Would you support a law to ban cellphone use while driving EXCEPT for handsfree devices?

[clamum]

Nope. :thumbsdown:

 

[Number1]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Number1

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
Studies have proven that hands free devices dont make driving while talking any safer. It's the distraction thats the problem, and therefore I dont approve of a law like this.

DO you have sources or links for those studies? I would be interested in reading them.

Thanks.

This is common knowledge. Use google.

Obviously it is NOT common knowledge to many people voting in this thread. Why else would they be voting for an ineffective useless law?

And I wasn?t asking you either.
If Mxylplyx has interesting links on the subject, I would like to see them.

 

[nageov3t]

http://www.google.com/search?q...hile+talking+any+safer

 

[Sluggo]

Originally posted by: loki8481
studies have shown that talking on hands-free devices is just as distracting as talking with a normal cellphone next to your ear.

I'd support a ban on all automobile retardation, including talking of a phone, shaving, putting on make-up, etc (anything beyond basic drinking, changing radio stations, etc)

So we now have you on record as being in support of drinking and driving?

 

[thomsbrain]

headsets make zero difference for driver attention, which is the core issue. the only advantage is easier access to the turn signal/shifter while on the phone. so no, i don't support it because i don't support meaningless legislation. it won't save a single life.

 

[clickynext]

Yes! I drive standard and it's seriously dangerous trying to drive this thing while holding a phone in one hand! That only leaves one hand for simultaneously working the wheel and shifting!

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Citrix

Originally posted by: spidey07
I personally think all cellphone use in a moving vehicle should be against the law. You simply cannot perform the task at hand if you are speaking on the phone, handsfree or not.

If you want an example, try playing your FPS video game when your girl is talking to you.

so you dont talk in your car when you have a freind with you because you get distracted? sounds like you shouldnt be driving in the first place.

That is a good question. If it's the distraction of the conversation that's the problem, are new cars to be manufactured with the driver's seat beneath a Cone of Silence? No talking to passengers?
The issue here is priority. Driving is top priority. If you're in heavy traffic, don't use your damn phone. If traffic was light when you started talking to someone, and traffic increases, slow down or stop the conversation, or even just put the phone down outright, and explain later that you needed to focus on driving.

But I guess that if there is a statistical correlation between cellphone use and car accidents, then, just like for being drunk and driving, the two activities should not take place concurrently.
I think my cellphone is defective, because I often put it down. There are in fact extended periods of time in which I do not touch it. Maybe it just lacks the little cocaine-tipped spikes, which seem to be common-place in other cellphones. That's all that I can think of that would really explain their exceptionally addictive properties.

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
Here is a link to the stupid, yet avoidable tragedy.

"An Elk Grove family is warning teens and parents about the dangers of texting while driving."

And the dangers of a lack of any common sense. Good god people. Speaking out so that other teens don't make the mistake?
"Don't be so goddamn stupid!!!!! It's a multi-ton block of metal and composite materials moving at high speed! It is dangerous!"

Send them back home, straight to the kitchen. Based on that level of stupidity, I think that a lesson on "why hot things should not be touched" may be necessary.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I would not support a ban on cellphone use while driving. I am no more distracted while on the phone than while talking to a passenger or listening to talk radio. I would support better enforcement of current laws so that bad drivers (read: people who don't pay attention regardless of what they're doing) are punished.

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain
headsets make zero difference for driver attention, which is the core issue. the only advantage is easier access to the turn signal/shifter while on the phone. so no, i don't support it because i don't support meaningless legislation. it won't save a single life.

I disagree. There are many emergency maneuvers you are incapable of doing with only one hand on the wheel.

That's a lot of data from European countries showing that after they banned cell phone with no loudspeaker systems in the cars, accidents involving people on the phone dropped.

Plus, you wouldn't imagine how many accidents actually happened because people dropped the phone and reached for it, or reached for it on the passenger seat when it started ringing etc etc.

Matter of fact, I didn't even know it was legal to use it here in the US. Any other country I have been driving in already passed a law on this.

 

[Aikouka]

I don't care what happens; I have hands-free built into my car and I have a bluetooth headset... and it's already illegal in NY anyway .

 

[novasatori]

I don't support it simply because it doesn't make sense.

I don't know but it seems to me that the part of cellphone use while driving that causes accidents would be the communication part and not the holding the phone part.

That's what I think anyways, am I wrong?

 

[daveymark]

it's been the law in Chicago for a few years. they don't enforce it enough, because everyone talks on their phone w/o handsfree device. 1st year they handed out over a million tickets. this year so far: around 10,000 tickets.

 

[compuwiz1]

I'm gonna bet that most of the nay sayers are under 25 years of age. Thats the way kids think, but yet more kids get killed on the road, from that same stupid thinking, than adults. I don't need to look up this statistic, and post links. I'll guarantee what I said is correct.

 

[Chaotic42]

They just started this on the NASA installation where I work. It's a good idea, but people keep doing it anyway. It seems like it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to properly enforce. I'm not big on making things illegal anyway. I think that we need to focus more on educating people on just how dangerous it is. It won't stop it (look at drunk driving), but if someone really wants to do something illegal, they're going to do it.

 

[ch33zw1z]

It's illegal in NY and CT, MA will eventually follow suit. I feel that talking on the phone is distracting, but if you have both hands on the wheel you're less likely to quit paying attention

 

[Linflas]

No I don't think the answer to ever single little problem in society is to pile on yet more laws to modify behavior.

 

[Darwin333]

I don't know where you guys live but evidently you don't drive on the interstates that I do. Most drivers do not currently obey the laws already on the books (speeding, signal use, tailgating, reckless driving, etc..) and the police can't really enforce them. Sure they give out a few token tickets but obviously it hasn't had the deterrent effect.

So it really doesn't matter. Law or not, people are not going to change their behavior.

 

[Lothar1974]

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
I'm gonna bet that most of the nay sayers are under 25 years of age. Thats the way kids think, but yet more kids get killed on the road, from that same stupid thinking, than adults. I don't need to look up this statistic, and post links. I'll guarantee what I said is correct.

I agree 100%! Just last night some teen girl was in front of me driving. She was in the right lane coming up on a parked car. She barely swerved in time to avoid it. I slowed down as I new she didn't see the parked car, otherwise I would have been next to her and she would have swerved right into me. She was all over the road trying to correct and of course pick up her cell phone she dropped!

The most recent survey of dangerous driver behavior was released in January 2007 by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. The survey of 1,200 drivers found that 73 percent talk on cell phones while driving. Cell phone use was highest among young drivers. Motorists who use cell phones while driving are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves or others.

 

[crystal]

Break down type of vehicles
Lump all up and got 2005 data

I don't see any major upward trends in accidents. All it tells me, more people are on the road and the crappy drivers will caused accidents.
Like someone said, a "feel good laws" that will do nothing to make the road safer.

 

[Vic]

Yes. I've come full circle on this issue in the past couple of years. It's not the pointless "feel good" law I once thought it to be. These drivers constantly yapping on their cell phones are crazy, driving like drunks, changing lanes without warning, running red lights, blocking traffic, etc. And it might be forgivable, but they're always the biggest assholes on the road too. Any attempt to wake them up from their phone conversation stupor, regardless of how close they may have just came to taking your life, simply results in outrage and obscenity on their part, if they even wake up at all.
And while some studies say that headsets make zero difference, I also recognize that any law against using them while driving would be virtually unenforceable.
For the record, I no longer talk on the phone while driving. I either pull over or tell them I'll call them back.

But what I really what to know is, who the fsck are you talking to? Seriously, I used to some years back do most of my business on the road, and I used the phone quite a bit, but I never looked like the phone was glued to my ear. WTF? You're piloting a 2 ton missile at 100 feet per second. Put the phone down, come back to reality.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Vic
Yes. I've come full circle on this issue in the past couple of years. It's not the pointless "feel good" law I once thought it to be. These drivers constantly yapping on their cell phones are crazy, driving like drunks, changing lanes without warning, running red lights, blocking traffic, etc. And it might be forgivable, but they're always the biggest assholes on the road too. Any attempt to wake them up from their phone conversation stupor, regardless of how close they may have just came to taking your life, simply results in outrage and obscenity on their part, if they even wake up at all.
And while some studies say that headsets make zero difference, I also recognize that any law against using them while driving would be virtually unenforceable.
For the record, I no longer talk on the phone while driving. I either pull over or tell them I'll call them back.

But what I really what to know is, who the fsck are you talking to? Seriously, I used to some years back do most of my business on the road, and I used the phone quite a bit, but I never looked like the phone was glued to my ear. WTF? You're piloting a 2 ton missile at 100 feet per second. Put the phone down, come back to reality.

While I don't support banning them I have wondered that myself. When I was in the commuting rat race I would be driving to work at 5AM and a good 50% of the people I would see driving were yapping on the phone. I don't know anyone I could call and yap on the phone with at 5AM in the frigging morning.

 

[preslove]

I'm more distracted by a conversation with a friend in the car than a cell phone conversation. I usually use an ear piece because I like using both hands, but I don't think it makes me THAT much safer, just better at taking turns.

 

[pontifex]

there's some guy (some lawyer i think) here in PA that wants to ban texting while driving.

that should be a no brainer! how do you text and drive at the same time?????
you'd have to be a total idiot to text and drive at the same time.

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: Darwin333
I don't know where you guys live but evidently you don't drive on the interstates that I do. Most drivers do not currently obey the laws already on the books (speeding, signal use, tailgating, reckless driving, etc..) and the police can't really enforce them. Sure they give out a few token tickets but obviously it hasn't had the deterrent effect.

So it really doesn't matter. Law or not, people are not going to change their behavior.

I'm about as far away from being a lawyer as one can get, but if someone on a cell phone is yakking away & they hit you, wouldn't the police/court be more inclined to say it was their fault if it was illegal to be on the phone? So perhaps it could help, even if not strictly enforced?

Oh, and I'd definitely support a law to ban cellphone use, but not one with the exception clause... IMO, the hands free thing is no better. Having the exception in there is like telling everyone to start talking on their cellphones.

 

[sdifox]

I would say no cell phone use while driving period. Who cares if it is handsfree, you can't pay attention to the road and the person on the phone at the same time!