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Federal Summit Eyes Crackdown On Texting While Driving

Posted by Soulskill on from the as-long-as-i-can-still-play-bejeweled dept.

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."

18 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. Its just stupid by sopssa · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has been the common thing in many European countries for many years already. You're only allowed to talk in car if you're wearing a hands-free device to talk.

    Even more as speaking on a phone, SMS'ing is just stupid. You're not only putting your concentration it, but changing your view from the street to the phone screen. Sound's like a great idea.

    1. Re:Its just stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The dangers of texting while driving are completely overblown. I do it all the time and have never gotten into an accidsdiosdfnkasdnsdjksdfjhsdjkhkhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

      ------------
      Sent from my Blackberry Wireless Handheld

    2. Re:Its just stupid by sopssa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I bet the insurance is a nice deal for the guy that got killed while someone felt like turning him/her view from the road to the phone screen to sms.

      But atleast the guy got higher insurance premiums!

    3. Re:Its just stupid by bcmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This should be handled by insurance, not Big Brother. If you wreck, you pay higher premium.

      Requiring that people pay attention when operating dangerous machinery in a public place is "big brother"? Should it also be possible to drive drunk, provided you have expensive drunk-driving insurance?

      The market isn't going to solve everything. Preventing you from getting killed by idiots is pretty much the most legitimate function a government has.

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
      Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    4. Re:Its just stupid by mea37 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So we should also abandon laws related to murder?

      You're missing the point. It is legitimately illegal to risk other people's lives. You don't get to buy the right to do it via insurance premiums.

      If anything, distracted driving laws - like many traffic laws - ought to account for the fact that they can't "make things right" after the fact by doing a better job of prevention. You should not be able to 'fix' a ticket to a non-moving violation, and if you do something truly stupid you should lose the privilege of driving.

      Just because American society has reached the point where driving is assumed commonplace to the extent that we'll let a turnip do it, doesn't mean that's how it should be.

    5. Re:Its just stupid by gnick · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First, let me rebut your anti-turnip driven remarks. If said turnip is able to pass the driving test and refrain from excessive bad driving behavior, by all means give it a license and toss it behind the wheel. Although it may throw off our "new" facial recognition features factored into our license pictures...

      Many places already have "distracted driving" laws - I went to defensive driving school with a guy ticketed for just that. He'd been drinking a soda while in motion (and I assume didn't get along well with the cop). [For anyone interested, I'd been grabbed for a rolling stop in the middle of nowhere with nobody around for miles other than me and the cop hiding behind a burm...] I'm not sure that specifying specific laws about texting/cells/shaving/whatever is really necessary - Give the cops a little bit of credit. Make sure that you've got a "distracted driving" law on the books and let the cops decide who to ticket for driving like a douche.

      I realize that the idea will panic a lot of people because we have a lot of power-hungry cops who abuse any flexibility that they're given (e.g. ticketing somebody for drinking through a straw while driving), but are we really going to make separate laws for texting, lipstick application, shaving, talking on the phone, changing shirts, peeing into a Gatorade bottle, beating the kids in the back seat to shut them up, checking your purse to make sure you remembered your dry-cleaning ticket, changing the time on the radio to reflect daylight savings, eating a taco, eating a burrito, etc?

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    6. Re:Its just stupid by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      as you say 'Distracted Driving' is the actual 'crime' here. And most states already have laws against it on the books already.

      This is just marketing hype by politicians to look good doing absolutely nothing useful.

      The big gripe I have is comparing texting while driving to drunk driving. They simply are not remotely the same. After a horn honking at them the texter is going to be alert and aware of what's going on around them.


      Perhaps texting while driving is actually worse since the effects can be mitigated in an instant, whereas the drunk is on going and can't solve the issue for hours. So a few moments of inattention from texting cause the same results as a drunk's constant impairment.

      And even if it is worse, it's a only a training issue. Police cars today have full laptops they use while driving, not to mention cell phones and blackberries and yet we don't see the police having extraordinary accident rates do we? Why? because they are trained for the situation and the tools. Give people proper training and you'll see accident rates of *all* types go way way down.

      An example:
      I got pulled over a few years ago in VA for flashing my high beams at a slowpoke in the left lane. The ticket? Improper use of high beams. If flashing them is improper, why the hell is it a ready made 'feature' in every car today? Oh and it was daytime, so no way my beams were brighter than the sunlight.

      Was I driving perhaps a tad aggressively? yeah I'll admit to that, but if he hadn't been going 55 in the left lane in a 65 zone with a bunch of backed up traffic waiting on him...

      Discussing all this with the officer blew my mind:

      Me: Doesn't he have to yield to my visual or audible signal?
      Officer: I'm not aware of any such law? (upon looking it up, the VA law is audible signal only hence my ticket)
      Me: But he's going to slow in the left lane? I can't pass him on the right, that's a dangerous procedure isn't it?
      Officer: You can pass him on the right no problem.
      Me: Seriously? When did that change?

      Think about it. Apparently much of what I learned in driver's ed is no longer the law. Keep right except to pass - gone! Yield to overtaking traffic - gone! Passing on the right illegal - gone!

      What's next? If we don't properly train people, we get the anarchy on the roads we see...

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    7. Re:Its just stupid by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Distracted" driving? WTF? Texting drivers are WAY more than "distracted". I almost got hit by a stupid bimbo just yesterday who was weaving into my lane, looking down at her phone that she was holding with both hands. After I blew the horn she looked up, got back in her lane, and started texting again. I had an urge to pull in front of her, slam on my brakes, and collect some cash. Not that it would have done any good, she'd still text.

      What's worse is it's the young inexperienced drivers that are doing the texting.

      Pretty girls walking down the street are distractions. Those blinkey flashey signs you see these days are distractions. The kid screaming in the back seat is a distraction. The passenger next to you sayiing "Oh look! A cow!" is a distraction.

      Texting isn't a distraction; it doesn't distract you, it takes YOUR ENTIRE ATTENTION off of what you're doing. Calling texting "distracted driving" puts me in mind of the Holy Grail's "It's just a flesh wound".

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    8. Re:Its just stupid by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're not. The insurance companies can't police it. They can only get involved after an accident has occurred and investigated. By which time the damage is already done.

      Whilst it;s possible to theorise that increased insurance premiums after an accident and investigation is enough to deter, that's not the way human psychology works. People don't think that texting is going to cause the accident in the first place, otherwise they wouldn't do it. And if they don;t believe it's going to cause an accident, it logically follows that they don;t anticipate the subsequent effect of their insurance going up.

      People are terrible at estimating risk. And even if told what the risk is, they tend to believe it won't happen to them regardless. That's why there need to be rules (laws) made, taking into account actual evidence of risk.

    9. Re:Its just stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Sir Bedevere: What is that?
      Brother Maynard: He must have died while texting it.
      King Arthur: Oh come on!
      Brother Maynard: Well, that's what it says.
      King Arthur: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't have bothered to text 'accidsdiosdfnkasdnsdjksdfjhsdjkhkhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh '. He'd just say it.
      Sir Galahad: Maybe he was dictating it.
      King Arthur: Oh shut up!
      Sir Robin: Well does it say anything else?
      Brother Maynard: No, just "accidsdiosdfnkasdnsdjksdfjhsdjkhkhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ".
      [knights making groaning sounds]

    10. Re:Its just stupid by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If by "this is just stupid" you're referring to your comment, I agree.

      This should be handled by insurance, not Big Brother.

      Bullshit. When you flash past that red light because you're looking at your damned phone and not the road and T-bone me, I'm the one that suffers. Perhaps you'd like to legalize murder and let the life insurance companies handle it? Government shouldn't try to protect me from myself (big brother) but they'd damned well better try to protect me from morons like YOU.

      You do realise that you put MY life in danger when you drive stupid? Maybe not, I guess, or you wouldn't have posted such an incredibly stupid comment.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
  2. Why do the states text then? by hemp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At least 22 states currently text traffic conditions, emergencies, etc to motorist.

    --
    Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
    1. Re:Why do the states text then? by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think you're deceiving yourself here. It's actually recommended that users specifically NOT mess with their stereo while driving as that too is a major cause of accidents. Taking your eyes off the road is a bad thing. It's why so many cars now come with steering wheel mounted controls for the stereo so that you can skip tracks and such without having to reach over or take your eyes off the road.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  3. Re:Dramatization by afabbro · · Score: 5, Funny

    Worth watching, if for no other reason than the quality of production.

    George Lucas tricked me with that line, and I still have nightmares...

    --
    Advice: on VPS providers
  4. Driving While Distracted by bannerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Driving while distracted is already illegal. Telling us exactly how to do everything is not making people any more responsible. Solve the problem by applying existing law using common sense instead of making new laws that are easier to apply.

    --
    I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
  5. Good. by SCHecklerX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This guy was coming right at me, crossing 2 lanes of traffic one night. Driver behind him reported that he was looking down and fumbling with a device while driving (likely texting):

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/28154298@N05/sets/72157605928214101/detail/

    He never slowed down after hitting the bank on the opposite side of the road, and nailed the house at around 50mph.

  6. What is saddest by jolyonr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... is that people have to be told that sending/reading text messages when driving is unsafe.

    Are people really that fucking dumb these days?

    Judging by the evidence above, it seems so.

    --


    Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
  7. Leave it to the states by RepelHistory · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    This is an example of states setting their own laws to respond to an issue that directly affects the lives of their citizens. The possibility of the federal government stepping in and usurping this power is analogous to America's situation as far as the legal drinking age goes - MADD used its lobbying power to get Congress to essentially coerce the states into following its will. Keep in mind, barring a constitutional amendment, congress lacks the power to directly affect the drinking age - hence their questionable approach (albeit one that has been upheld by the courts) of saying, "well look, states, we're not telling you you HAVE to set the drinking age at 21, but if you don't, something might happen to your federal highway funding. We're just saying, it could happen." I realize that it would be somewhat impractical for the federal government to stay limited by an extremely strict interpretation of the Constitution, but there is absolutely no reason for the national government to waste its valuable time meddling here (don't we have a health care crisis or recession or whatever that they should be dealing with?). Cell phone use, like the drinking age, is one of those areas which should not be controlled nationally - if we take away all the powers of the states to set their own laws, then what's the point of even having a federal system to begin with?