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Executive Order Bars Federal Workers From Texting and Driving
CWmike writes "A two-day Distracted Driving Summit in Washington concluded Thursday, after experts raised multiple thorny questions on how to reduce cell phone and texting while driving, with a big emphasis placed on driver and employer responsibility. But that was not before President Obama signed an executive order that tells all federal employees not to engage in texting while driving government vehicles. [US Transportation Secretary Ray] LaHood also announced that his department would ban text messaging altogether and restrict cell phone use by truck and interstate bus drivers, and disqualify school bus drivers from receiving commercial driver's licenses if they have been convicted of texting while driving. His department also plans to make permanent some restrictions placed on the use of cell phones in rail operations, he added without offering further details. The executive order 'shows the federal government is leading by example' and 'sends a signal that distracted driving is dangerous,' LaHood said."
In this case, the Executive Order applies to employees of the Federal Government. That sounds like an employer taking responsibility by stating company policy for employees when they are driving employer-owned vehicles. When those same people are driving their own cars on their own time they are still free to be fucking morons and kill themselves.
What? Texting and driving isn't already illegal in the USA? It's illegal in the UK, and quite right too. A car is a lethal weapon if you are not paying attention - and it's impossible to compose a text message while simultaneously maintain the necessary level of attention to driving.
Now the more interesting question is how you enforce this.
For starters, I think they're going to have to punish managers who want their people available 24x7x365. If you ban cell phone use and texting by federal employees while driving, and the federal employees in question are driving home, you're just going to have to wait. Which shouldn't be a problem - if it is a real problem then you haven't properly trained backup personnel to cover for the guy who's driving home, which means that if he slams into a tree due to texting you're all going to be in much bigger trouble.
This came up in a discussion on another site, and a doctor pointed out "If I can get to the side of the road and stop to handle what could easily be a life-or-death emergency, you can get to the side of the road and stop to handle whatever you're dealing with."
I am officially gone from
The last time I looked in a dictionary, "or" was no closer to "while" than "and".
Perhaps you need another dictionary, or maybe you should look more carefully. According to Wiktionary:
While and whilst are conjunctions whose primary meaning is "during the time that"
IOW, it means (or implies) "at the same time as"; thus, "I text while I am driving" means "I text and drive at the same time". To most users of the English language, the sentence "I text or drive at the same time" doesn't make much meaning. Ergo, "while" has a good deal to do with "and", and not so much with "or"; some would even say that they are functionally equivalent.
I wish it were just teenagers, but these are adults who should know better. If you get in your car, turn the bitch off. Full stop. What really gets me is the douche bags who rationalize what they're doing because, "it's just for a couple of seconds," or, "I'm good at multitasking." Sure, whatever, you bet. Learn how to use your damn voice mail because nothing is that important.
Because the conjunction A v B is only true when A and B both are true, while A ^ B is true if at least one of A and B is true.
So it is forbidden now to do both A and B at the same time, while Texting itself and Driving itself are still allowed. Thus only (A v B) is forbidden, but (A ^ B) is still allowed if (not A B).
Wake up guys. Your governement is yours, you elected it. Consistently criticizing its actions is childish at best.
Car and Driver published a study in which they compared reading and writing text messages with drunk driving. They only tested reaction times, not vehicle control. But, in general, reading and writing texts led to worse reaction times than being intoxicated. Decent and short read.
http://tinyurl.com/candtextingwhiledriving
As another posted mentioned though, enforcement will be the real issue. Sounds like it will be more post crash cell phone log analysis to see if you were texting than anything they can pull you over for. Because unless you're doing it in a very obvious manner, there's no real way to tell you're doing it until you crash.
WWJD?
JWRTFM!
Hand in your geek card.
if(employee.is_texting && employee.is_driving)
{
fire(employee);
}
Don't forget the US is still a young country, we think 517 years ago history began. Nobody did anything before Christopher Columbus ended up in this hemisphere. So in response to your claims of childishness, all I have to say is: I know you are, but what am I?
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Dude - I voted for Obama. If Obama did EVERYTHING just like I want him to do, AND, he brought me breakfast in bed, did my laundry, fixed my car, and maintenanced my house, and gave me his salary for the privilege of serving me, I would STILL BITCH!! It's an American's right to bitch, even when everything is going better than right.
Wait - you didn't go to boot camp, did you? You would have learned, "A bitching sailor is a happy sailor." No one worries about what the troops have to say, until they quit saying anything. When they quit bitching, THEN YOU NEED TO WORRY!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
They've done numerous studies that say you're wrong. Holding the phone is an additional distraction, but there is still a significant difference between talking on a cell (hands free or otherwise) and talking to a passenger. For one, your passenger can say "watch out!" if you lose focus and start to drift; your phone cannot. For another, people need to focus more on phone calls; the fidelity isn't as good on either end so they need to focus on hearing and being heard more than in an in person conversation. You know all those people who talk 20 decibels louder than normal on a cell, even though no recent cell phone benefits significantly from the additional volume? They've focused on the call (and being heard) so much that they forget to self-regulate. If they can't regulate the volume of their voice (a task related to the conversation), why do you think they'll be able to drive effectively?
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
It's illegal in the UK, and quite right too.
Well, saying it's illegal is reasonable enough, but one could argue that it should be covered by general laws about driving without paying proper attention.
The problem with making a specific law against using hand-held phones is that it led to a wave of advertising about how you should buy a hands-free kit to stay safe while you're driving. Some large advertising used literally those words.
Unfortunately, statistically, using a hands-free kit is almost as dangerous as using a handheld kit, and the new law was used by advertisers to condone it.
Final note to those who are about to reply and say that I'm wrong and you're much safer using a hands-free kit: please spare us. You are wrong, and the evidence is overwhelming. For a start, the same data that the British government used to justify the law banning handheld phones would support a ban on hands-free kit as well. Google is your friend. Please let's not have another ill-informed "I am a better driver than you" subthread. Thank you.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Um... Ok I'll bite... I think you have the symbols for "and" and "or" backwards
But other than that, you are quite right.
"Texting and driving" is an analogy to "drinking and driving", which does not mean "drinking while driving" but driving under the influence of alcohol intoxication (which is long enough to justify the less precise expression "drinking and driving"). Barring federal workers from texting and driving can be interpreted as barring federal workers from texting and barring federal workers from driving. If the author had meant to express that federal workers are barred from texting while driving, why didn't he write that?
You can't ban stupidity, but you can ban stupid actions.
Free Martian Whores!
Unfortunately, there was a serious bug in this program. Due to namespace issues, fragile base class problems, etc, the call was mapped to Kiln::fire() rather than Employer::fire(). It is regrettable that this has resulted in a substantial loss of life. Appropriate steps have been taken to improve coding standards and developer training to ensure that this won't happen again.
This. The pundits like to say that public opinion of the president and congress is falling because they are pushing for these reforms. The fact is, it's falling because they _aren't_ pushing for the reforms that the people put them into power for, and in fact doing the exact opposite in some cases (Obama supporting extraordinary rendition, etc)
Apparently a 'driving-while-texting' is a forever thing. "...prohibited from getting a job as a school buss driver if they have been convicted..."
Now, I understand it's not safe. And I fully agree that buss drivers, train conductors, etc. should not intentionally distract themselves for something trivial while working as it could endanger others. But why do we keep passing laws that perpetuate someone's status as a criminal? After the 'punishment', be it financial or penal, hasn't someone paid their 'debt to society' and been rehabilitated? Isn't the (claimed) point of laws and punishments to deter people from committing the crimes? I disagree with the perpetual sex-offender registration, but at least they're the result of a crime with an actual, identifiable victim. Of course, when offenders are forced to live in a tent city because they can't legally live anywhere else it's rather hard to imagine what motivation they have to follow the law.
What's next, you get branded for speeding in a work zone? Non-removable tracking bracelet for being late to too many meetings? At the rate we're going *everyone* will be a criminal in perpetual rehabilitation before too long.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Why not just ban commercial license to people convicted of Careless Driving? What is so special about texting?
This reminds me of the kind of bullshit, where convicted "sex offenders" after they get out of jail, have special tracking restrictions (must register, wear a GPS anklet, whatever) -- but murderers and thieves don't. You can look at such a policy as being pro-protect-thing-children-from-rapists (who could be against that?), but you can also look at it as pro-murder-and-theft.
Uniform fairness washes this kind of bullshit. If you deny commercial licenses to texting drivers but still give licenses to people who drove while masterbating, watching TV, turning around to shout at the kids in the back seat, etc. then you're pro-driving-while-masterbating. Ok, not really but do you see the problem?
Singling out texting-while-driving is as stupid as outlawing crack while still allowing people to drink Drain-O. There are so many ways to fuck up and you'll never enumerate them all, so just cover the general case, dammit. The most this kind of crap can do, is create loopholes: show me the order's definition of "texting" and I'll put on my rules-lawyer-D&D-player cap and show you a way to pervert it and get around it, while doing something horrifically unsafe.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This is on the federal level...exactly what power do they have over a state issuing drivers licenses to school bus drivers?
Do interstate commercial drivers, have to get some kind of federal license in addition to their state license? If not, again, what the hell power does the Federal govt. have to 'regulate' who gets a license in a state? Isn't this still a state power?
Oh sure, I know the Federal Govt. can do the usual to blackmail the states into submission by withholding federal monies, but, that's a different argument.
My other question is...exactly what legal binding power is given to a Presidental Executive Order? I admit, I'm not a Constitutional scholar, and am really coming in late on the civics lessons, but, where in the constitution can this Executive Order by justified and what are its powers? I thought with my rudimentary knowledge, that ONLY congress could make laws, and the president could pretty much ONLY sign them or veto them?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Lots of precedent for EO's but not a really explicit definition of their force and justification.
linky
Basically the President is saying, if you work for the Federal Gov't you now have to abide by this rule. It's not a law, but then my employer telling me I can't wear jeans to work isn't a law either.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people