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Federal Summit Eyes Crackdown On Texting While Driving
suraj.sun sends along this quote from an Associated Press report:
"Opening a government meeting on auto safety, the Obama administration reported Wednesday that nearly 6,000 people were killed and a half-million injured last year in vehicle crashes connected to driver distraction, a striking indication of the dangers of using mobile devices behind the wheel. The Transportation Department was bringing together experts over two days for what it's calling a 'distracted driving summit' to take a hard look at the highway hazards caused by drivers talking on cell phones or texting from behind the wheel. ... Driver distraction was involved in 16 percent of all fatal crashes in 2008. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making texting while driving illegal and seven states and the district have banned driving while talking on a handheld cell phone, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Many safety groups have urged a nationwide ban on texting and on using handheld mobile devices while behind the wheel."
NO! NEVAR! We can't possibly put more government interference in our lives! PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND LIBERTY FOR ALL. If people want to text while they drive, that's THEIR RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN(tm) CITIZEN(c). If you're concerned with them losing concentration and crashing into people and killing them, well, that sounds like it's YOUR problem, and you're just going to have to DEAL with it, 'cuz I ain't gonna let this country turn into some socialist commu-terrorist state like them goddamn FROGS out in Europe!
Freedom and liberty and personal responsibility and monster trucks and AMERICA!!1!1!
"t's been proven in many studies that it's the distraction of the conversation that's the real threat"
They should also ban passengers in cars then, if its the conversation.
And definately ban children in the back seat, they are even more distracting.
It seems that the answer is to have smaller cars with only a seat for the driver. They would also be lighter and use less fuel.
Your limited list of what government should do just underlines the stupidity of libertarian dogma. There's so many things missing it's hard to know where to start, but lets start with an obvious one:
To deter murder. - Without a government to imprison a murderer, people will take the law into their own hands by killing people they suspect of murder. Whether they are actually guilty or not. A process with soon escalates to feud. Libertarian utopia = everyone else's hell.
As a less obvious example, you want the government to have no role in firearm control. So there's absolutely nothing to stop your neighbours giving guns to their children to play with as they feel like. How are you going to feel when the kids next door are playing cowboys and indians with real guns? You may not care about them, but what about when the stray bullets come on your side of the fence?
To miss out criminal law and policing from the lists of responsibilities of government is pretty standard with Libertarians, and the most obvious clue to the fact that they are naive or insane.