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"Supertaskers" Can Safely Use Mobile Phones While Driving
nk497 writes "While most of us are dangerous when texting, chatting on a phone or being otherwise distracted while driving, one in 40 are actually just fine with such distractions. In a small study, such 'supertaskers' were just as good at driving when carrying on a conversation over a hands-free phone as they were when fully focused. That said, the researchers warned that most people are much worse at driving while chatting and shouldn't do it, adding: 'Given the number of individuals who routinely talk on the phone while driving, one would have hoped that there would be a greater percentage of supertaskers.'"
That 1 in 40 aside, reader crimeandpunishment writes "The US Transportation Department is calling for a permanent ban on texting while driving, for interstate truck and bus drivers. An interim ban has been in place since January. The government says it is doing everything it can to make roads safer by reducing the threat of distracted drivers."
This gives many ignorant people justification to feel like they are really one of those 1 in 40. Just don't fucking do it, whether you think you are good at it or not. I'm sure I could do it, but I try not to even answer the phone when I'm on the road.
Nope. Just like with drunk drivers, usually the people killed in accidents are the ones who just happened to be in the way, not the person who was doing something really stupid.
"The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
"People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121
Mod parent up. I've recently passed my driving test and, just before I took it, I was nearly hit by a woman who skipped a red light whilst texting. She would have hit the driver's door and I'd be dead. She would be fine. The only thing that saved me was that I'd come out onto the main road slower than I should have; she'd missed the green by a good 10 seconds.
Seriously, anyone who talks or texts whilst driving is a danger. Not only are you distracted, you are NOT in full control of your car as you have only one hand on the wheel.
are you retarded enough to suggest just because we can't ban all possible distractions, we should just let drivers do dangerous shit like text while driving? this sounds like the same logic as "condoms are only 99% effective so lets not bother with them!".
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The Dunning-Kruger effect has been running this country for decades.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Man, back in the day, I could drive with a joint in one hand a beer in the other hand and an arm around my girlfriend (this was in the days before Slashdot nerd-dom). All while bobbing my head madly to The Ramones and being high on 'shrooms. And I could do all this while timing all the stoplights on Belmont Avenue so I'd never have to shift my Gremlin out of third gear.
I'd like to see some sissy F1 driver try all that.
[Disclaimer: Sweeheart, you know Daddy's a big kidder, right? He's just showing off for the guys at /. and never really did any of those things. And that burnt hemostat you found in the closet is from when I was a thoracic surgeon working on burn victims. And that picture of me in the shoebox where I'm sucking smoke through the bottom of a beer can is just some joke that your Uncle Izzy photoshopped in 1975 before he went to prison.]
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is precisely why more forums are using catpchas.
This was probably bait but I took it.
If you honestly believe you have a system for using the phone safely while driving you are far dumber than you think you are. While your attention is on the phone at any time your attention is not fully on anything else. Thus you loose situational awareness. Thus when you return your attention to driving your brain has to process a huge chunk of information to catch up. If you are task flipping your brain will start to devalue lesser pieces of information.
For example a kid riding a bike on a side walk. You will devalue that in your brain in order to concentrate vehicles on the road. You won't have a full picture of what the kid was doing previously. For example he could have show previously that he had poor balance and wobbled a lot. You didn't see it because you were texting. All of a sudden this kid falls onto the road in front of you. Your fine but now the kid is in hospital. Technically it was the kids fault but really it was your dumb ass brain that was at fault. You did not have a full situational aware that you would have easily had, had you just kept your eyes on the task of driving.
Using a phone while driving is dangerous period.
Wrong, partially. When one person runs into another person, the person getting hit tends to sustain more damage, especially since the person doing the hitting usually does it with the front end of their car, and the person getting hit frequently gets hit somewhere other than the front end, such as in the door. This is very common at intersections when some moron runs a red light. Doors don't offer much protection against impact compared to the front end of a car.
Secondly, if the drunk/texter runs into a pedestrian or cyclist or motorcyclist, again the drunk is going to get away injury-free while the innocent party is screwed.