ScienceDaily: Law may ban texting while driving — What idiots have to do this? Oh, maybe the same idiots who have to talk on the phone incessantly while driving.
A state lawmaker in Washington is closing in on reaching her goal of banning motorists from sending or reading text messages while driving.
Rep. Joyce McDonald, a Republican, told The Los Angeles Times she decided to write a bill prohibiting DWT — “driving while texting” — when she was visiting a high school class in Seattle. She noticed students texting each other in class, and that led to a discussion of the practice.
“I was really a bit shocked to learn just how much these kids text each other, including when they are driving,” said McDonald.
found by Bubba Martin
Funny, I was thinking about this just today as I was operating my voice actived hands free controls in my hybrid Camry. It happened as I was driving out to the lake house, about 40 miles away. To my delight, I used less than a gallon of gas either direction.
And yes, I have begun to realize, that even though I have only been driving this car for two days, my farts are starting to smell better.
We need a multi-decade effort to end talking and driving, similar to what we’ve done with buckle-up and drunk driving.
The end goal is to completely banish non hands-free calling and to limit those calls to 60 seconds before the driver either pulls over or hangs up.
uhm..
good luck with that
This is the type of law that is very good in its intent and very hard to enforce. Unfortunately, humans are idiots. Note: I did not exempt myself, though this level is quite extreme.
Here’s a clue in a nice concise soundbite:
Drive as if your life depends on it!
Groan…
This law will do nothing to make anyone safer. This law will do nothing to make anyone safer. This law…sigh.
People who put themselves and others at risk by distracting themselves with phones while driving are just bad drivers. They will find something else to be distracted by if they can no longer use phones.
Are we going to ban radios in cars next? Cd players? Eating? Drinking? I would bet that eating and drinking cause far more accidents than phones.
I regularly see people reading books, doing crossword puzzles, applying makeup etc. while driving. There is just a certain kind of person who cannot stand to be “bored” for more than 10 seconds at a time. These people are always going to be bad drivers.
I drive aprox 50,000 miles a year. Unfortunatly, most of the time I’m driving, I’m on the phone. I can honestly say that I have never even had a close call because of speaking on the phone (I can also chew gum and walk at the same time).
Next time you see someone driving badly while speaking on the phone, blame the driver not the phone. It is very likely they would be driving just as bad without the phone.
Isn’t the problem the actual conversation by the driver the problem for the distraction, not the actual phone? For some reason I think I read that somewhere. If that is true, then hands free isn’t solving much.
#5 – BdgBill,
Good for you. But, you’re among the few.
#6 – Gwendle,
From what I’ve read, talking to someone in the car with you is no big deal. Carrying a conversation on a phone, even hands free, is a problem for most people, BdgBill excepted.
Studies I’ve seen show that a hands-free phone makes no difference. Statistically, cell phones while driving are literally just as bad as drunk driving.
I’m not sure what kind of a reasonable and enforceable law could be enacted. I’m tempted to agree with BdgBill about people that have no attention span. Driving feels easy and mindless, so their minds wander. If they wander to something as distracting as reading, texting, phone calls, shaving, make-up, etc., they will be dangerous.
Perhaps we just need more public service announcements. That’s why I suggested my previous sound-bite.
I wonder if where this is really going is the arbitrary (read: warrantless) pulling of people’s phone records by law enforcement to prove they were sending and receiving text (or voice) messages while driving to open the door for pulling those records whenever they want.
a closely related story and some video footage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxzteCw5MQk
“People who put themselves and others at risk by distracting themselves with phones while driving are just bad drivers. They will find something else to be distracted by if they can no longer use phones.”
I agree 100%. I have a hands free phone in my car and have no problem talking and driving.
“I regularly see people reading books, doing crossword puzzles, applying makeup etc. while driving.”
Ditto. My pet peeve is the guy reading the newspaper while tooling down the highway at 70 mph.
#6 – Gwendle
“Isn’t the problem the actual conversation by the driver the problem for the distraction, not the actual phone? For some reason I think I read that somewhere. If that is true, then hands free isn’t solving much.”
Yep; every comprehensive study I’ve looked at – and that’s quite a few, since I take driving very seriously indeed – has shown that the issue of actually handling and operating the telephone itself, including holding it to one’s ear, has little to no impact on driver awareness.
It’s concentrating on the conversation that is the distraction, and I can personally attest to this, as it has been borne out in the many miles I have spent on the road, observing and studying driver behavior and competence.
We all know the person who, once they’re on the phone, whether it’s a cellphone, a landline or whatever, focuses so intently on the conversation that you cannot get their attention with anything short of a blow to the head. And when they’re behind the wheel, the car is on primitive autopilot – until something unexpected happens, then another tragic statistic is logged. “But I was just…”
And what’s worse is that these people (exactly as with drunks, and for exactly the same reason – unmoderated egocentrism) are the very ones most certain that they can drive perfectly competently while phoning/drinking – it’s only other people that’re the problem…
#8 You are spot on, I see it as just another right slowly slipping away from Americans……
“…this is really going is the arbitrary (read: warrant less) pulling of people’s phone records by law enforcement to prove they were sending and receiving text (or voice) messages while driving to open the door for pulling those records whenever they want…”
“Are we going to ban radios in cars next? Cd players? Eating? Drinking? I would bet that eating and drinking cause far more accidents than phones. ”
Eating, while driving, yeah, thats a bad idea. A couple weeks ago, a woman with a cell phone in her right hand, and a cigarette in her left hand hanging out the window, pulled out in front of 2 motorcycles in this town. Both bikers died. The woman, did not even get a ticket.
#7 I don’t claim to be the worlds best driver. I have had close calls due to coffee, smoking, bees, driving when too tired, driving too fast etc. I just don’t see the phone as much more of a danger than the radio.
New York state banned phone use in cars a few years ago. I don’t remember hearing about any giant drop in car accidents in New York.
There seems to be a bunch of people out there that have an irrational hatred of cell phones everywhere. This seems to have grown out of the idea (from the 80’s) that everyone with a cell phone was just a yuppie showing everyone how much money they have.
Having a cell phone is not much of a status symbol these days (unless your 10 years old). Like just about anything else they can be used in annoying and dangerous ways by annoying and dangerous people.
I would have to say that even though I hate my cell phone at some times I would not trade it for anything. Remember beepers?
I am 19 and text all the time while driving. I can remeber at least a half dozen times where that has led to an almost accident but, I will not stop, I am addicated to text.
The only thing that could stop me from texting is some sort of system that reads and transcribes texts for me via some sort of speech recigintion.
15. Yeah, you’ll stop, you may be dead, maimed, or have killed someone else in the process, but you ‘ll stop.
Geez! I think we may have found the root of the problem.
Let’s have a NASCAR or F1 race where every driver is forced to text at turn 3. That’ll show ’em. #19 gets the pole position on a motorcycle. I get the video rights.
Thankfully I have no use for texting but I have enough trouble with my cell phone in my car for voice. (I try to put it on speaker usually.)
#15 – Andrew, the fact you have almost gotten into accidents shows you should stop? Do you have to wreak your car first? Do you need to run over a cyclist or a pedestrian before you stop? Stop being selfish and wait until you can text safely. I doubt your friends will really be lost without for you for that brief time.
13 – Mark – Was her name released? She better be careful around Hells Angels and others who might tend to get angry over that sort of story. I had the same thing almost happen to me some years ago – distracted woman pulled out right in front of me – but I got lucky. So did my wife, who was riding pillion. Nowadays I ride a lot more slowly in cross traffic and heavy traffic of any sort. My wife still rides passenger with me and sometimes I wonder if she’s quite sane, but then I remember that she married me, duh.
Geezer- yeah my wife rides with me too, what the hell is she thinking? Damn things are dangerous. No her name was not released, she had a kid in the car with her too. So smoking and talking on the phone with kid in car. Does this consttute some form of child abuse? Anyway, no Hells Angels around here, we got Los Banditos.
I’ve had the text services disabled on my phone so that not only can’t I send a text message, but no one can send me one either. They charge me for messages even when I am not the one who is messaging and I’m not paying for that.
Text messages are insipid, illiterate, and and generally piontless. You have a phone. Do you need to tell me something? Then call me and say it to me with words. It’s phone for cryin’ out loud!
#5 – Were it not for the draconian laws against beating the unholy shit out of people, you’d be pulled from your car and have delivered upon you a beating of magnificent proportion. It isn’t just your life that it is in danger… It’s every other driver and pedestrian near you. No matter what you think, I guarantee you that you aren’t that good of a driver.
In case you didn’t get that: U STOP TXT MSSNGIN IN CAR, IDIOT
Maybe if you Americans would stop driving Grandma-friendly automatics…
Well darnit. I meant the 19 year old (#15) in my previous post, #18. Sorry, #19, Marc ( I’m not prescient). Want to bet #15 andrew gets the Darwin Award this year? Andrew can text all the old geezers here at 1-800-THINK. Thank goodness he doesn’t live in Texas.