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Fines Fail To Curb Cell Phone Usage While Driving
andylim writes "An in-depth study of over 14,000 London drivers by the Transport Research Laboratory has found an increase in the number of London motorists making and taking calls using their handsets at the wheel between 2008 and 2009, even though harsher penalties were introduced in 2007. It seems that most people, at least in London, still don't respect the fact that there's a much higher risk of being involved in an accident if you're using your cell phone."
Not just in London, I think you will find that this is the case everywhere in the world...
Basic human behavior, and it's hardly restricted to cellphone misuse behind the wheel. You see, everyone is somehow special and better able to handle a given situation than anyone else, and is therefore immune to consequence. That is, until such time as a consequence kills them dead, or if they're very lucky just scares the shit out of them. Cigarettes, drugs, risky sex, bad driving ... most people don't learn to think until after their stupidity nearly kills them. I don't have a problem with that, particularly, unless their mental malfunction gets someone else killed. That's what makes using that damn cellphone on the road a bad thing.
Wise up people, you're no better at driving and texting than anyone else, and nobody is any good at it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The problem with that argument is that if someone else fucks up, you or I may be affected by the consequences in terrible ways that no amount of compensation or punishment inflicted on the other party could correct.
I don't believe that the vast majority of people can be taught to do this safely and responsibly. What I see every day is that at least half the people on the roads are just barely competent to be driving, and you add a cellphone to the equation and they become downright dangerous to themselves and everyone around them. Police are specifically trained for the skills they must have to do their jobs, but in addition to that they are held to much more rigorous standards before they're even accepted for that training. If the average person was held to the standards potential police or highway patrol are held to, there would be many fewer people on the roads to begin with.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I was almost hit by some asshat teenager in a SUV two weeks ago because he was texting on his fucking phone in the middle of the night while doing 70mph down a freeway I ended up in the ditch avoiding the lil fuck. Police should fine them and confiscate the phone and have it destroyed. Talking and driving is one thing but to be so stupid as to fucking text and drive is an entirely different thing. Hell throw in a 6month license suspension if they get pulled over for texting and driving. I hope anyone who texts and drive hits a bridge at 80mph and dies in a painful and messy manner. If you didn't notice I really hate people who text and drive.
It's the enforcement. We have really, really high fines here for all sorts of traffic violations, but enforcement is so lacking that it almost seems random. Your chances of getting caught are miniscule, so people learn to ignore the law. If they do get caught, the fines are staggering - but the one in ten thousand chance of getting caught is not a deterrent.
Actually it's not the fines or enforcement. It's training. Every police vehicle I've seen has a laptop mounted on the center console. Every time I see a cop driving around they have one hand on the keyboard and constantly glance back and forth between the road and the computer.
Cell phones and cars aren't going away anytime soon. Instead of punishing the citizens for doing something police are trained to do, train the citizens too. There is no reason that drivers ed. classes shouldn't discuss this and deal with it.
I think the best way to "think of the children" is to teach the children. If you don't want little Lisa to text and drive into a horrible wreck, teach her how to text and drive responsibly. Otherwise take your blanket statements and have every computer removed from police vehicles because otherwise we have an effective working double standard which provides revenue to the police force. Fuck that shit.
First of all, you cannot train folks to multitask because humans are incapable of doing it. The cops can't do it either. What you call multitasking is actually them selecting attention rapidly between their laptops and driving - if they're even doing that.
Two, even if it were possible to train folks how to do it, what makes you think that folks will follow their training? People are trained not to tailgate, speed, cut others off, etc...
Everything you've proposed is impossible. The ONLY solution is to ban cell phones in cars. There is absolutely no reason to talk in a car anyway - no exceptions. Got to talk? Pull over.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Have they tried educating rather than penalising? Strange as it may see, most of us respond positively to scientific fact rather than an impersonal fine.
What planet do you live on? Facts don't dissuade people from doing what they want to do. A lot of it in this case is self-overestimation: people will continue to cell/text/IM while they drive because in spite of the evidence, they are all convinced that they are an exception to the rule and can do these things and still drive safely. In their minds, those studies and laws apply to all those other people, not me. It's very reminiscent of "well, most people probably shouldn't drive after drinking, but I can do it just fine."
I think the best way to "think of the children" is to teach the children. If you don't want little Lisa to text and drive into a horrible wreck, teach her how to text and drive responsibly.
How about teaching little Lisa to keep both hands on the wheel, both eyes on the road, and her mind focused on driving? How about teaching her that that phone call or text can wait until she gets where she's going? How about teaching her that the world won't come to an end if she's not constantly in touch with her little friends 24/7?
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Actually it's not the fines or enforcement. It's training. Every police vehicle I've seen has a laptop mounted on the center console. Every time I see a cop driving around they have one hand on the keyboard and constantly glance back and forth between the road and the computer.
I find it amusing that you just assume that the cops are not, themselves, a danger on the roads when they're doing this.
what, exactly, is so fascist about suspending or terminating the driving license of someone who has proved that their driving habits are a danger to pedestrians and other drivers?
sounds like common sense to me.
(and if losing their license causes some fuckwit to lose their job - and whatever goes along with that - then so be it. fuck 'em.)
you don't have a right to drive. you don't have a right to endanger the lives of others because you're too fucking stupid to realise that drunk driving (or driving while distracted by cell-phones, video screens, or whatever) is dangerous.
drink all you like in your own home or when you're not going to be driving. in fact, take whatever drugs you like. your body, your life, your choice to do whatever you like to/with it. but you don't have any right to endanger others.
fuck you and your sense of entitlement.