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Legal Restrictions on Cellphone Use Gain Traction
Carl Bialik writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that States are scrambling to impose tougher restrictions on cell phone use by drivers, addressing what safety experts say can be a deadly distraction. From the article: 'Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have written legislation on the issue, mostly since 2003, [...] This year, other legislatures are tackling the subject, and two states have passed laws on it. [...] While no state has banned talking on a cell phone while driving, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C., have the most restrictive laws: Except in emergencies, motorists in those states can use cell phones only with hands-free devices, such as earpieces. Restrictions vary across other states. Some prohibit teenagers, bus drivers and drivers with learning permits from using cell phones -- even with earpieces.'"
Anyone tried concentrating on the road with two sqabbling under-10's in the back? It's far worse than any phone conversation.
As a cabbie I use My cell phone daily while driving, for calling customers who are hard to find, calling the office when needed, and for the occasional 911 call. I do however use a bluetooth headset and voice dialing.
Anyone with a "Larry the Cableguy" ringer needs to be lynched!
I ctually saw thing dingbat once driving her gigantic SUV, putting makeup on, and talking on her cellphone. I was running beside the road and she swerved, almost hitting me!
90% of the time when I see someone doign something REALLY stupid on the road, they're on the cell!
Except in emergencies, motorists in those states can use cell phones only with hands-free devices, such as earpieces
I thought it was the distraction of talking to someone whom you cannot see that was the problem - most drivers can steer the car with one hand.
So what now, ban drinking coffee in cars, applying lipstick while driving? After all, this also causes the driver to take one hand off the wheel.
Don't they *think* before making these laws?
Hmm, so the driver got into an accident while he was:
- phoning
- sleeping
- driving
- having drugs in the system
Incidentally, he was also breathing, and (presumably) had a good meal within the last 24 hours.Now, in you're opinion which combination should be outlawed? Driving and Breathing? -> Don't think so! ...) I don't really think that this accident should be hold up as an example for the dangers of driving while phoning! I don't argue that phoning may distract you, but please, if you want to illustrate that point, please use an example where there weren't any other more likely causes! If anything, the phone keeps you awake!
Driving and drugs? -> Makes more sense already.
Driving and sleeping? -> Makes lots of sense!
Driving and yucking on the phone? Hmm, with all the other stuff going on here (drugs, sleep,
Well this is nothing new in the UK we have had this in place for nearly a year. You can only answer your mobile phone in a car using a hands free kit. Even if you are parked and the engine is still running. And if caught you get a fine a 3 points on your licence (12 points and you loose your licence).
So this kid took drugs and fell asleep while driving, and somehow the cell phone is to blame? I think I'm confused...
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Are these attempts to increase safety, or a puritanical knee-jerk reaction? Hard not to notice that there are not similar laws against smoking/arguing/eating/etc. while driving, http://www.misc2.com/whisper.html has a scenario on how this plays out long term...
"In the accident, the 20-year-old driver fell asleep while talking on the phone, crossed three lanes of traffic and hit a car driven by a 55-year-old woman, who later died. Authorities lodged what they thought was Michigan's first cellphone-related negligent-homicide charge. Later, they added drug charges, after a medical exam allegedly turned up illegal drugs in the driver's system."
Besides being a bit of an inane statement, that only shows that you need to address all of the sources of negligent driving.
Here in the UK, we have restrictions of the use of cell phones whilst driving. On top of that I'd like to see:
- proactive training of people to prevent dangerous habits like tailgating, poor lane discipline etc
- better understanding of the effects of narcotics - at the moment, "don't smoke and drive" is a concept off the radar because we have a government who aren't interested in controlling drugs, just banning them (effectively burying their heads in the sand)
- more police to enforce laws - we have a 6-man squad to cover the entire Thames Valley, apparently. How the heck are they supposed to enforce a law against the use of cell phones whilst driving, when they are constantly dealing with RTAs?
At least we have plenty of "don't drive tired" signs. But it's not enough.
Here in Iceland, hands-free equipment is now mandatory for drivers. It didn't seem to help at all. Later studies have showed that it's not the phone itself, but the conversation that distracts drivers. Holding the phone while talking, using an airpiece or just talking to someone that's sitting in the car with you all seems to cause the same amount of distraction for the driver.
"The cellphone, like eating a hamburger, putting on makeup or talking to your friend in the back seat is a distraction," says William Cataldo, Macomb County chief of homicide and assistant prosecutor, who is handling the case.
So when are they going to pass laws outlawing drive-thru's and passengers?
Looks like there's going to be a lot of empty carpool lanes in the future.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
That's quite surprising that it's only happening now. In France, it's been for years that you can't phone while driving without a hands-free kit.
You just got troll'd!
Many countries already have offences such as Driving without Due Care and Attention. This is fairly non-specific and can be used against any driver who endangers others by performing a non-driving activity (such as having their groin scalded by superheated coffee) whilst nominally in control of a moving vehicle.
The same problem is had by those who fiddle with their GPS while driving, or even the entertainment system. Must we introduce specific legislation for each device?
It should be noted that I do agree with the clampdown which is already in place in much of Europe. Handsfree units are convenient and quite comfortable to wear now, especially the lightweight BT varieties such as the Plantronics 640 which even my wife wears without problems.
If you don't like the cost of BT, there are still wired headsets which often ship for free now or are a very low cost extra.
See my journal, I write things there
I'm fine with cell phone restrictions as long as I am still allowed to read the newspaper and watch TV while I drive.
Register the editry.
Seriously, talking on a cell phone while driving by itself is not dangerous. Distracting yourself while on the road is. Drinking coffee , applying lipstick, eating a big mac, fiddling with the stereo, any or all of these can be just as distracting as yapping on a cell, or even more so.
Legislation singling out cell phones does nothing to combat the real problem - a 8am - 8pm working world where you need to squeeze the most out of every second, and damn the consequences.
What should be done is harsher peanalties in the case of accidents. Person gets into a minor fender bender because they were yapping on the phone? What happens now? A minor increase and insurance premuim, and they're back on the road. What should happen - take away their license for 3 months and send them to traffic school - they obviously don't know how to drive properly without distractions. Go after the problem drivers, rather than ticketing the guy who can hanle calling his wife via voice-dial for 15 seconds to let her know he is on the way home. He is not the threat - the threat is the 21 year old power-suit who is spending more time putting on her Chanel while looking in the rear-view than watching the road.
.. they should really ban anything else that could cause a distraction. I still don't understand how drinking coffee while driving is acceptable, but talking on a cellphone isn't... .. with the prevalence of bluetooth/handsfree kits today there isn't much excuse to be driving with one hand and holding a cellphone with the other. I don't think a total ban on anything that could cause you distractions (radio, cellphone etc etc) is the right answer, but why would anyone be opposed to banning people from driving dangerously? I don't really care if you are talking on a cellphone and end up in a ditch .. as long as you don't take me with you.
Not that I'm defending cellphone talkers
I know a lot of people say that they've been driving for years and years and never got into an accident while talking on the cellphone but here's some food for thought:
1. How many people have been forced to take evasive action because you're too distracted to concentrate on driving and you've simply been oblivious to it?
2. How sure are you that it isn't just pure blind luck that you've need had to react in a split second to avoid a collision?
I'm not one to blindly agree with all "nanny" legislation, but some people just really are a hazard to themselves and others and if it means some nut/housewife in a 4 ton SUV doesn't swipe me while talking on the cellphone/putting on makeup so be it.
In South Carolina it is illegal to talk on a cell phone in a public library. Granted, I've never actually seen anyone arrested for it, but it is very clearly posted on all of the doors and in numerous places throughout the libraries.
In my country:
The penalty for using a cell phone while driving is worse then the cost of a hands free set.
Pick you're choice.
motorists in those states can use cell phones only with hands-free devices, such as earpieces.
I'm in DC all the time, and from the number of drivers I've seen with a phone up to their head, there must be many many emergencies happening..ALL the time. Even though there's a fairly stiff fine, people seem to ignore this law, by and large, and from what I've heard, the cops do nothing to enforce it.
Cell phones are hardly the problem, people who do not understand thier own limits are the problem. If cell phones are a distraction than surely someone driving with thier dog on thier lap so they can stick their head of out the driver's window isn't distracting? The list can go on and on and on about what is distracting but what is distracting to some is not distracting to others, that paticular example strikes me odd since i would see it as the most distracting.
We already have laws that enforce responsibility and accountability while driving, no more laws are nessecary in this department. Let people drive and eat, play with thier pet, goose neck at an accident, or talk on the phone if they can do so. Once they are irresponsible with driving, they will pay the consequences and blaming the distraction shouldn't be a trump card.
from http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/cell
Analog
just an analog boy living in a digital age.
I live in NY and there may as well not be a law. Every day I see people with their cell phone attached to their ears. And regardless of what they may say, it DOES make them drive poorly, especially when they try to make a turn at a stop light - the kind of maneuver that requires two hands. I've even seen bus drivers and cops driving with their phone to their ears. A couple of years ago I was at a stop light behind some clown in a Lincoln Navigator and I could see he was talking on his phone. The red light changed to a left-turn arrow and he stepped on the gas, plowing into the car in front of him. The first thing he did after smashing into the guy was hang up his phone, apparently he realized a bit too late that he shouldn't have been using it just then.
Anyway, I think it would be a beneficial law if it was actually observed.
rooooar
It's also illegal to drink and drive, and we all know how effective *those* laws are.
People who talk frequently on the cell phone are almost as bad as people who drink and drive when it comes to getting in car accidents, yet we demonize drunken drivers and act outraged when the government wants to stop people from talking on the cell phone while driving. I teach criminology and the statistics show that the rate of traffic accidents while drinking and driving is slightly higher than talking on the cellphone, meaning talking on the cellphone is really dangerous.
I think its because people consider drinking morally wrong and something undesirable people do, but cellphones are usually work related and something upper class people do all the time, thus the outrage and reluctance to pass laws attacking their use while driving. In a word driven by objective reality, the punishment for talking on a cellphone while driving would less than drinking and driving, but would reflect the fact that its a serious threat to road saftey, so a fine on the order of speeding would not be out of line and would save thousands of lives every year. Yes, the inconvienince of you not being able to talk on your cellphone will save lives, period.
It's just like Transit Lanes (or HOV Lanes); they're almost never policed, and they are useless as a result. You can put these feel-good laws in place, but you have to enforce them if they're to work.
Athy, athier, athiest.
It's not the fact your hands are busy that makes you have an accident, it's that you're not paying attention to the road as much consciously and unconsciously.
A study that proves it
All the current bans are useless. We need to ban USE in the car, not USE WITHOUT A HEADSET. Hands Free doesn't help.
--Michael
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I talk on my phone, without a hands free kit every day. Hands free kits are a pain in the ass. Usually I just keep my eyes peeled for cops and if I see one I drop the phone. Once I got a ticket, but I showed the DA that I bought a hands free kit and he dropped the charge for me. Also in NY it's -phone to ear- that actually gets you the ticket. So apparently holding a CB radio in front of your face while driving a sixteen wheeler, or browsing the web on your phone is perfectly fine. It's all bullshit.
nothing
Additional idiocy such as scrabling to plug the phone into the lighter socket because it needs charging.
You want to talk to someone? Sure. Just use a hands-free kit.
(sorry about that, just distracted by a crash on the other side) ... sentence if I'm in conversation and come to some junction or sign or heavy traffic. Just can't talk and "drive" except when the driving is simple.
And now if you drive while holding the cup of coffee in one hand and the cell phone in the other, now THAT is distracting!
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
(if you have two hands)...
No cell phones, no cheeseburgers, no eye makeup, no reading newspapers, no doing paperwork, no DVD movie watching, no drinks in hand while driving, no painting your toenails (! yes I have seen all of this in traffic !), nothing but the WHEEL.
How many people have to get bagged and toe tagged in local E.R. rooms before the government WAKES THE F' UP and makes common sense a Law?
I'm reminded of previous stories on slashdot, fark, and others, reporting that Driving while talking on your cell phone is as dangerous as driving drunk.
Of course, the first thing I thought when I saw this wasn't "Oh, wow, cell phones are dangerous". It was "Well... Driving drunk is no more dangerous than driving while talking on a cell phone, and I do that all the time!".
~Will
sig?
No, you are absolutely wrong - driving while talking on the cell phone is extremely dangerous, hands-free or not. Just because you haven't been in an accident yet doesn't mean it's not dangerous.
Driving while drinking coffee is extremely dangerous. Just because you haven't been in an accident yet doesn't mean it's not dangerous.**
Driving while applying make-up is extremely dangerous. Just because you haven't been in an accident yet doesn't mean it's not dangerous. p>Driving while talking to your kids in the back seat is extremely dangerous. Just because you haven't been in an accident yet doesn't mean it's not dangerous.
See how foolish this sounds yet? You can legisltae yourself to the moon and back banning specific distractions but it isn't going to eliminate them all. Bad drivers are always going to be distracted with something. The real solution is to get these bad drivers off the road and/or teach them how to not let things distract them while driving.
It's most certainly NOT the same as drinking coffee of listening to the radio...BS. I have personally been in an accident involving a person screwing around with their morning happy meal, hence my ** above. The whole "your brain tunes out the radio when you need to concentrate, but it makes more effort to keep up with the conversation when you are talking" is absolute garbage. Driving does not require concentration so much as it requires *attention*. Anything that involves you taking your eyes off the road, be it make-up, eating, radio - is **orders of magnitue** more dangerous than someone talking on a phone with their eyes *on* the road. It only takes a split second for road conditions to change, and if that split-second is the same one as when you are bending over to pick up your monring pick-me-up, you're toast.
I haven't seen anything about this: Have automobile accident rates climbed since cell phones become popular? I see so many people talking while driving, that I would expect accident rates would climb if the phone use was dangerous. If accident rates haven't changed, then it seems unlikely that cell phones are a problem.
Driving to the office this morning on the motorway, I looked over to my right and there was a woman in a brand new BMW doing 90 miles per hour with her face up close to her rear view mirror putting on her eyeliner! I looked away for a couple of seconds and when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane still working on that make-up!! It scared me (I'm a man) so much that I dropped my electric shaver, which knocked the bacon roll out of my other hand. In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel, it knocked my mobile from my ear, which fell into the coffee between my legs, causing it to splash and burn BIG JIM AND THE ROUND TWINS, causing me to scream, which made me drop the cigarette out of my mouth, ruined my shirt and DISCONNECTED AN IMPORTANT CALL. F****NG WOMEN DRIVERS !!!!!! (From an email)
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.
From TFA: In states without laws, a number of municipalities have passed their own local restrictions.
There are states without laws? Huh. I thought all states had at least a few anti-sodomy laws or similar on the books. But no laws at all. Weird.
The US sounds a bit behind with this one.
In the UK, for at least a year or so (probably more - my memory is flaky - there was a massive advertisement campaign from the government telling people how it was going to work for MONTHS on end, months before it became "law"), it's been illegal to operate any phone while driving - that means that the ONLY legal way to make/take a phone call in a car is with a hands-free kit that DOES NOT require the driver to push any buttons etc. to dial/recieve a call (i.e. voice activated dialling/answering with a hands-free earpiece / car stereo integration) and even that is greatly discouraged by the police.
Needless to say, there's always someone who will wedge it between their shoulder and their ear but THAT'S always been illegal in the UK as far as I know (usually charged as dangerous driving - like the woman who was booked for doing her lipstick as she drove). However, now it's a specific "rule" that it's an offence to even USE the phone in the car unless you can do so 100% without removing your hands from the full control of the wheel (i.e. without touching the phone or any hands-free component (e.g. buttons, switches, wires, etc.))
It's only common sense - look at the number of people who near-miss you every day on the roads and then count how many of them were on the phone / playing with their laptop on the passenger seat etc.
"Go after the problem drivers, rather than ticketing the guy who can hanle calling his wife via voice-dial for 15 seconds to let her know he is on the way home. He is not the threat -"
Much like Anakin Skywalker, this person has taken the first step. 15 seconds, eh? Can't be bothered to make this call at his desk before he leaves, while walking to the car (a few minutes is many times 15 seconds over!), or while in the car, but with the car not turned on yet?
The only situation I could see this happening is if someone absolutely had to answer the phone while in the car. Myself, I ignore the phone and pull over before answering. If I can't pull over, I can call them back. Driving is the most important thing I'm doing when I'm driving (you should repeat that to yourself a few times if you don't understand it).
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
While speaking on a cellphone while driving, without handsfree, is dangerous, speaking with a handsfree doesn't make it any less dangerous. The biggest disadvantage of not using a handsfree (naturally) is that you either (hopefully) keep your free hand on the steering wheel, or use both hands on the wheel while keeping the phone between your shoulder and ear.
The biggest disadvantage of speaking on a phone, however you do it while driving, is that your time to react to circumstances becomes alot longer than if you're not talking on a phone - whether it was handsfree or not.
Now, me being a metric whore, even if your reaction time is decreased from 0.5 seconds to say, 1 second, or even 1.5 seconds, that means that if you're doing 120kph on a highway, you've travelled over 50 metres forward during that time. That's not that much, but compared to the ~20 metres you'd get without using the phone, it's quite a difference. The best would be not to use cellphones at all while driving -- but since when have most of the people thought about that too seriously?
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
...all the other reasons these careless drivers cause road problems. Seriously, Cell phones are a good start, but how about addressing the hypocrisy of SUVs. A vehicle with a Gross Weight of over 3 tons gets special tax incentive for work use, so they all get claimed, but vehicles over 3 tons also get regularly banned from certain roads for being over weight limit, which these same owners pretend doesn't apply to them. Not to mention that they should require a trucker license to pilot such a beast, which they would need if the federal regulations weren't rewritten specifically to get these things into the hands of Soccor Moms everywhere.
:-\
But that's not politically safe to talk about.
How about minimum driving ages being changed? It shouldn' surprise anyone that kids under the age of 18 account for a HUGELY disporportionate piece of the accident pie. How about something like a learners permit (requiring a licensed driver in the car until 17 instead of 16. How about a restricted license (to work and back, etc...) until 18. Give these kids a chance to learn how to drive before we shove them off on their own. Seriously, now we give them a permit at 15.5 yrs and by 16 we shove em out of the driving nest to fly on their own. Them we get outraged at the damage they cause.
But that's not politically safe to talk about either.
How about some real draconian legislation to end drunk driving. If you are drinking and driving in this day and age, you, sir, are a fucktard. Seriously, have NEVER seen an afterschool special? Is your head planted so firmly in your own buttocks that you failed to hear the upteen warning shouted from every media outlet we can bring to bear on the topic? Of course not. That's why if you drink and drive, giving you any "1st offense" effect is a waste. You knew. You did it anyway. Manditory jailtime. Manditory removal of license...not restricted license, REMOVED license. It's a priviledge and you just lost it. STFU and pick up a bus schedule on the way home from the jail when you get out.
But that also is not politically safe to talk about.
How about serious legislation to curb car use in general. Something to give commuters and travellers a real alternative. People will bitch, though, because God forbid (no, literally God forbid---I mean car use is a right spelled out in the King James Bible, right?) anyone points out just how many lives are lost every year because the bar is so low on who we are willing to let careen through our neighborhoods behind the joystick of a 2+ ton screaming fast hunk of metal.
But that's DEFINATELY not politically safe to talk about.
Americans need to end their love affair with their cars.
But I guess cell phones are a good start.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
I bet your wonderful at doing that blindly with one hand, never taking your eyes off the road.
Right?
Because, doggone it, you can't be required to keep your attention wholly on driving a 2-ton missile? It's your right to be allowed to do something that could cause you to flatten an entire family in one fell swoop!
Because, after all, you're oh-so SPECIAL and can drive safely with all types of distractions. You're not one of those twits that get distracted while on the cell phone and drift all over the road. That's everyone else .
Go ahead and eat french fries, sip coffee, listen to the radio while you're driving. None of these require your undivided attention. Talking to another person who is not in the same car *is* distracting and does require some significant part of your attention. It's extremely dangerous and should be illegal. Any competent driver knows this and can corroborate this statement.
You're moving at 45 mph. Your primary mission is to drive safely, not to discuss what you're having for dinner or what your friend said to your other friend or whether you should go in for an interview with XYZ company. I see this happening all the time and it's frightening.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Actually, the DC law specifies 'Distracted Driving' to allow officers to go after people eating, doing makeup, typing on blackberries, or yelling at kids in the back seat.
Just reading these comments makes me mad that there are so many stupid people in this world that think
talking on a phone is dangerous. The people that can't talk on the phone and drive are the same people
that can't drive to begin with.
Ban morons from getting licenses, leave the rest of us alone.
Answer... there hasn't been. In fact, the number of deaths continues to fall in part due to safer cars, but also the number of accidents is falling too. Huh? I thought cell phones were such a serious problem that we have to pass laws to keep people from using them while driving? I'm sorry, but the data DOES NOT support such a conclusion. Incredible increase in cell phone usage. Small decrease in accident rates.
I just don't get it. Law makers need a boogey man to go after... to make it look like they're doing something.
It's not the phone... it's the driver. Some can handle a small level of multi-tasking... some can't. So the answer is to punish everyone and give the police something else to distract them from actually fighting crime and dealing with the truly dangerous people in our society.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Somebody was singing a lullaby on the phone and this catalysed the effect of the drugs and made him fall asleep! If not the phone, he wouldn't crash!
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
About. Fucking. Time.
-Glee
Many a true word hath been spoken in jest -- mod funny posts "Informative".
Frankly I'm for mandatory re-testing every 5-10 years. You get one chance to pass and if you fail you have to take a weekend or two of drivers ed and retest. Fail again and you go back in the learner permit category.
... KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK THEY ARE DOING.
That would sufficiently piss off and scare people into
I swear half of the errors I see drivers make is simply because they forgot the lessons taught in drivers ed. Like checking before switching lanes, turning into the proper lane from a turning lane, not speeding, not tailgating, etc...
Driving isn't hard once you get the feel for the wheel. It just takes vigilence to actually keep up on "10 and 2", checking the blind spots, etc, etc.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
This is nothing more than election year hot air. Truly, how many of these politicians, media-types, and others who are pushing for this sort of legislation spend half their lives on the cell phone, and driving? I'm willing to bet a large majority of them.
This is typical political stupidity of "you don't know what's best for you, we do, and we'll legislate it for you" mentality, and the problem is that people just accept it because 'it sounds good'.
I have no problem with requiring a hands free device, but what about that woman I saw putting on her lipstick in the mirror while driving? How about that idiot that I passed who was shaving in his rear-view while driving at 70mph down I-94?
The sales guy who is reading his email on his laptop in the passenger seat with a cellular modem card?
All these things are way more distracting than holding up a phone to one's ear. But perhaps we should require an IQ test prior to allowing people to purchase a cell, to keep the stupid ones who can't handle more than one thing at a time from getting them.
"Studies have shown that it's the concentration one needs to carry on a cell conversation"
That's exactly what GP said. It's not the phone, it's the failure to attend to driving. The distraction, as you said.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
I think that is the biggest problems with cell phones. People do talk on the cell phone and drink coffee and smoke their cigarettes at the same time. I've seen many accidents in parking lots with people talking on their cell phones while smoking a cigarette trying to park their car. The problem with a cell phone in comparison to food, drink, passengers, other distractions is that you can be on it for an entire trip in a car. It would be like holding a cup of coffee to your mouth for an entire trip, not putting it down once. That is a big distraction. There is also a much higher rate of turn signal negligence while on the phone. I have been guilty of that myself, although I try to stay off the phone as much as possible while on the road.
Hands free seems like a good option, as you should have both hands available a majority of the time to react to situations. Some people would rather get in an accident instead of dropping their precious cell phone. Hands free sets mean one less decision you have to make when a split second action is required.
It shouldn't have to be legislation, it should be common sense.
Cheesy Movie Night
I know Mythbusters' results aren't highly regarded in the Slashdot community, but a recent episode they did showed that (at least for them) talking on a cell phone degraded their ability to drive in a similar manner that driving under the influence of alcohol did.
They (Adam and Kari) basically drove a road course sober, with no distractions to establish a baseline driving skill level with such things as obstacle avoidance, reaction time, and parking being tested. They were graded on both time and accuracy. Then they attempted to talk to Jamie while driving, and were evaluated. Then they drank enough beer to be just under the legal blood alcohol limit in California (greater thanI was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
Except in emergencies, motorists in those states can use cell phones only with hands-free devices, such as earpieces. Restrictions vary across other states.
Because we all know that it's having our hand on the cell phone that causes the distraction versus concetrating on the discussion being conducted on the phone (usually work related) instead of the road.
If they really want to make is safer, since people will continue to use cell phones, hands free or not, they should lower the speed limits. That way, there is more time to react for the cell phone user and for the rest of us to get out of their way.
this is a good thing, you may not notice everyone swerving around while you are talking and driving yourself... however on a bike, it seems everyone is off in some other space. hard enough to be seen even when just a few people in cages and fours wheels are paying attention to traffic!
Shell allowes only hands free calls but advises against any calls, BP bans all type of radio or telephone use while driving.
I agree, people can wait for your answer till you are at a stop.
Another good reason to have you're hourly coffee break :)
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
When I was in Germany back in 97-2000, cell phone use in vehicles without hands-free kits was already illegal.
Kris
Remember when Windows were washed, mice were trapped and UNIX guarded the harem?
I do have a manual transmission and I will say, this. If I had only my right hand to operate the vehicle, that's shifter and wheel, wouldn't you say turning and signaling would be difficult? Now back to automatic with same one hand scenario. Right hand, signal switch is on the left side of the steering wheel, harder to signal no? Turning, is still difficult and always best done with BOTH hands.
Now add in distraction of food/cellphone/etc. and you have the makings of LOSING CONTROL of the vehicle. That's the point. Most people when they get into these accidents don't even drop the cell phone to regain control of the vehicle. At least with hands-free you have control, but concentration is lacking (which isn't good either). I personally don't use the phone ever without ear piece unless I pull over, and then I don't use it with an ear piece unless on the highway in the far right (slow) lane in little traffic. Even then I limit my conversation to point of getting the info or giving the info and calling later when I have time to talk in a safer situation.
Causing Chaos Everywhere,
Nik J.
The strange world of a loner, in a populous city, drowning in society
How the hell can these people cope without handsfree anyway. I need both hands free, one for shaving on the way to work, another for my breakfast, another for the mug of coffee, another, sometimes two for sex and several for giving various hand signals to all these idiots on the phone whilst they're driving.
I agree. I think the most dangerous people on the road, after teenagers, are definitely the over 65 set who simply renew their license by mail. I can't tell you how many times I've been cut off by or stuck behind some old lady who can barely see over the steering wheel of her big boat of a Cadillac cruising down an open freeway at 40 mph. There's no way some of these people could pass a driving test, if they were only given them.
"Any competent driver knows this and can corroborate this statement."
I'm highly competent, and I won't corroborate. (In fact, I'll put my driving record up against anyone's, one ticket when I was 16 for 45 in a 35, and nothing in the twenty years since)
If you're incapable of monitoring the road and other drivers, that is the problem. Cell phones are simply the latest excuse.
"Go ahead and eat french fries, sip coffee,"
And when you spill them in your lap? Right not distracting at all. Your post stinks of yet another screed fueled by sound bites and blurbs, but devoid of reason and fact.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Why is the parent insightful?
The problem with talking on a cell phone is not that it takes your hands off the wheel, but that it takes your brain off of the traffic around you. A fair number of studies have been done that show cell phone use has an effect akin to being drunk in some instances.
When you begin a conversation on a cell phone while driving, your primary cognitive centers focus on the conversation because of the immediacy of the contact and the relative complexity of the conversation. The big problem is that people try to hace substantive converations, trying to exchange really information or discuss something important while one party cannot adequately concentrate on the conversation. As the conversation progresses, more focus is paid to the phone than the road.
Allowing hands free devices is merely a cop out that has been allowed to ease the idea that there is some nefarious "Big Brother" aspect to the law. Studies show that even with a hands free device, the level of distraction is quite high.
Talking on the phone and driving is a behaviour that needs to change. Everybody does it, and we all get distracted only we don't admit it.
cellphones are small now, people have tinted windows and move at 55-70 mph on the highways.
currently carpool lanes are being abused through the use of blowup dolls, and that is barely detected.
I seriously doubt the ability to adequately enforce this.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I've seen people reading newspapers while driving. That's right a newspaper. That's right driving. Not parked and reading, I said driving and reading a newspaper with both pages spread out. I don't like cell phone drivers either, but why not address all distractions in one new law.
Can I bum a sig?
The growing evidence for those that actually read studies on this show no measurable difference between hands-free and holding a phone. The issue is apparently not one of dexterity, but one of concentration. That's why drinking a soda or smoking don't materially increase accident rates. Maintaining a conversation with someone who is not in the car with you, on the other hand, requires more attention than the average person is able to give up. This is different from conversing with someone in the car because they are able to tell why you might be non-responsive for a moment: there is no pressure to maintain the conversation when the other person is there with you...
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
they should ban cell phones usage in vehicules because it's too dangerous. I don't know about most people but I can't drive with one hand and hold a cell phone with the other, besides my other hand is already busy holding my beer....
come on laugh, it's a Mondayed Tuesday.
Here we go again!
They have this in Colombia as well. Drivers are prohibited from talking on cell phones without hands free kits and the fines are pretty steep. And we in the US call them a third world country? Bah!
I've seen several studies comparing drivers using their cell phones to drivers under the influence of alcohol and the results are remarkably similar. Living in South Florida, I've also witnessed a lot of idiotic driver behavior and thought "Is this guy drunk, talking on his cell phone, or just a tool?" More times than not, it's someone talking on their cell.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Take their license away for a few months - that will change their tune.
Actually, it doesn't, not at all. The lack of a license doesn't prevent these people from driving.
The lack of a car does though. Impound it for the duration of the suspension, and send the bill to them.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
I really hope laws are passed through every state that will completely ban cell phone use while driving a car. I am very suprised at many of the comments here that think this is ridiculous.
Driving around in a car is dangerous enough without people chatting on their cell phones while they are trying to yell at little Jimmy in the back seat and apply their make-up.
Go talk on your cell phone all you want when my life is not in your hands.
It's nice to see something like this, even if it is only because of elections coming up.
I've heard that comparison several times and I thought it was just wrong. After all, I talk on the cell phone and my driving is pretty good. That is what I thought at least, until I started riding a motorcycle on the street. You notice everything when on a bike in the middle of a bunch of distracted car drivers, and soon I started noticing several patterns. The biggest was that people talking on a cell phone can be spotted easily.
You all can tell yourselves that you don't do that. That YOU ARE a good driver, and you probably normally are. But so am I.. And so are probably 50% of the people I spot weaving and hitting the brakes 1 second later than they should.
While I hate the old folks too, don't discount the younger population.
There are plenty of people in all age groups that suck plenty at driving.
The real problem is people just take it for granted. They assume driving is a right [it isn't] and that they can do whatever they want on the road as a result.
If you made re-testing mandatory for all ages you'd probably see quite a few failures.
And it isn't like the re-test has to be long. just get in the car with the driver, go for 7 minutes doing turns, passing, change lanes, then turn around and come back.
In a city of 700,000 where there are probably around 350,000 drivers [at most] it would take one person about 12 years to test everyone. Hire a staff of 100 and boom you have practical testing schedules. Those 100 people can very likely save millions on the road as they force people to think while they drive.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Here in the U.S., this is a safety concern because most adults here are obnoxious, self-important idiots.
***Legislation*** to prohibit talking on the phone while driving ? Give me a break.
It should't be necessary for a fucking ***government*** to get involved by admonishing people not to do the obviously dangerous and rude, but unfortunately most adults in the U.S. are the same obnoxious, melodramatic twits that they were during adolescence, so we have to have our government take the paternalistic role of waggling a finger and saying "no".
Hopefully, in the far distant future, our culture will learn how to change its own fucking diapers.
Anyone tried concentrating on the road with two sqabbling under-10's in the back? It's far worse than any phone conversation.
What does this have to do with the issue of cell phone use?
Ever try to drive while getting a BJ? Yeah, that's pretty distracting too. So what?
The fact that kids fighting in the back seat is distracting only adds to the argument for restricting cell phone use while driving. There are already enough (legal?) distractions without adding any more.
What's so important about your phone call that you have the right to endanger -my- family's life by making/taking that call while driving?
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
On this note, shouldn't we ban talking to your passenger? Isn't that just as distracting?
What about eating food while driving from McDonalds or your drive through of choice?
I know lets ban people from driving because we are inherintly imperfect and will wreck no matter what we are or arn't doing.
Plus his "comedy" is hacktastic hell.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I am dying to tell my wife she can't talk to me on the phone while I'm driving... hell, make that she can't talk to me on the phone at all, and I'll give a nice tip.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Stop making sense !
Think like a poletican
Since when does any Poletican need to prove anything?
In fact
Every good poletican knows better than that , and can say 3000 words without conveying anything or it can be interpreted as meaning anything !
Even if a poletican could be specific they dont, because that would be committing to something, and we cant have that !
Committment is only a pre- election thing !
Any elected offical with a clear agend never gets re- elected because half of the voters dont like it
so they lose.
I have a friend who likes to type on his Blackberry while driving. He asked if the restrictions affected him typing. My respone was, he had to use a hands-free set.
One solution would be to require the handsets to mute the call if they detected a receive carrier doppler shift above a specified limit. You can move or talk, but not both.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"Anyone who thinks talking is that distracting just can't drive."
You got that right. Take away their licenses and let them take the bus. All of a sudden, you saved thousands of lives, solved road congestion and did a huge favor to the environment!
Stop the brainwash
Washington D.C.? Connecticut? New York? New Jersey? Hey - the same bunch that outlawed radar detectors first!
Fact is, these are notoriously liberal states who, in typical liberal fashion, want to pass legislation that protects people from themselves. (Big Brother knows better than you what behavior is "safe!")
From personal experience, I've definitely found that driving with a hands-free kit is easier for me than trying to hold a cellphone up to my ear while driving. Sure, it's possible to drive with only one hand on the steering wheel, but having both hands available is better. You tend to do things like use a turn-signal more smoothly if you're not trying to keep from dropping that phone while doing it, etc. I don't think having a phone conversation is any more of a mental distraction than having a conversation with another passenger in your vehicle, though. And let's face it, some people can't do that well without becoming unsafe drivers - but that's because they lack the ability to focus on more than one task at a time.
This, simply, gets into an area where individuals vary wildly on their ability to talk and drive at the same time. Attacking the problem with blanket legislation is another case of "killing an ant with a shotgun".
I agree with what you're saying about the old and young crowds, but to me, the biggest problem is the assholes. Either (a) getting behind the wheel turns people into assholes, or (b) there are a lot of assholes around (most likely?). This could be because I work in Washinton, DC, but I've seen it everywhere. People act like they own the road, and everyone else (if they notice them at all - see unsignaled lane changes, etc.) is in their way. Perfect example: I'm eating lunch at a sidewalk cafe last weekend. Traffic is brisk on the four lane street (2x2). A black SUV has stopped in the right lane with its blinkers on for some reason (Asshole #1). A sports car pulls up behind and gets pissed because he can't get by (Asshole #2). Asshole #2 proceeds to honk at Asshole #1 for about two minutes, before managing to pull into the other lane. Asshole #2 then PULLS UP NEXT TO ASSHOLE #1 TO TELL HIM OFF for another minute, thereby holding up ten cars behind him, who then start honking. Asshole #2 then roars off. That really showed him.
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
Regardless of the dangers inherent in driving while using a cell phone, the law doesn't seem to be realistically enforceable. Is a cop going to pull-up beside my car on the highway and check to see whether I have a cell phone glued to my ear? It seems to me that this is just another way for politicans to piss away tax dollars to pass 'feel-good' legislation which does absolutely nothing for the state. It's like wearing seatbelts. Yes, it's a good idea to follow the law, but the only way someone is going to know is if there's a checkpoint (in which case, buckle your seatbelt while you're waiting in line), or you pull a Superman through your front windshield. Regardless of the risks of not following a law, some people are going to disobey it. In the case of cell phones, use while driving is a risk to the user and also those driving nearby, but individual responsibility (not a useless law) is what determines whether a person chooses to drive while on the phone.
"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have seen people talk on cell phones...but nothing is as scary as seeing someone try and type emails on their BlackBerry while driving... That takes way more concentration than just talking.
Here's one interesting quote:
There are many other from that same site.I think the difference is that because the person is not in the car with you, he/she won't stop talking just because things suddenly get more tense in traffic. Or, perhaps, talking to another passenger is just as dangerous and should be avoided. If you get bored while driving, I suggest you read a book or newspaper instead.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
This is the typical political pandering that politicians do to the public and everyone still seems to eat up. There is already a great law on the books in New York State, and I'm sure any other State in the Union, called the Reckless Driver Laws. If they would just enforce them, it doesn't matter if the person is on the cell phone, putting on makeup, being intimate with another person, sleeping, reading a map, eating a burger or doing any other distracting thing it's a ticket-able offense.
Instead we'll add more laws to the books because we can get on TV/Radio and talk about it. There are already enough laws on the books to take care of most problems but no one is enforcing the ones that exist.
Wake up my fellow Slashdotians. You are being HAD! Fight back, start emailing, calling and talking about how ludicrous it is to add laws to the books that just reinforce another law that already exists. Ask them why they don't just enforce the existing laws that cover the same situation.
"We don't need bigger government, we need a bigger stick."
In a hypothetical "all use banned" scenario, what if you were engaged in politcal speech? Could one argue a constraint of 1st ammendment rights?
Just a little devil's advocation.
New Jersey hasn't banned radar detectors.
Radar detectors are illegal in commercial vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds in all fifty states, per Title 49 Transportation Act.
Self awareness - try it!
In fact, there are such laws. All of these activities are covered under the umbrella of distracted driving. A google search on "distracted driving" brings up a plethora of hits, no pun intended.
Many states already have laws against distracted driving, but it's the type of law which never really gets enforced unless there is an accident, in which case a driver may be cited. A similar law is the "cannot exit a parked vehicle on the street side" statute. Of course everyone exits their car on the street side, but the law exists for a good reason: those cases when some clown opens a door into traffic, and causes an accident. In those cases, they enforce the law, and lay the blame squarely on the door-opener.
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
Personally, I don't see this as being much different from speed limits. Cell phone restrictions, visibility requirements, speed limits, DUI laws, and everything else aren't just for the driver's protection. They're for the protection of the other people on the road too.
In my ~20 years of driving, I've never been "stuck behind some old lady who can barely see over the steering wheel of her big boat of a Cadillac cruising down an open freeway at 40 mph". I do follow the rules of the road (i.e., I drive in the right lane because I'm driving slower than other traffic even though I'm driving the maximum speed allowable by lay), but maybe I'm just some radical right-winger who believes in law-and-order. (Doubtful, considering that I tend to vote Democrat and that I own a hybrid.)
There have been several times going uphill on the freeway (on I-64/I-81 near the AT) where I've had someone pull right in front of me and I do find that very annoying, but it seems more often that these people are younger than me and not older.
As for cell phones, I'll admit to being biased as I lost my last car (1995 Honda Civic) due to an accident involving an 18-wheeler who came into my lane because its driver was talking on her cell phone. (Well, that, and she was no doubt not a good driver. Later, she admitted that she had been fired from her last truck-driving job for hitting another car.) Luckily, another truck driver behind us witnessed the whole thing and was willing to tell the police what happened. Even more lucky, I suppose, my wife and I survived the accident without a scratch, even if it did total the car.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The difference between a cell phone conversation and talking with a passenger is that a passenger can help you looking at the road and slow the conversation when in heavy traffic.
Someone on the phone will not and will not understand so easily why there is a pause in the conversation because the driver notice something strange.
A passenger have a better understanding of his/her responsibility not to distract the driver than someone in his/her office/living-room.
This is valid for normal peaceful conversation. For fights or seductions as some touching may occur, the physical presence may be an additional distraction and cell phone may be a better solution.
Phone sex would definitely be less distracting than real sex while driving.
Fact is, these are notoriously liberal states who, in typical liberal fashion, want to pass legislation that protects people from themselves. (Big Brother knows better than you what behavior is "safe!")
;-)
Actually, I think these laws are designed to protect me from YOU on your cellphone, not from myself.
Whether or not its all just a part of the Big Liberal Conspiracy is a different debate
The rest of that list was redundant.
Over here in the UK
Yes, but then we generally drive manual transmission stick-shift with small engines that require frequent gear changes to maximise efficiency, rather than the oversized fairground bumper-car dodgems with huge slow engines and lazy automatic 4-speed gearings that the Americans drive. Plus their speed limit is only 55mph - I mean, how dangerous can they be?
My experience of driving a brand new Chevrolet up California's route 101 for a week, was that it was not unlike playing GTA:San Andreas from a large comfortable sofa with all the responsiveness and cornering of an exceptionally reluctant cow. Compare this to whipping along a European autobahn at twice that speed in a hatchback a gazillion times as fast on an engine half the size, passing six national borders in a day.
On the third hand, the US so big that anyone travelling any serious distance just flies there, so the question of driving ability isn't really relevent beyond local commuting and the occasional road trip vaccation. The irony being that they can't use their mobile phones on an aeroplane, either.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Seatbelts save lives, and not just those of the wearer.
Huh?
Who else are they saving? People you would have accidentally hit and killed while flying out the windshield of your car?
I admit I've never seen the numbers on that, but I think the number of people killed by being hit by flying unrestrained bodies is pretty low. The primary function of a seatbelt is to protect you, nothing more.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Consider the fact that some older drivers may never have had to take a driving test. My grandmother is 89 years old and was driving vehicles before you had to have a license to do so. Since she had already been driving, she wasn't required to take a drivers test in order to get a license.
Don't they *think* before making these laws?
No.
They really don't.
The legislators know that people see "idiots driving while talking on cellphones" as a problem, thus they pass a law and ban it. It's knee-jerk legislation at its best, something which has a long history in Connecticut.
After all, the law doesn't do a damn thing about what has to be the most dangerous part of using a cellphone: dialing it, and like you pointed out, once you've started the call on a cellphone and are just holding it to your head, it's really not any more dangerous or distracting than holding a cup of Starbucks in that hand. Actually, I'd argue that it's far less dangerous and distracting, since you can drop that cellphone in an emergency with a lot more ease than you can drop a cup of hot liquid.
However, rational thought has never been an impediment to legislators desperate to justify their own existence to their constituencies by getting their names down on some law or another, and thus we get this kind of crap.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You're absolutely right, Lorax. The Other guy is a flaming asshole.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
*rolls eyes* Because, of course, putting all cyclists in the gutter, in an area which is flooded with trash most of the time and just plain flooded if it rains, is a good idea. Oh, and legally require them to be out of the immediate line of sight of drivers so that all it takes is a slight drift or a righthand turn and the bicyclist is sideswiped.
Even better, build unlit bike paths which also have pedestrians who insist on jogging around in dark sweatsuits without any lights indicating their positions, and require bicyclists to only use those paths.
The "bicycle safety" legislation has never been about cycling safety. It's all about trying to get the cyclists off of the road for the peace of mind of drivers who can't stand the idea of someone else sharing their road.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Plus their speed limit is only 55mph
Not true. The standard Interstate speed limit is 65 MPH, although it frequently drops to 55 in urban areas. Out South and West (basically anywhere except New England), on long stretches of rural freeway, it's very common to have 75 MPH zones. I don't know if there are any areas higher than that, I think 75 is the highest standard, but there might be 80MPH areas that I haven't been to yet.
They used to have areas in Montana that were autobahn-like, with no daytime limit, but I've been told that's been eliminated in the past few years, I guess they had too many tourists pretending they were at Daytona.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
>> Is it really so hard to pull over, or wait 5 minutes to finish your coffee,
>> apply your makeup, or whatever it is you have to do?
> I think this more of a problem of societal norms than anything. Most people
> are raised to try to multitask, and be as efficient as possible in our society.
> This is not to say that it isn't irresponsible, or that these people are
> blameless, but it does give us insight into the question of "Why?"
Also, the expectations of the caller are a factor; I was reprimanded rather sharply by my boss a year or two ago for not answering my cell phone while driving into work. I pulled off at the next exit and called him back ( 5 minutes). He was very upset that I didn't answer immediately; I had an earpiece for hands-free, but I had left it in my laptop case.
Not as good as last month's story on the PSP-playing bus driver
"Steve Allcock was reported by terrified passengers who heard the screams
of characters being butchered" in Grand Theft Auto.
The bus company sacked another driver the previous week for applying makeup.
And sex!
It's called reckless or distracted driving. And it's never enforced when people are already not paying attention because they're working, putting on make-up, eating, screwing with their radio - what have you. Nobody seems to want to pen a law against any of those things do they? Let's just use the cell phone as a scape goat. Yeah that's it. Bottom line is cell phones are just one of many things that can be distracting while driving and the bigger issue is driving distracted. More enforcement of the existing law is needed regardless of the reason the person was driving like an idiot. Better driver education at the start would hurt as well but that's a whole 'nother argument. And for those of you who think we're so rude with cell phones impinging on every aspect of life here in the US - go get yourself a passport and do some travelling. I think you'd be surprised.
However it should also be considered that the automotive industry is constantly introducing new saftey measures
For example?
It's possible that cell phone use has no detrimental effect, but it's also possible that it has a detrimental effect which is cancelled out e.g. by ABS or airbags.
How do air bags prevent accidents?
"Personally, I think cars are some kind of advanced intelligence sapping device." - ObsessiveMathsFreak
(Repo Man) "The more you drive, the less intelligent you are" - Miller
It must be true!
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
Does anyone know if a cell phone that is a speakerphone qualifies as "hands-free"?
My old phone was not a speakerphone, so I used an earpiece. But my new Moto V710 has a great speakerphone that I use all the time in the car. I know there are no restrictions on this here in Minnesota (USA), but in places where you do have to be "hands free" does a speakerphone qualify?
I guess I might still use it occasionally even if it were illeagal. It's not too hard to hold or set a phone out of view.
A drunk 18 year old male (it was his birthday the next day,) who also took some E, was driving, and 18 year old drunk female (it was her birthday,) got killed in a car crush near Barrie (they were both from North York, Toronto,) yesterday. They were in 1997 Ford Probe, that the driver just bought. The force of the impact against a tree, cut the car in two.
I say, raise the legal driver's age to 21 years old and give out SERIOUS punishment to people who drive drunk, and that would have a greater impact on the road safety.
You can't handle the truth.
After my freshman year of college, my brother and I went on a several month road trip around the US. When we got to Montanta we saw a weird looking road sign up and when we got closer it turned out to be a speed limit sign. It said that the speed limit was "Reasonable and Prudent." (See it here) We thought that was a great idea and, since it was a bright sunny day with a nice, straight road (just some hills), and only an occasional other car out, we floored the pedal of our minivan and were shaking terribly as we got to around 105mph. To our surprise, a police cruiser rocketed past us like we were standing still. He must have been going at least 140. No sirens, no anything, just getting where he needed to go.
In retrospect, I see that -- considering the type of vehicle and condition -- even with a speed limit of "reasonable and prudent," we had broken the law =) Fortunately, the cop didn't seem to care.
I read somewhere that after New York City implemented a law like this, there were no changes in accident statistics. Sounds more like just another way to make money for the states as people WILL break the law.
The lady who pulled out right in front of me while talking on her cell and looked shocked as hell as I almost broadsided her. It was a clear sunny day, I was on the main road, she was on a side street.
If I didn't see the cell phone in her hand (as i was sitting about 2' from her car) then I would have thought she was crazy or blind-- which perhaps she was. I think her eyes had turned off during the phone call.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"Replacements"... they are not needed.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Besides wobbling side to side, they also wobble back to front. That is, they can't maintain a proper speed. They invariably slow down as they aren't paying attention and then when they notice, they zoom back up to speed. I've even noticed myself doing this on the phone, which is a big part of why I rarely talk on the phone when driving.
I can tell a driver is on the phone without actually seeing the driver, only the motions of the car. It's pretty characteristic.
I'm shocked it hasn't been more of a problem than it is. We have a lot of traffic around here, and people love to talk on the phone during their commutes. Cell phones must have increased the accident rate, I wonder why it hasn't shown up in the overall statistics.
I was glad when it was made illegal for bus drivers to talk on the cell phone, the thought of what they could do to their cargo and to others with those heavy vehicles is chilling. Restrictions on truck drivers should be next, starting with short haul drivers (local delivery drivers) as they seem to be the worst offenders.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
It is highly illegal in Australia. You will loose 3 out of 12 available points from your licence and receive a $180 fine.
Mobile phones should not be used whilst driving at all. Just today I saw some young person on her phone whilst driving her car she was so engrossed in what the other person had to say she mounted the median strip in the middle of a busy road doing 60 k's an hour. Is the phone call so important she risked causing an accident???
I mean jeeze how hard is it to pull over to have your all important life changing phone conversation?aver
Lets step back for a second. What's wrong exactly with not allowing people to use Radar Detectors? Speeding is illegal. The only use I can think of for having a radar detector in a car is to allow speeding with a reduced ability to get caught.
The problem is we live in a society where people are so protected, people have no fear of danger. I mean you can jump off a bridge, and if there isn't a warming message that says that you can get killed from jumping, you can sue the city. If a bottle of medicine doesn't have a big warning "KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN", it is the companies fault if you give it to your kid to play with it and he dies from an overdose. People go out to national parks and get attacked by bears, because they think they can walk up to a bear and pet it, and bears don't understand shit about safety laws or lawsuits.
So people do incredably things (often involving cellphones), that causes auto accidents. Sorry, but if it wasn't cell phones, it would be some other idiotic thing (they would be watching the built in DVD player or something). If you have to explicitly make laws mandating against every specific idiotic thing a person could possibly be doing, it isn't going to do anything. The problem is that your population itself are a bunch of idiots. And why are they idiots? It isn't any genetic change... or any change in public education... it is the fact that we have pretty much destroyed any concept of people being responsible for their own actions. If I am not required by the law and society to look out for myself, then it is easy for me to coast through life without ever asking "is this dangerous", or "is this safe", because obviously if it was dangerous I wouldn't be allowed to do it.
A much better way to deal with these kinds of things would be to hold people criminally responsible for injuries they cause in accidents. If someone is a hunter, and they are acting like an idiot, and they accidentally shoot someone, they are going to go to jail for manslaughter. Why would automobiles be any different? (and no, no-one goes to jail for manslaughter with an automobile unless they are intoxicated).
I think cell phones give me pretty good traction, but I could always use more. That spot just behind the rear tire, you can shove your phone in there and sometimes get that burst of friction you need to get your car moving again.
Glad to see they're giving cell phones more traction!
And they said zombies weren't real!
Enh.
As you said, there are multiple factors going into this - and we have little infomation on how prevalent cellphone use whilst driving is. The argument here isn't that it should be banned because everyone is doing it, and so there is this huge statistical effect, but that when it is done, it leads to a dramatic increase in risk - including to other innocent drivers around them who aren't using cellphones. Similarly, we don't ban murder because it makes a big difference overall to our death rate, or whatever.
The cost benefit analysis goes like this - would the small cost of this measure (in convenience to a small subset of people, and probably fairly light attempts at enforcement, mostly aiming at the deterrence effect) justify the small reduction in risk and general public perception of risk? If so, then it's a smart measure.
That's true, but in tests leading up to the UK ban, it was found that drivers using hands-free kits are almost as dangerous as those on hand-held phones. The distraction is the main problem, not the fact that you've only got one hand on the wheel. It's not the same as someone sitting next to you, because usually someone sitting next to you can see both you and the road ahead, and will instinctively shut up when they sense that you need to concentrate on approach to a hazard.
The UK government proceeded to implement a ban on hand-held phones only, and a lot of "responsible" organisations have since been promoting the highly-dangerous habit of driving while on a hands-free kit. It will be interesting, in a macabre kind of way, to see whether the introduction of the anti-mobile-phone legislation here actually correlates with an improvement in road safety.
The only really safe way to use a phone in a car is when you're not driving it at the time. I don't care how urgent your business call is, or that you need your other half to put the kettle on now so the coffee's ready when you get home. Either pull over in a safe and legal place and make/answer the call, or wait until you've arrived. Anything else is dangerous driving, and should be prosecuted under your local dangerous driving laws regardless of any phone-specific restrictions. If it really was safer than not making the call (e.g., you're calling the emergency services a good reason) then that should be a sufficient defence in court.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Except in emergencies, motorists in those states can use cell phones only with hands-free devices, such as earpieces.
That's true but in NY, you are allowed to dial or answer the phone; you only have to be hands-free during the conversation. Now, that makes sense - the simple act of holding a phone to your ear is distracting ... but taking your eyes off the road to key in 11 numbers or browse your phone book, that's not.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I think that's part of the issue too. There are bicyclists who are using the road for business. I bike to get to and from places. There are motorists that drive for pleasure. I wouldn't be too surprised if it's becoming less common with soaring gas prices, but I know people who will cruise around just for the fun of driving.
Overall, I see no reason why cyclists and automobiles can't share the same road if both groups drive sensibly. There will always be idiot drivers who are convinced that bicyclists don't belong on the road and will harass them. There will always be idiot bicyclists who cuirse down the middle of a road at 5 MPH without lights or reflectors at twilight. The majority can co-exist peacefully.
Personally, I think that it's more than safety issues that drive the politics of the road. Bicyclists pay maybe $2000 for their bike if it's really high end and the only fuel they have to pay for is food. Automobile drivers spend $20,000 easy on a new car and then will put hundreds of dollars into the local economy via gasoline. Which side do you think the government's going to be taking? The bicyclists may be driving entirely sensibly in a way which is good for them and good for the environment, but they're not pumping the same amount of money into the community, not to mention that they're spurning the golden idol of gasoline.
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There should be three driving offences:
If something's not dangerous or inconsiderate to anyone, and not a technical offence, why should it be illegal?
If it is unreasonably dangerous or annoying to others, why shouldn't it?
This approach is simple, and combined with sensible policing and allowing courts wide discretion in awarding penalties, it's also probably far more effective than our current policies, at least here in the UK.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
What's next - ban everything that might represent an 0.000001% daily risk to your life? No skiing. No driving. No walking in the street without a Snell approved helmet. And a $500 per day tax to cover penalties for transgressions you haven't been caught doing. You can get a waiver if you could prove that you stayed at home in bed all day, of course.
Life is dangerous, people - get over it! Oh, and screw the children and (moreover) any legislator that uses them as an excuse to restrict freedom.
-b.
Please tell that to the family of somebody who has been killed in a cellphone-use related accident.
It's a small inconvenience for many, but if it only saves ONE life, it succeeded.
People just have that idiotic idea of "that won't ever happen to me or anyone I care for".
Look behind the numbers of accidents and you will see people suffering and dying for nothing.
In Kentucky, at least while I was growing up, it was a written test (multiple choice) for the permit and a practical (in car driving around town) exam for the license. ^_^ One of the four written tests that they cycled around had the infamous question about what do to if a small animal dashes in front of you with the answers being a) Swerve to your left b) Swerve to your right c) Hit the brakes or d) Accelerate. D was the correct answer as it was overall the safest method for you and the cars around you. The practical exam (admittedly set in a small town) had you driving around town, doing proper stops, undershifting if you had a manual, parking on hills, and parallel parking (with real cars that the city didn't own).
I had to take an exam when I mvoed to Ohio, but it was all pretty obvious stuff and they ended the test after you had a certain number of questions right rather than force you to finish it. I've been told that there's no parallel parking, but they do force you to back into an array of cones without knocking any of them down.
Oh, and incidentally, I'm a manual transmission nut myself. In my family, you have to pass the driver's test in a manual transmission car. My parents figured that if you could pass it in a manual, you could do it in the automatic. ^_^ Besides which, there's just something about a person who can shift for themselves.
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How about you consider these "facts" ?
a) Not every driving cell phone owner is an asshole, who has to use the damn mobile 24/7.
b) Maybe the accident rate hasn't gone up for cell phone users, that's because they cause accidents in their wake, and don't even notice !
c) Not every drunk driver kills a kid (or indeed anyone at all), so by your reasoning it should be ok to drink and drive. After all, the accident rate didn't go down when they banned drink driving either !
d) Not every cell phone owner drives a car, so where do you link ownership and accidents ?
Informative my a## !
"10 and 2" is no longer suggested, if you have a steering-wheel airbag. "9 and 3" or "8 and 4" is the new consensus, to avoid injury to your arms and help you maintain control of the vehicle if necessary after the airbag deploys. I prefer 8 and 4 because it lets me do the most turning without having to reposition both hands, and it's just more comfortable if the wheel has the right hand-holds there.
. html or http://www.dmv.ca.gov/about/senior/safety/driver.h tm)
(See for example http://www.mpi.mb.ca/english/dr_tips/handposition
What should be done is harsher peanalties in the case of accidents. Person gets into a minor fender bender because they were yapping on the phone? What happens now? A minor increase and insurance premuim, and they're back on the road. What should happen - take away their license for 3 months and send them to traffic school - they obviously don't know how to drive properly without distractions.
At one point I'd have been tempted to agree with you. We need to emphasize that there's more to an accident than buying your way out. However, I've been stuck without a car for weeks at a time before due to repairs or the like. I have no co-workers who live in my close vicinity. There is no adequate public transportation that could get me to my workplace around the right time and to and from the right location. Luckily, I've been an avid bike rider enough, and there are safe roads between there (not to mention that, compared to many of my co-workers, I live close to work, a 20 minute car drive or an hour bike ride). Otherwise, many towns just aren't built for people who don't own a car. Yes, the large cities have subways and busses. Very small towns, you can walk to everything. Most towns fall in that middle abyss where a car is the only way you're going to be able to live your life. Depriving people of a car more or less deprives them of a productive life. It's one of the reasons you see senior citizens edging down the road at 15 MPH because their cataracts keep them from seeing far enough to drive the speed limit.
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Then they may have trouble knowing when to stop wiping.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
We've seen all the studies that claim it's not the cell phone causing the distractions, it's the act of talking to someone. I know I'm going to get into trouble for this, but I'd like to see these studies broken down by gender. Based on my personal observations, women devote far more mental energy to their conversations than men do.
I observed a perfect example of this just yesterday at a McDonalds play area. A lady comes in with her boy and two girls, and they sit down to eat. I can tell immediately that this is one of those super-attentive micromanaging moms that lets no detail of her kids' behavior escape her notice. "Timmy, sit up." "Suzie, tuck in your shirt." All this sort of stuff in a constant stream. Discipline is fine, but give the poor kids a little breathing room sometime.
After lunch, as the kids start playing, this attentiveness continues. Timmy must put both his shoes into a single bin. Suzie is not to climb on the outside of the play structures. Sally must not roll her toy truck down the slide.
Then the phone comes out. The transformation is instantaneous.
Sally is upset about being pushed aside by a bigger girl (mine, in fact, who I immediately chastise, even though I too am on the phone). Mom, who did not notice the incident right in front of her, says, "I'm on the phone honey, go play." Meanwhile, Timmy is eating french fries off the floor. Later on, Suzie, who has resumed her illegal climbing and is now at the height of my head, announces that she is stuck, and asks me, the nearest adult, to help her down. I hesitate. The times being what they are, I am reluctant to lay hands on a stranger's child for any reason. You never know what you might be accused of. I glance toward Mom. Although she is not far away and is facing in our direction, her eyes are clearly not focused on much of anything. I shrug and get Suzie down from her perch. Mom never noticed that her 5-year-old was momentarilly in the arms of a complete stranger.
When the call is over, Mrs. attentiveness is immediately back in action. Sally is consoled, Suzie is plucked (again) off the playscape, and Timmy is roundly berated for eating food off the floor.
This is of course only one extreme example, but in my experience, at home and among friends and relatives, this sort of change in behavior is almost universal among conversing women, whether on the phone or face to face. All else takes a back seat to the conversation. I have not seen the same sort of thing occur with men, in general. For myself, I frequently have to ask people to repeat themselves (much to their annoyance) after I switch my attention to something else. This raises the question: if a study were to confirm that women are much more distracted than men by conversation, should we make driving while on the phone illegal just for women?
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How about, if you are in an accident while using your cell phone, you accept the responsibility for your actions? Would that be such an unthinkable thing?
How about you not do something stupid that gets someone else injured in the first place?
By your logic, why do we pull over drunk drivers before they get in an accident anyway?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
How do you enforce this? My cell has a speakerphone which I can use with the phone sitting down in the console. Nobody outside even knows its there. I suppose they could see my lips moving, but do we really want people being pulled over just for singing in their car?
Well, it would be a multi-pronged effort, but there would be people that slip through. Think of it as an analogy to drunk driving.
1) Pull over obvious offenders. Just as you pull over people weaving in their lane, you pull over people using a handset or wearing an earpiece. You then ticket them and have the station pull phone records before the court date.
2) Punish harshly those in an accident. Just as you do breathalizer tests on people you suspect being drunk in an accident, you pull cell phone records on people who get in accidents likely caused by inattention (rear endings, swideswiping during lane changes, etc.).
3) Some will get away. There are people who can act completely sober while legally intoxicated and there will be people with invisible hands-free kits.
The last thing you can do that doesn't have a good comparison to DUI is to simply ban the selling of hands-free kits built into the car in the US market. There will of course be grandfathered-in vehicles, but if driving while talking is illegal, then there's no legitimate reason to let them be sold after a certain date since they enable illegal behavior. This is why radar-detectors are illegal in many states, for example.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
First, let's drop the euphamism and call these incidents wrecks or crashes, not accidents.
Second, surely the insurance companies are the best source of information about the risk of cellphone use, since they have a financial incentive to measure the risk posed by them. Perhaps they will start offering reductions if you don't use your phone while driving (and check your phone records when you make a claim).
This question will go out to you folks who actually work in the Cellular business.
:)
With some of the new cell-phone systems having GPS capability, how difficult would it be to code the phones to simply refuse to operate once the phone had reached a certain speed ? It's unlikely you're going to run faster than 20mph with a phone in one hand, so why not simply tell the phone to disallow any calling ( inbound or outbound ) once the unit exceeds the set speed ? ( with the exception of emergency numbers 911, etc. )
Would this even be a feasable possibility or is it simply wishful thinking on my part ?
While we're at it, lets code in the Cellular equivilant of the Broadcast Flag. Essentially it's jamming, but since JAMMING is a questionable activity here in the US, we'll simply rename it, and all will be good in the world. . . .
I SO loved my jammer before the technology transition. I could actually sit in a movie theater and watch an entire movie without the cellular rendition of Beethoven's Fifth going off every two minutes. . . . ahhh the good old days. . . .
In other words, build the system into the phone that allows it to operate in any environment unless it detects the presence of a ' Broadcast Bit '. ( Simple, cheap device with limited range in movie theaters, hospitals, churches, restaurants, etc. etc. that simply tell the phone not to accept incoming or outgoing calls with, once again, the exception of emergency numbers. )
While I'm not normally one to condone laws and whatnot to dictate every part of our lives, it's become obvious that common sense and courtesy are just completely beyond the cell phone issue. Folks simply will NOT give the damn things up. They're like battery operated crack. . . . .
I'm only speculating here, but once they get the whole TV on the phone thing down, something's GOTTA give before that idiot watching the game on the phone @ 75mph plows through a car or two. . . .
Thoughts ?
Will someone provide me with a trained monkey to shift for me so i can keep both hands on the wheel at all times?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I have a good researcher to follow for you, then. His work compares hands-free use, handset use, passive listening to radio and books on tape, and talking with passengers. He also compared younger & older drivers and the cellphones vs. alcohol. Check out David Strayer's work from the University of Utah.
The first paper linked there, Driven to distraction: Dual-task studies of simulated driving and conversing on a cellular phone, covers handset use vs. hands-free use vs. listening to the radio vs. listening to books on tape. It also includes a test to weed out whether holding a phone had a seperate effect from not holding one (for purposes of attention). The results were that talking on a cell phone itself caused attention problems and reduced reaction time due to "dual-task interference." Remeber that term -- it's very important to why cell phones are distracting.
Now to go down the list of studies linked from that page:
2 - Finds change blindness when having a conversation
3 - People using CPs are twice as likely to miss traffic signals right in front of them as people listening to radio or without distractions.
5 - Showed people on CPs have worse braking time, miss info on billboards, and track less objects with their eyes while driving.
7 - Shows that old and young people are affected in equal proportion by CP usage and that young people become equivalent to old people in reaction times.
8 - Shows CP drivers are more impaired than legally drunk drivers but that drunk drivers are more aggressive while CP drivers give themselves more space to react than normal.
9 - Shows CP drivers don't strongly form memories about things they see while driving due to paying less attention.
10 - Compares CP use and talking to passengers. Both impair drivers compared to having no distractions, but CP users were more impaired. Passengers tended to talk more about traffic and yield conversation more often than CP conversants.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It is time to implement the automatic transport system. Cars are a device of a forgotten age. Instead you will tell your computer room to drive to your friend's house. The room will disconnect from your home. I will then drive to your friend's house where it will connect with a tube (a docking station). The whole system will be controlled by Microsoft and be powered by penguin feces.
"The Wall Street Journal is reporting that States are scrambling to impose tougher restrictions on cell phone use by drivers, addressing what safety experts say can be a deadly distraction. "
Then, they should definetely legislate about the use of Car TV's. Many of them are placed in the visual field of drivers, and are already responsible for many accidents. Actually some early studies indicate that they are much more distracting than cellphones . This totally makes sense since you really need to take your eyes of the road to see that interesting scene on the screen.
I live in the Isle of Man. No piffling 35 quid fine for using a mobile behind the wheel here. The fine is ONE THOUSAND POUNDS.
The unintended consequence is when people get a phone call, they pull over to take the call - often pulling over in very dangerous places, like just around a blind bend (thanks to quick reactions, two years ago I just avoided hitting someone who did just this).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Using a cellphone while driving violates a law about having both hands on the wheel IN ALL 50 STATES PEOPLE. Enforce the laws we have, and it's over.
I used to have a hands free console unit in both cars. Can't even BUY the things anymore, for the newer digital phones. What does that tell you about the marketplace people?
I'd go further, and say that people today are obsessed with safety. At any price. Even if it interferes severely with your life. Many people today would reduce their risk 1% while reducing quality of life 99% and think it worthwhile.
We never wore helmets, ran around blowing stuff up, started countless fires, invented rivalries with the crazy lady and the plant-nursery man, all kinds of things.
I saw a preview of this obsession because my mother was a worrier, and very overprotective. She would buy me a helmet and force me to wear it (which I'd do until I was out of sight) She'd give me long boring lectures about strangers with candy and drug pushers. (oddly nobody ever offered me free drugs. What a rip-off!) Anyway, she would worry and stress and buy all this crap. It didn't make any difference. We all grew up fine, except for the kid who had an undiagnosed heart condition.
It makes me sad to see kids wearing helmets, worried about getting molested by drugged-out terrorists. Hopefully the pendulum swings.
Man, you really need that seminar!
It may not be on the state level, but there are many cities which have banned mobile phone use while driving, e.g., Chicago.
I was almost run down in a crosswalk the other day by some jackass on a cell phone. I always carry a stone when I'm out walking, and unfortunately it missed his window and bounced harmlessly off a tire.
After I get cellphones banned in movie theaters, I'm going to go after (live) infants.
...10 seconds of joy, 30 years of misery!
Libertas in infinitum
I don't see why the government needs to "ban" this activity.
Some people can drive responsibly while multi-tasking. Others cannot.
If you cause an accident and it is your fault, then it is your fault regardless of "WHY"! Different levels of irresponsiblity should be established, extreme negligence, etc etc. Restitution should be in order, of course you should pay the price for your actions or lack of responsibility. But an accident is an accident as long as there was no malice or criminal intent.
But if you drive for 20 years with a cell in your ear and never caused an accident, why should you all of the sudden be required to hang up?
The government should stay out of people's personal lives!
Libertas in infinitum
Well, regardless of that fact that *some* people like radar detectors because they help them avoid speeding (the cop watching out for speeders IS suppoed to be a "deterrent" - so if he simply makes a device in your car start beeping wildly, vs. pulling you over with lights and a siren, he's still done an equivalent job) ... radar detectors are simply passive radios that tell you when certain frequencies have been received.
On that principle alone, it's scary that legislation can be written against their usage.
And, what's the problem with that?
The point where you're too drunk to drive isn't the same as mine, so who decides what "drunk" is?
I've got a friend that drinks beer all day, and no matter how Shithoused he gets, he seems more sober than me (and I've never had a sip in my life). He's also a very safe driver.
Like I said, please try to restrict my liberty further. That'd be great.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
The point where you're too drunk to drive isn't the same as mine, so who decides what "drunk" is?
I've got a friend that drinks beer all day, and no matter how Shithoused he gets, he seems more sober than me (and I've never had a sip in my life). He's also a very safe driver.
Like I said, please try to restrict my liberty further. That'd be great.
I cannot believe this. You're actually arguing that people should be allowed to drive drunk. You're arguing that people be allowed to engage in reckless behavior that is proven to lead to the death of innocent bystanders because it's too hard to tell objectively what "drunk" is based on anecdotal evidence of a single friend.
Moral checkmate. You lose for lack of common sense and an inability to see the forest for a single tree. Even if your friend does have some miracle metabolism that's no justification for allowing the rest of us mortals to go out on the road plastered. The rest of us mere humans have measurably affected reflexes and attention when drunk no matter how composed we behave.
Honestly, if you think DUI should be permissable, then you don't have the common sense to deserve to be on the road yourself. Please tell me you don't have kids to pass this kind of stupid to.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Stupid? Try freedom loving. If you can't handle your booze, stop drinking when you're near your limit. Personal responsibility. There's no real debate here. Be responsible for your actions. Less laws, more responsiblilty.
End of discussion, Sally.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Laws exist because of people that do not possess personal responsibility. If we all behaved responsibly, we wouldn't need laws. Unfortunately, we don't all behave responsibly. One of two of us apparently thinks it's okay to drive drunk, for example, and most people would consider that to be a lack of personal responsibility.
You seem to think that the right to hurt people who have done you no wrong is an essential liberty or at least that you right to carelessly endanger others is one. I disagree, and I think most people would have to side with me on this one. If you don't think so, then I ask you to poll people you know to see how they react to the idea that it is your right to drive drunk.
Also, I'm having a real hard time debating this because I honestly can't get a bead on your beliefs. Do you feel that we should have any of the following other laws:
-- Laws banning the sale of defective cars (aka lemon laws)?
-- Laws banning the sale of contaminated meat?
-- Laws against firing a weapon into the air in a crowd?
-- Laws against dueling in the streets?
-- Controls on the sale of high explosives?
-- Controls on the sale of radioactive materials?
-- Laws requiring a basic proficiency test before being allowed to drive / pilot?
-- Laws requiring safety equipment at work?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").