free or not.

Personally, I am a better driver when conversing on a cell phone than I am when I am conversing with someone in the car. With a person in the car, I tend to glance at them more (especially people in the back seat) and I talk with my hands. On my bluetooth, I can answer and hang up from the steering wheel and see who is calling by glancing at the radio screen. (Or, I could until Chris stole the Mini). But, with a manual car, I also only kept one hand on the wheel most of the time.

My phone is probably the LEAST distracting thing in my vehicle. Dogs, radio/satelite/cd/ipod controls, maps, passengers - all are MUCH more of a distraction.

I admit, I am on my cell phone a LOT throughout the day. It is the nature of my job to be doing other things while talking on the phone. The MOST difficult thing to do is walk dogs while holding the phone up to my ear. That is something I simply cannot do.

It used to be against the law to drive barefoot. It might still be for all I know, but if cops can't hang out on street corners with stop signs that are regularly run and issue tickets, when are they going to police me and my cell phone?

Oh, and we're also supposed to only have 4 pets and license our cats. We have 3 AC officers and one truck to police Long Beach, Seal Beach, Signal Hill, Cypress and Los Alamitos. I wonder why I haven't gotten in trouble yet?

I sound almost libertarian!

[Strangler Lewis]

I suppose a lot of it is perception. There is speeding and following too closely, both of which are dangerous, but which we all accept. And there is speeding more, following more closely and weaving in and out of traffic, which we don't accept, makes us think "Asshole!" and which we want to see prosecuted.

I think somehow the pro-cell phone/texting folks have moved from the "Everything in life is risky" camp to, well, the other camp, because there's a tinge of the "I'm a law abiding citizen, and I should be able to do what I want" cant to their pitch which, among other things, begs the question.

[Alex]

Also isn't it about time this molly****ing cocksucking message board got rid of the **** **** **** **** **** vagina censor?

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Alex

Also isn't it about time this molly****ing cocksucking message board got rid of the **** **** **** **** **** vagina censor?

I believe I was the biggest advocate of that since I used to access LOT from work and didn't want to get firewalled by the naughty word police. But now, if not at home I'm using my phone (occasionally while driving - but now that im driving stick I cant seem to multi-task on the phone anymore thus avoiding potential ball kicking) So I'd be happy to let us all cuss like sailors - but I'll let others weigh in on that.