when are the cell phone fines going to be on a par with DUI?

[vash]

i need to put my phone out of reach..like in the trunk.

i roll truly hands free. if it rings, i go speaker phone. talking like that, it is just like having a conversation with a passenger in the car.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by tharbert

It would be a simple thing for car manufacturers to install a device that kills cell signals inside the car while moving. Then you get into the nanny state argument...

............................

Illinois already has a moratorium on texting while driving. My guess is that we'll soon have a cell-use-while-driving ban too.

Already in the works:
U.S. proposes rules targeting distracted driving - latimes.com

[intakexhaust]

Its crazy enough the car manufacturers with all this safety crap built in a vehicle are also packing gizmos of nav, communications, climate control, A/V into one. Years ago a vehicle would have control knobs easy to find and one would feel the difference between them. You wouldn't necessarily have to take your eyes off of the road to operate those functions. Believe me, I love technology but despise where manufacturers force it on us. Those all-in-one center dash nav, radio, comm. stuff is 'out of touch' with real safety. It's neither passive or active and more in the danger catagory.

[vash]

Originally Posted by intakexhaust

Its crazy enough the car manufacturers with all this safety crap built in a vehicle are also packing gizmos of nav, communications, climate control, A/V into one. Years ago a vehicle would have control knobs easy to find and one would feel the difference between them. You wouldn't necessarily have to take your eyes off of the road to operate those functions. Believe me, I love technology but despise where manufacturers force it on us. Those all-in-one center dash nav, radio, comm. stuff is 'out of touch' with real safety. It's neither passive or active and more in the danger catagory.

true!!

i cant even hear the phone ring, or hold a conversation in my 911. it's all to loud

[VINMAN]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

Its a complicated issue. I do not think we need laws about it - we need more common sense.

Nearly 2X the amount of people in NC are killed by sober drivers, than killed in accidents involving illegal BAC.

Respect for basic real world physics, is something people in the digital age don't grow up with. I know that 35MPH-0MPH in a short space hurts, 35MPH is barely moving in most video games.

In the past few years the number of car accidents that I respond to, Id say close a 1/3 to half are caused by cell usage with the percentage going up more and more.
There was recently a double fatality involving a teen in a pickup that hit a tractor trailer. The kid had over 20 texts in the 5 minutes prior to the crash

[Christien]

Quote de Christien

What was so damn important that you had to be reading e-mails while stopped at a traffic light? Couldn't it wait 'till you reached your destination?



What's with this voluntary enslavement to mobile devices anyway?

It wasn't urgent at all. I was bored waiting at a long light. Same as changing radio stations, adjusting the heat, etc. I looked up every few seconds to see if the opposing light had gone yellow yet, so I wouldn't be that dumbass sitting still at a green light.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by vash

i need to put my phone out of reach..like in the trunk.

i roll truly hands free. if it rings, i go speaker phone. talking like that, it is just like having a conversation with a passenger in the car.

My cell phone has never said, "Holy schitt, you idiot slow down!"

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by Christien

It wasn't urgent at all. I was bored

That's exactly the problem. The mobile device has become an electronic pacifier for many. No one can sit still anymore, even for a few minutes at a stop light, without pulling out a phone to entertain themselves with.

Some day we'll all be looking like this...

[Christien]

So we need legislation for that? Seriously? Bring on the nanny state.

[Tobra]

You already live there


Seriously though, you can't expect LEO to try and determine intent, but they should be forced to use a little bit of common sense. I have seen fewer LEO not talking on the phone than the ones that are.

The wireless comm companies have a strong lobby, the hands free thing was the compromise. I think the answer is to make phones not work if you are moving faster than someone could go on foot.

People are inconsiderate, self-centered a-holes, this stuff is a symptom of the disease.

[rusnak]

I saw some chick eating while driving.

Another couple was arguing while the guy was driving.

Another guy had a bunch of stuff piled up in his pickup truck, and posed as much danger to others as the first two.

You'd think this was a free country and you just take the good with the bad. What are we craz? We need protection, as much as the system will allow. Protection I say!! Law!! lol...haha

[RWebb]

LEOs make determinations of intent all the time

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by Christien

So we need legislation for that? Seriously? Bring on the nanny state.

So, what are you saying here? That people should be allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences to others?
Considering the number of ignorant, self-centered and just downright nasty people running around loose, that's probably not a very good idea. I don't think you, or most any other sane person, would want to inhabit a world like that. It would be nice if we could live in a society where the government didn't have to pass so many laws to protect it's citizens from each other. Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in.

[rusnak]

^
I just do what my grandpa taught my dad to do, and what I see him do. I go about my business and worry about myself. Can't change the world. Intolerance is a *****. Someone else's *****.

[Christien]

What I'm saying is that a person should be free to read an email, change the radio station or have a bite of a sandwich at a red light. It's not unsafe to do so, and police should exercise good judgment in handing out such tickets. But the flipside of that, doing so while driving, is extremely dangerous. However all the legislation in the world isn't going to make our streets safer, until drivers honestly start understanding how dangerous certain behaviours are. Look at the progress made with drunk driving over the last 50 years. Most folks now understand and believe it's a dangerous activity, hence few people do it.

Implicit in this, which I think you've missed, is that police can't be trusted to use good judgment. We don't need legislation, we need common sense.

[gprsh924]

I'll probably get beat up here for this, but I talk on my phone a lot in the car. I'm in sales and drive 800-1000 miles a week. I have to accomplish a lot of my job behind the wheel.

Then throw in the fact that a couple nights a week (depending on where I am driving home from) my 35 mile drive takes nearly 2 hours, it would kill me if I couldn't catch up with family and friends on my way home from work.

I use my Bluetooth/ speaker phone the majority of the time. I've been in exactly zero accidents in 8 years of driving.

I am more or less distracted talking on the phone than I am with passengers in my car. Should we outlaw that too?

[island911]

Laws against hardware, based on the worst hardware, are not well thought out. That is, just as the roads have 1980 Isuzus and Yugos limping down the road at the same legal speed as a new Porsche 911 (or well set up 944) doesn't mean that all speed limit laws should be centered around some 1980's POS with only one brake caliper working. ...but enough about the 944. (ducking)

Anyway, cell phones are similar. Most all have crappy fidelity from the cell carriers cramming signal thru an ever-crowding bandwidth. All of that is made worse by crappy handsets, and crappy Bluetooth hands-free systems. And if that stack-up of poor fidelity isn't bad enough, our govt has mandated ever-smaller econo-boxes for roads which are neglected (read; very noisy environments)

So, many people driving while talking have to 'squint their brains' to decipher what is being communicated to them. --not a good situation.

OTOH, plenty of better gear exists. High quality noise-cancelling headsets, for example. Also, having a car/SUV that has a good amount of sound-deadening helps too.

Simply concluding that 'cell phones and driving are always a bad mix' is short-sighted. Besides, does anyone think that the local sheriff will stop using his radio when driving?

How about we have some education on the topic, rather than just throwing out the baby with the bath-water... (as the bureaucrats would like to do for us)

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by Christien

We don't need legislation, we need common sense.

I totally agree! If we, as a society, exhibited more common sense, consideration and basic intelligence, we wouldn't need half as many laws as are on the books now. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for the world to get any smarter.

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by gprsh924

I'll probably get beat up here for this, but I talk on my phone a lot in the car. I'm in sales and drive 800-1000 miles a week. I have to accomplish a lot of my job behind the wheel...it would kill me if I couldn't catch up with family and friends on my way home from work.

I hear this a lot these days. I wonder how people in sales, or other more mobile professions, got along for all those years before we had cell phones?

[Christien]

They didn't sell as much. Same as people in the 19th century not using telephones. Tehnological improvements lead to a more efficient and productive economy. Cell phones are part of that.