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Could Anti-Texting Laws Make Roads More Dangerous?
An anonymous reader writes "A new study has found that various state laws that ban texting while driving might actually make the roads more dangerous. If that seems counterintuitive, it's the laws of unintended consequences at work. The theory is that the laws don't do much to stop people from texting while driving — but instead, leads them to try to hide the activity more. That is, they end up trying to text with the phone held lower down to avoid it being detected. But, of course, that also takes their eyes even further off the road. The study itself looked at texting-related accidents both before and after 4 different states implemented such laws, and also compared them to neighboring states with no such laws. The results suggest the laws certainly don't help and in some cases appeared to make the situation worse. So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?"
Sense vehicular motion (including vibration) and shut down the texting function while in motion.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
A Speech-to-text system in your car -- or built into your phone, that's the better solution...
Now someone just needs to make one that's affordable and make it easily obtainable (such as with a radio/sound system upgrade on a new car, or other cheap solution)
I wonder how hard it would be to make a device that blocks or otherwise interferes with all cellphones in a small (say, one-two meter) area? Make people who are caught texting pay a fine and have a device like this installed in their car. Or, force those caught texting while driving to have warning signs plastered all over their car with a "If you see me texting, call 1-800-555-5555 and report me for a reward" (sort of the modern equivalent of the pillory; speaking of which, bringing back the pillory might be the way to go). Luckily when someone is accused of texting while driving it is fairly easy to prove if the person was texting by looking at cellphone records, right?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
If my car drove itself i could sit back and text.
It is better to change people thru inspiration and education rather than by force and control. Always has been, always will be. However, if the states launched an education campaign about texting & driving dangers, that would be an expensive, not an income from citations. Also, our precious insurance companies wouldnt be able to jack your rates up nearly as high.
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
And why does "texting" need to be explicitly mentioned in the laws. How hard would it be to prove someone was "texting"? No, I wasn't texting, I was shopping, playing a game, whatever.
Call it what it is... bad driving / reckless endangerment.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Write people an extremely hefty fine if they are involved in an accident while texting. Make it easier to convict them on involuntary manslaughter charges if they were texting at the time they hit a pedestrian. If people can safely text, great. If not, punish them when they cause problems. This is the same as any other distraction while driving - you can think about other things than the road while driving legally (work problems, family problems, etc). If you can still safely drive, great. If not, you pay the piper when you hurt someone else.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
Why not ban texting while actually driving, but permit it at stop signs and red lights? People then have an incentive to wait until it's safer—I don't say "safe" even in this case, but safer—for them to do so. And of course if you sat there for too long after the light turned green, I'm sure a police officer could cite you for something (blocking a roadway? hazardous driving? whatever)
to think before implementing worthless laws.
Except that, like in many cases of drunk driving, the person who dies isn't the reckless (or drunk) driver it's the person they hit.
Don't outlaw texting (though I think it's dumb), but make it an extra fine if you get in an accident, are speeding, etc. due to texting. The way the law is now, I'm concerned about even monkeying with my iPhone to switch playlists, because I hook it up to my car stereo. It really isn't any different than switching radio stations--I would still have to divert my eyes momentarily to see what I'm doing--but now I have to worry about getting pulled over for texting even when I haven't been.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I think preventing it 100% isn't possible. The only way to come close will be accomplished by some technical measure. Some mechanism to measure rate of speed or the like. Obligatory: More excuse for big brother to GPS enable all phones.
Studies have shown that it's not the act of holding the phone that is the problem, but rather the fact that you're concentrating on something other than the road.
Granted, speech-to-text would be less of an issue than talking because you can pause while doing some tricky driving, but you're still going to be thinking about the message you're composing rather than on your driving.
yeah, maybe in 10,000 years.
weinersmith
Just like drunk driving, the real problem is the other people who get hurt. A drunk driver might take out many other people who weren't driving stupidly.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The only real way to police poor driving habits is via auto insurance. In the long run, bad & distracted drivers will pay more and cost the insurance companies more because of accidents. In turn, the insurance companies and the auto makers will innovate and create ways to distract drivers less. It is a lesson in patience & capitalism more than anything... Government force is excessive and useless in this case. Allow the industry to tackle the problem - creating jobs and technologies in the process.
The people who believe they are superior to everyone else and can concentrate on texting and driving at the same time will pay the price in higher insurance rates from all the accidents they cause. They also get to pay for the medical bills of those they injure. They may even go to jail if they kill someone, thus preventing them from doing any more damage (other than to the taxpayer's wallet).
As to the answer to this question:
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?"
The police should be allowed to remove one digit from a person's hand when found to be texting and driving or have caused an accident as the result of texting and driving.
"Ma'am, just hold your hand up and spread your fingers. This will only take a moment."
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Too bad there's other drivers on the road, otherwise I'd say "let them text while driving until they're dead".
Driving a car is not a right, it's a privilege. You're supposed to know how to drive safely. I know it would cost a lot but the roads would be safer if everyone was forced to pass a driving test every year or so. Even once a decade would be better than the "pass the test once, drive until you're dead" formula that we have now.
that doesn't work so well when you crash into people who were driving safely.
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
Natural selection.
If you text/web and drive, you are a fucking idiot and no better than the idiots who drive under the influence.
I don't care what you do in your home or on your property. I don't care what you do with any other consenting adult or adults. But when you're on the road, you are putting more people than yourself at risk with stupid behavior.
The fine should be $1,500 - no exceptions - and 150 hours of community service. Then we'll see how important it is to update your Facebook status.
That can be fixed... Who's up for a lynch mob?
GENERATION 667: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation
I never really understood why a whole new law had to be introduced for cell phones/GPS's. most jurisdictions that I know of have some sort of punishment for "driving without due care and attention". they tend to have heavier consequences than the newer you-can't-touch-a-phone laws...but a car smashing into a biker has the same results whether that driver was napping, or texting..
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
Except that, like in many cases of drunk driving, the person who dies isn't the reckless (or drunk) driver it's the person they hit.
Exactly.
That's because if you're driving your car and you hit someone, you are most likely to do it with the part of the car that's leading in the direction of travel - which is to say the front of the car. You are probably just as likely to hit the side of the victim's car though, so you get the benefit of the very large crumple zone at the front of your car and the victim only gets the protection of their car's door.
It seems like education is likely to be the only solution. Or requiring cars to require the driver uses both hands. Your hands are supposed to be on the steering wheel unless you have a manual transmission and you're shifting gears.
Putting moderation advice in your
Ugh. A slashdot article linking to some dude's blog post linking to the Christian Science Monitor's discussion. Can't *someone* link to the original study by the Highway Loss Data Institute?
Here's the HLDI's summary, with graphs:
http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr092810.html
Links to more details on that page. It's actually a pretty interesting analysis, if you go beyond the lede.
If nothing else, keeping it illegal keeps accidents caused by it from being declared "no fault."
While I agree the gene pool could use a bit more chlorine...what happens when one of these undesirables happens to jump the curb and take out a Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, etc? It's not just the individual hurting themselves which is what drives the lawmakers to action. Personally I'm all for on-the-spot executions for any infraction, just watch out for the white fences. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708739/
Because this requires real policing skill rather than the ability to operate a LIDAR device.
Tell people that texting while driving will make them go blind.
Oops, guess we shouldn't have phased that out.
remove the offending idiots from the road forever
Then after the texters have killed each other off, re-open their roads to the non-texters.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Nothing. People are going to text and drive whether it's illegal or not. No matter how stiff of fines/penalties you impose. Just something we're going to have to learn to deal with. Welcome to the modern age.
One thing about this study: the laws are only a year or so old in most states. In my experience, people tend to ignore minor laws until they get caught, then change their behavior to avoid repeat offense penalties. There hasn't been enough time for the average texting addict to get busted and possibly break the habit.
Let's look back on this in a year or two before we make a final verdict.
I sometimes wrestle with th question of whether or not dangerous behaviors should be punishable at whatever level it takes to make people stop doing them.
For example, we know texting while driving is dangerous, based on stastics. It significantly risks other people's lives. Also, any sane person should know it's just a dumb idea.
So would it be just, or a good idea, to simply have a thre strikes rule for this? First strike - no driver's license for 6 months. Second strike - a public caning. Third strike - execution or banishment to Wasilla, AK (offender's choice).
Similarly for dealing dangerous drugs, or drunk driving.
Why is it that when the repeat offenders play a game of chicken with the law, it's always the non-offenders that blink and let the offender get off with light punishment? (I'm thinking of drunk drivers with many, many offenses.) Why can't these repeat offenders be given threats of penalties so serious that it actually curbs their behaviors that endanger others?
People get more idiotic with every generation. Back in my day, you didn't see us barreling around corners in our mammoth Buicks pounding away on Underwoods balanced on the dashboard.
No, really. How goddamn fucking stupid do you have to be to TYPE while you drive? I'm 100% for them killing themselves off, and the sooner the better, but unfortunately they tend to take out innocent people while doing it. At least drunks have the excuse that they're drunk when they made the decision to get behind the wheel. Good God, some people are morons.
"No matter where you go, there you probably are." -- Buckaroo Heisenberg
The camera should store an hour's footage in memory that is RF boradcast from the vehicle, so that police cruisers can get behind you, access your feed, and see if you've been performing any illegal activities while in operation of the vehicle.
Sadly, the US justice system frowns on lynch mobs, which is why we have a lot of these stupid social problems, the corrective feedback mechanism has been castrated.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
>>what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
Don't text, shave, drink, eat, look at maps...etc while driving.
It's up to the individual driver to drive safely.
The government can't do anything to stop unsafe driving.
A report by the National Safety Council found cell phone use leads to about 1.6 million crashes a year. About 200,000 of those accidents are caused by texting while driving. Studies show teenagers are especially prone to text and drive.
Link is Here.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
As any cop or politician will tell you, more laws, of course. How about "three strikes"? Or "zero tolerance"? Surely that would do it!
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Obviously: Missiles!
K Man
QWERTY keyboard build into the steering wheel. Now you can text while keeping your hands on the wheel!
In other news - anti-robbery laws that just came into effect will make streets more dangerous! Before it was perfectly legal to come up to a strange on the road, show him a knife and pick their pockets for that few buck that you were short for a latte, not that robbing people has become illegal the criminals have become more aggressive, they put socks on their heads and run around with sharp knifes, also they often take all your money because the act of robbing someone now has become a dangerous thing for them to do. Also many states are consearned that now that robbery is considered a crime the crime rates will go up and will thus spoil their national statistics which is the last thing they need in an election year.
You realize that the primary use of lynch mobs were to kill minorities or lower class people who the middle class thought were encroaching.
So a lack of lynch mobs has lead to "stupid social problems", like blacks voting, fencing of property and minorities being able to move wherever they want.
I'm pretty sure you're joking, but, isn't that a possibility? As the summary puts it, the laws certainly don't help. Well, what do people tend to do when the law isn't fixing a perceived problem? Attempts at tougher laws and vigilante justice are overwhelmingly the most common 'solutions' humans adopt.
This is one of my concerns regarding all sorts of unpopular or personally harmful activities. There's always some contingent that either wants to pass more and more laws and give more power to the government, or to just take the law into their own hands when the first solution doesn't work*. Take tobacco use. Once the users become a small enough minority, making it completely illegal is likely to follow, (and in the US increased power and budget to the DEA, which will get the task of enforcement). Alternatively, people will start inciting mob activity, probably with highly exaggerated claims about the risks of second hand smoke.
*with 'work' meaning 100% effectiveness at no social or economic cost, with nobody dissenting.
Who is John Cabal?
I find it quite useful to communicate with people without forcing them to interrupt what they're doing.
Catch someone texting while driving - impound their car and tow it away. We already do this for people who are too drunk to drive. This just does the same for people who are too stupid to be allowed to drive.
Take the phone away too.
Studies have found that laws prohibiting bank robberies have failed to reduce the number of thefts while making them more dangerous for innocent bystanders. Police officer's attempts to enforce those laws have only encouraged criminals to carry weapons.
While I think it is ridiculous to write a law to make prosecuting every little driving distraction easier, the fact is the law is there. If people are attempting to be more discreet while still violating the law, the problem isn't that this makes them more dangerous. The problem is that the penalties are not severe enough to stop the behavior.
Example: I'll drive 5 over on the interstate because I know the chance of getting a ticket is slim. I won't drive 5 over in a school zone. The risks are higher and the penalties are nasty.
Another day, another update to a Google android app.
That'd work really well in Alaska, Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine.
You know states where it is cold enough for months every winter that it kills you.
Same thing is true for many other states, hell two thirds of the US has those conditions for months out of the year.
... Is the person who is on the other side of the accident, obeying traffic rules and minding their own business when some idiot blows a red light because they were too busy texting and then is killed. Traffic accidents are incredibly traumatic, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I know a friend who had an accident that wasn't her fault, but is still making payments on her newly purchased car because the insurance company paid her for the value of the car, not the value of the loan. And death is forever, so punishment after the fact is little solace to the teenager last month who plowed into a family SUV last month in my home town and killed the passenger all because he was too impatient to wait behind a car driving in front of him around a curve on a backroad.
Your same logic could be applied to people who speed or run redlights. Sure don't ticket them until they have an accident after running a redlight. The problem with your idea is that people already think they are fantastic drivers and could not possibly get into accidents. Then they get into an accident and the damage is done. Sure don't ticket that guy driving drunk until he kills a nice happy family of four or something that looks equally gruesome and heartwrenching on the 11:00 PM news.
To me, the obvious answer to car accidents is public transportation, and I'm sure that these rules are not helping very much because it's very hard to enforce before an accident anyway. However, if we continue to insist on cars as the way we get around in the US, then we all have a vested interest in making them safe by insisting on enforcement of rules that protect every driver as best we can. I'm not saying the anti-texting laws are effective, I'm just saying punish only on results is not as effective as you think.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
The trick is to get all of the people who text while driving to get on to the same road while no one else is there. Then you just keep them driving there while they're texting and eventually they'll kill each other off and then all that's left will be the smarter people who look at the road or don't drive.
Here's a link to the actual (very readable) report: http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr092810.html
And the original article, I think: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0928/Bans-on-texting-while-driving-don-t-reduce-crashes-study-says
Every time I see one of these topics the overwhelming opinion, irrespective of the proposed fix to the problem, is that the problem is not texting, but distraction. I think most sane people are willing to agree that "Texting while driving" is not inherently a problem, but "Driving while distracted", be it by your phone, the person next to you, or the 20 ounces of vodka running through you, is in fact a problem.
While on one level it would be nice to actually solve the problem, and this is where we get into the applications of speech-to-text, remote controlled steering wheels, and other awesome nerdy crap we love to talk about, I think on some level you'll never be able to fix this with law.
It seems to me that whenever you're defining a standard - be it a law, a work procedure, a use case, whatever, you need discrete, finite data. You need something that says "If X, then Y". That's why its so easy to create, pass, and most importantly enforce a law that says "You can't text while driving". This is easy to enforce. It's another thing entirely to say "Driving while distracted is now illegal". Great. What the hell does this mean?
As much as I think it's ridiculous, and in this case, potentially harmful - to have a law preventing a symptom of the problem rather than the core issue, I think this is one of those cases where you can't regulate something, or restrict it, because the core issue isn't really enforceable by law.
Get caught texting while driving you once you lose your license for a year.
Get caught twice, or cause an accident doing it and you lose your license for life.
This would screw over the passengers. And when the passengers are kids that you're trying to keep quiet while you're driving, this also screws the driver.
You'll just have to use a more traditional method for keeping the kids quiet, such as threatening to pull over. Also, flail at the back seat with your inboard arm. That was always effective.
We know that texting-while-driving is far more dangerous than driving while drunk.
We have decided, as a society, that driving while drunk is so dangerous that we have made it illegal, and impose stiff penalties. It isn't just illegal to drive while drunk. It is illegal to have an open container in the car. This is based on the reasonable assumption that, if there is an open container, the driver may take a drink and become impaired.
I think it would be reasonable to decide, as a society, that texting-while-=driving is so dangerous that we should impose stiff penalties. And, it shouldn't just be illegal to drive while texting. It should be illegal to have an open texting device in the car. If there is an open texting device, the driver may look at it and become impaired. Many times, I have seen a teenager say "look at this", and hold his/her phone out so that another person can read it. If that other person happens to be a driver, the drivers attention is taken away from the driving.
I really don't have any problem with drivers who decide to kill themselves, other than perhaps that I get stuck paying part of the cost of the emergency services. I have a really big issue with drivers who try to kill me, by swerving their vehicles toward mine while driving at a high rate of speed. Recently, that has happened several times each day.
Social systems which tolerate lynch mobs and vigilante justice have much bigger social problems, which is one reason they tend to evolve into systems that don't tolerate those things, and the ones that don't also don't tend to be as successful.
Easy. Instead of writing new laws targeting the specific act (texting while driving), enforce the existing laws that address the underlying reason it's a problem (distracted driving). That way the presence or absence of a phone isn't a factor, so concealing the phone has nothing to do with anything. If someone isn't paying attention to the road, ticket them.
The theory is that the laws don't do much to stop people from texting while driving — but instead, leads them to try to hide the activity more.
Examples of that theory in action:
Illegal Drugs leads to uber-dangerous system of dealers, smugglers, and addicts.
Illegal Alcohol leads to the creation of the American "Mob"
Examples of where that theory doesn't work:
Illegal drinking and driving -- Deaths and injuries occur from people's reactions and judgments being impaired, not from them trying to hide a bottle while driving.
Illegal use of cell phone w/o hands free headset -- Deaths and injuries occur from people focusing more intently on what's being discussed on the phone than driving, neck-swiveling being impaired by holding the phone to your head, and the removal of a hand/arm from the process of controlling the car.
Illegal texting while driving -- Deaths and injuries occur from people focusing more intently on what's being discussed on the phone AND disabling one or BOTH hands from the process of controlling the car.
For the situations where people turn to HIDING their texting while driving, the problem isn't the law, it's the idiot whose priorities are MESSED UP. They somehow believe LIFE comes after transportation and communication.
I guess the folks with whom you communicate don't have voicemail, then.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
How are you going to prove the driver was the one using the phone? Just because the driver owns the phone doesn't mean nobody else can use it.
As someone else brought up, this would lock passengers out of texting too. It perfectly illustrates a rant I was ready to fire off to Toyota before their PR meltdown. I was riding shotgun in a friend's new Toyota trying to set up his phone to radio Bluetooth. It wasn't working, so I deleted the phone and tried to re-pair it, until the radio said this function was unavailable with the car in motion. GDI, as a driver I can decide when it is safe to do something or face the consequences, and there is no reason as collateral damage their "safety feature" should negatively affect passenger's operation of features.
I was going to tell them it would be a cold day in hell before I bought one of their cars if they treat their buyers like this, but when their little disaster broke, I figured they had bigger fish to fry and my letter was even more likely to hit the circular filing cabinet.
The same goes with all those OEM navigation units. I'd NEVER buy one that requires you to press a button every time you start the car, saying you understand operating this feature can be dangerous with the car in motion (looking at you in particular HONDA!!!) I'm ok with pressing that button once after every battery disconnection and then storing it as a preference, or maybe doing it ONCE a year no matter what, but NO more often than that. I don't care if your company lawyers told you to avoid liability of stupid operators this was required. They can lawyer me right out of being willing to purchase your overpriced PITA "feature".
I was on a walk at night several months ago and a woman drove by with the dome light on in her car. With the inside of her car being perfectly illuminated against the darkness, I could clearly see that she was reading a book. This was especially scary, as she was driving through a school zone in a neighborhood with many children and few lights (reduced light pollution, I think is the goal). I would expect that if she had driven by a cop, she would have been pulled over and sited for reckless endangerment. Why should this be different for texting?
Make sure they ban those computers in cop cars that they put plate numbers in to while driving as well.
The gov't can flaunt all the studies/stats out there even show videos of what happens when you get into an accident, but that won't help. People will still think to themselves, "Shit, I need to tell XYZ that I'm going to be home late, or to let out the cat...."
Last week I was walking in the mall and saw a woman about 75ft in front of me looking at her phone while she was texting and walking. I stopped walking and just stood there. A few seconds later she walked right into me. In the 75ft that she walked, she never looked up once. She proceeded to blame me for not getting out of the way and I calmly told her that I was standing there looking at the display, I can't be responsible if you were not paying attention to where you were walking.
I can only imagine what this woman is like when she's driving a 3000lb car going 45mph.
I agree with the other posters, if you're texting while in an accident, hefty fine, removal of driving privileges, suspension of license, put it on your record (like a DUI), increase your auto insurance rates, public flogging etc...
Btw, in California they are trying to lower the fine for making a 'rolling stop' at a stop sign from $450 to $219. The fine is supposed to be painful.
Seriously! I mean, why do we even need smartphones when we have this whole computer right next to me! Heck, even laptops!
Darwin had the answer.
"If...you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning" - Catherine Aird
Problem solved.
You realize that the primary use of lynch mobs were to kill minorities or lower class people who the middle class thought were encroaching.
And British tax collectors......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Only in America would some butt clowns think of better ways to do stuff while driving, instead of just not doing distracting things while driving! What did you do(those of you who were around then) when you didn't have a phone with you 24/7? Nothing...NOTHING...is that important that you need to distract your attention while in control of a 2-3 ton vehicle. in the last 3 months up here, we had a cyclist made a paraplegic because of a girl texting that "didn't see him", and another girl that got killed swerving head-on into the opposite lane. It's also been proven by studies done by the NHTSA(look it up, you geniuses that seem never to have seen them) that any distraction that forces your attention elsewhere(talking on the phone, texting, noisy brats in the car) increases the likelihood of an accident substantially.
But go ahead, think that you are an exception, that you are entitled to be hooked up 24/7 to trivial BS. As a paramedic, I'm sure I'll see your sorry ass sometime down the road...literally.
Following the same logic: making it punishable to drive faster than the speed limit makes people instantly brake when seeing a cop measuring speed, thus potentially making driving more dangerous. So speeding should be allowed, right?
You just want to see people running around in those Edo costumes ;)
Is it a sad reflection on me that I knew exactly which episode you were referencing without clicking on your link?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Can you remember when the CB radio fad took off, and there were all these news reports talking about the danger of CB'ing and driving?
Wait... that never happened...
Did we not have an over-sensationalist media that tried to get us to tune in by scaring us so shitless that we began begging lawmakers to create laws based on knee-jerk reactions back then or something?
Text messages make much more sense for bite sized pieces of information than voicemail does. Voicemail takes an order of magnitude more time to communicate something like "meet me at the corner of 1st and 3rd" - the receiver can consume that message in about 1 second, versus the minimum of 15-30 it would take to access and listen to the same set of words spoken by an individual; not to mention that when speaking people tend to pad their language with pleasantries (further increasing the overhead).
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
according to a National Highway Traffic Safety report released earlier this week. Ironically overall traffic fatalities are down 20% last decade due to more safety features and less driving during the recession.
Yep, we traded a social problem that was going away from social evolution anyway for one we will never escape, sure enough.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
1. Telephone companies can and do routinely trangulate from towers or use GPS-enabled smartphones to establish the position of a cellular phone. It's not rocket science to integrate those measurements over time and obtain the velocity of a cellular phone.
2. Add some code to phone company messaging servers that disables sending and receiving of text messages while the mobile phone is in motion.
3. New phones should have some code that notices the situation and disables reading old messages and typing new messages in advance. Perhaps they won't allow you to dial anything but 911 or even receive calls unless you have bluetooth.
Yes, this means that we take away some convenience to be safer. Yes, the phone companies won't make as much money. I'm sorry. People are behaving like children and we need to take their toy away.
The theory is that the laws don't do much to stop people from texting while driving — but instead, leads them to try to hide the activity more.
Well then obviously the fines just aren't big enough! /sarcasm
No solution, just leave the law in place and spend tons of money on enforcing it. It's like trying to stop people from lighting cigarettes in their cars.. or stopping them from looking at something they see on the side of the road, their attention can be off the road in front of them for the same time it takes to send a simple text message. They can put these no texting while driving laws in place but there won't be a positive or negative effect, just more of the same people getting into accidents for being distracted by one thing or another.
I don't think you can make the 'primary use' claim anywhere outside of the Old South. In the Old West, for example, they were often used on rustlers and thieves. Minorities were simply shot and left out on the prairie.
The author discussed his Android App at the August 2010 Denver Java Users Group Meeting. He sets it so that it issues "I'm busy driving" reply when he is driving at highway speeds. There are other modes too. There were some results comparing the various location methods in phones- cell-tower, gps, dead-reckoning. GPS has some issues to my surprise.
They'll be more easily caught though, because they'll be swerving all over the road.
Some drunk driver the other day was convicted of murder instead of manslaughter because he'd already had a DUI conviction, knew that driving under the influence could lead to someone else's death, chose to drive while drunk anyway and killed someone. Just run a "Don't drive while texting" PSA campaign and then punish infractions severely and punish deaths caused by people who were texting VERY severely and people should get the idea pretty quickly. It's a pity about all those innocent bystanders who are going to die before people realize that the consequences of doing this will too severe for them to risk doing it, though.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I get tired of arrogantly clever people inexperienced in the sorrows of life using sophistry to promote their vices. Distraction kills!
In the jurisdictions studies, was the anti-texting law actually enforced, or was it one of those "passing a law should make it scary enough for them" situations?
For example, it's mandatory for cyclists under 18 to wear a helmet in Ontario, but this law is not enforced (surprise! police have better things to do). Even so, people look at cycling injuries before and after the law was passed and draw conclusions about the effectiveness of mandatory helmet laws.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
ahha, did you read the study the cite:
it specifically says the study does NOT address whether a cell phone, or texting, was a contributing factor.
why don'y you ACTUALLY read the risk model?
For crying out loud, the assumption where based on..nothing.
and why the hall can I not paste anything into the damn textbox?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Seems a little absurd to add that, considering the person you're speech-to-texting is capable of decoding speech far better than a microprocessor.
Your brain is not a computer.
2:14
-Texting while driving is dangerous.
-Dangerous
-Treaterous
-perilous.
-People who were text messaging were twenty times more likely to have an accident than those who were talking on phones instead of typing.
-Just say no.
-But I am a sucker for peer pressure, my thumbs get stuck.
-Get a designated texter.
-People on a road can turn an LOL into a great big OMG.
-People on a road can turn an LOL into a great big OMG.
-People on a road can turn an LOL into a great big OMG.
You can't handle the truth.
I've said the same thing. Of course, I always get poo-pooed. "Oh, but what about passengers in the car?" etc. etc.
Personally I think it would be just fine if cell phones stopped working if they sense they are moving at over 5 MPH. I could see special SIM cards for people who would need to be exempt from this requirement.
If you really, really need to talk to someone while you are on the road, pull over! It's still light-years more convenient that the old days of trying to find a pay phone.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
The word for people who text while driving is "dead." ("Stupid" comes close but fails to capture the true insanity of such an attempt at multitasking two visually-intensive tasks.)
They would just select themselves right out of existence!
(sadly, probably not ;_;)
Lynching was most often used in the American West were often carried out against accused criminals in custody. Lynching did not so much substitute for an absent legal system as to provide an alternative system that favored a particular social class or racial group.
Johnson County War, San Francisco Vigilance Movement and the lynching of over 160 Mexicans in California tend to differ from your description of lynching as a rustler/thief punishment
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_2_37/ai_111897839/pg_9/
"Contrary to the popular understanding, early territorial lynching did not flow from an absence or distance of law enforcement but rather from the social instability of early communities and their contest for property, status, and the definition of social order."
Michael J. Pfeifer, Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947.
The Tuskegee Institute has recorded 3,446 lynchings of Blacks and 1,297 lynchings of whites between 1882 and 1968 in the South.
When will we learn that prohibition is a failed strategy?
If we want people to avoid risky behaviors -- whether that means using drugs or texting while driving the best strategy has always been, and always will be, education.
Prohibition has always caused more problems than it solved.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Actually, it's entirely possible and sensible. In order for a law to be effective it just has to REDUCE the risk, so for your example it just has to be the case that occasional sudden braking for police causes less accidents than unrestricted speed. Ths is particularly true when matched with laws and education about safe following distances.
Now, what the article is suggesting is that having a few distracted drivers who are also attempting to conceal their texting is actually causing more accidents than having a higher number of distracted drivers who don't need to conceal what they are doing. I'd stamp it 'plausable, needs further study'.
Of course, it doesn't mean the law should be revoked. Maybe there are other things we can do to supppliment it, just like with the minimum following distance example above.
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
Just shoot the offender at point blank. Whoever texts while driving is a waste of protein, better recycle it before it injures humans.
I like your idea. When laws are too extremely opposed to natural inclination, they will be broken and sometimes with dire consequences. Make laws that correspond to how people generally think they themselves should act (not what they think others should do) and they will be followed more often than not. People often think laws apply only to others. Designing laws from a "what if I got caught" perspective makes them more reasonable and followable.
Also, even though tech rarely solves social problems like this one, it may help: mandate that a button on the phone be assigned to texting "Driving. Will respond later" and don't penalize people for pressing it, much the same way it's not explicitly illegal to turn off your radio while in motion.
Unfortunately, the miracles of modern medicine have made such ideas, while highly appealing, incredibly unlikely.
That's a fairly strong conclusion to make: what about increased use of texting in the market, increasing numbers of licensed drivers having grown up with text messaging, increasing number of mobile phone owners?
And also - the laws aren't making people hide their texting whilst driving, the fact that they're worried about penalties is. Surely most of these places have a "driving without due care and attention" law anyhow? In which case, the problem isn't that there's a specific law but the threat that police might crack down on drivers who aren't concentrating for some reason - including but not limited to texting. Targetting drivers who aren't paying attention is surely not something we'd want to give up ... ?
Hear hear. If you're moving at constant velocity, it's impossible for the accelerometer to tell. Ask anyone who understands Einstein's special relativity.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Can we mandate that only the attractive women get to wear that costume?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
In Germany if you get caught driving with a BAC above a certain level, your license is forfeit and you don't get it back until you can prove, through a battery of psychological and other tests, that you no longer have a drinking problem.
Replace "drinking" with "texting," and I think we have a solution.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I was just getting used to stupidity as an additive to the water supply, and now it's available as a rock salt. FYI, from what I've seen on bad TV shows, the pursuit of stolen vehicles does nothing for public safety, either. Perhaps apprehending pedophiles at gun point also carries unacceptable risk.
Where exactly does "unintended" fit into this? Where is the data that any kind of impingement on the addictive behaviours of narcissistic scoff-laws doesn't end badly?
My attitude is that people determined to behave like children need to be treated like children. Less autonomy. This could take many forms, such as a vigilance camera pointed at the driver's eyes. Of course, this would not be abused by law enforcement. No one sees that coming.
You're plotting a growing number of individuals who are using texting more and more over time.
It's not STATIC.
Thus, it is both possible (and probable) that anti-texting laws reduce casualties from texting and driving AND that the total number of texting accidents INCREASED.
Please go back and relearn Statistics, MSM.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
'failure to pay time and attention'. They could hand out millions of tickets for texting based on that. But then, that would be efficient and get the job done. Clearly there is no room for that kind of logic in the current system.
Seriously - how stupid can people get. I *never* understood why anybody would think texting is safer than just calling, which is a hazard in itself. Driving is an activity that requires all of your concentration, all of the time. Most people think it is ok because they keep comparing the concentration levels required to the average reaction time required - which is wrong, it is the PEAK reaction time which is relevant. You might not need millisecond reaction time when going in a straight line on the highway on a daily basis- but that INSTANTLY changes when you or any of the cars around you hit an unexpected obstacle, or slippery surface.
The estimate of 25% of all crashes -- or 1.4 million crashes -- caused by cell phone use was derived from NHTSA data showing 11% of drivers at any one time are using cell phones and from peer-reviewed research reporting cell phone use increases crash risk by four times. The estimate of an additional minimum 3% of crashes -- or 200,000 crashes -- caused by texting was derived by NHTSA data showing 1% of drivers at any one time are manipulating their device in ways that include texting and from research reporting texting increases crash risk by 8 times. Using the highest risk for texting reported by research of 23 times results in a maximum of 1 million crashes due to texting; still less than the 1.4 million crashes caused by other cell phone use.
Well I'm pretty sure in all cases a cell phone is involved, since you can't text without one. I'm also sure that the most distracting part of the phone (that requires most to take their eyes off the road) is either dialing or texting. Since texting requires extended "dialing", I would assume that texting is more dangerous than talking on a cell phone. In fact the peer-reviewed NHTSA report says that texting increases the risk of crashing by 8 times.
More condemning evidence can be found at the NHTSA when you look only at fatalities:
* In 2008, there were a total of 34,017 fatal crashes in which 37,261 individuals were killed.
* In 2008, 5,870 people were killed in crashes involving driver distraction (16% of total fatalities).
* The proportion of drivers reportedly distracted at the time of the fatal crashes has increased from 8 percent in 2004 to 11 percent in 2008.
* The under-20 age group had the highest proportion of distracted drivers involved in fatal crashes (16%). The age group with the next greatest proportion of distracted drivers was the 20- to-29-year-old age group (12%).
* Motorcyclists and drivers of light trucks had the greatest percentage of total drivers reported as distracted at the time of the fatal crashes (12%).
* An estimated 21 percent of 1,630,000 injury crashes were reported to have involved distracted driving.
This is all can be found here.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
It was known by a different name back then. 'Posse' I believe.
I think you're fixating on the rope, whereas the original poster was focusing more on the mob justice.
Evolution in action (to answer the last question). Nothing to do but wait.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
See, this is really intelligent, but the problem is that cops in general can say they prove anything and there's no accountability. Sadly, nobody really raises hell about that. That's the first problem. If they need you to be texting or drinking or have drugs in your car, they will. I mean, I see the usual blankets getting thrown on this, like "probable cause". Just wait for the 'intent to send an SMS message' charges to get drawn up for the first time.
I'm sure they do. They also have the ability to receive text messages.
Something to the effect of 'Careless and Imprudent Driving'?
The music fan is reminded me of the plane crashes that killed Buddy Holly et al in 1959 and key members of Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1977. Pilot error was a contributory factor to the crashes, and something seems poetic in the sense that the pilots of the respective planes were amongst the fatalities.
[This was not flying drunk, but rather other critical mistakes]
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
If there is an open beer in a car, you can't prove the driver was drinking. :
If there is a call or text using the drivers phone from within the car, you can't prove the driver did it.
If there is any phone activity within the car, you can't prove the driver did it.
Phone use in cars causes accidents, and the solution is to remove the cars from the possession of drivers who endanger everyone else. Having to listen to someone else on the phone is still a distraction to the driver, so it really doesn't matter if the owner or someone else is using the phone. Numerous studies show that half conversations take attention away from people who can hear them, thus, by allowing this to take place in a vehicle you control is putting others at risk. I don't think it matters who is using the phone, if a phone is in use in your car, and you crash, you should lose your car.
Besides
1) Most cars are single occupant these days during the commute hours when most accidents happen, so it won't even be an excuse for most people.
2) Most passengers are either kids, who aren't calling or texting your contacts on your phone. Again,
3) Most other passengers are adults with their own phones.
People can drive without a license. Take the vehicle.
while driving so help me I'm going to smash their window with my club, grab that phone or blackberry from them and shove it up
where the sun don't shine. Hopefully the Lion battery will then explode.
Yet another example of punishing the guilty instead of the innocent. You want to stop dangerous texting? Punish those who get in wrecks under existing manslaughter or other applicable laws that kill someone while doing it. Don't ban the innocent from it. Think of catching dolphins in a tuna net. That's what laws like this do. Prohibition was similar. Banning alcohol caused a massive increase in crime and removing the ban stopped the mobsters of the era cold almost over night.
Punish people if they cause an accident...not because they *might* cause one.
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
The ban itself is not a problem... the enforcement is flawwed, if they can hide that they are texting.
Penalties should be even more severe for looking down while driving than for texting. We need law enforcement officers recording drivers at random places with hidden cameras, in a way that we can detect someone looking down.
If someone looks down, for more than a 1.2 seconds, while the vehicle is motion, and their vehicle is travelling more than 1 foot per second, then they are busted. This needs to be enforced more aggressively and at more places than simply looking for someone blatantly texting.
We need advertising campaigns that will convince people that 'trying to hide it' will not only fail to reduce the chance they are caught, but will actually make things worse for them.
Maybe we need to by law require cell phones emit a detectable signal when buttons on the front are being pushed, and law enforcement officers will record those signals as proof that the driver was texting; since the signals required to be emitted could be designed to contain information about which letter/number key is being pressed.
If there is an open beer in a car, you can't prove the driver was drinking.
But having an open container in the vehicle is against the law. What we're discussing here is not (yet)
Rather than just pick up the phone and hold it to your head, you have to take your eyes off the road and screw around with a bluetooth device, because you didn't remember to pair it when you got in.
When a criminal murders someone & there are witnesses, he typically kills the witnesses also.
If there weren't anti-murder laws, he wouldn't have to kill the witnesses.
Since it's more dangerous than drunk driving, the punishment should be about the same as drunk driving.
First offense in California: 3-5 years probation, $390 to $1000 fine+court costs of about $1800, 6 month loss of license, traffic school, 48 hours mandatory jail time, installation of an ignition interlock.
Second offense: same, but 2 year loss of license and between 96 hours and 30 days of jail time
Sounds fair and reasonable to me.
Support SETI@home
I find it quite useful to communicate with people without forcing them to interrupt what they're doing.
Like driving?
Support SETI@home
1) Use gps to determine average speed over the 30 seconds on either side of a text message being sent.
2) Record the speed, time, and location in a database for a week or two.
3) Require that cars record the time of airbag deployment.
4) Anyone who is in the driver's seat of a car during a reported accident has the database checked against the time of the accident as reported by car's airbags.
5) Anyone who sent a text while moving 20 mph or faster within 5 minutes of being in a car accident is publicly hanged in the city square for everyone to see.
Any thoughts?
I see, so your game, here, is to ignore all the studies and assume your gutfeel is right.
Uhuh.
How *very* compelling...
What studies? The poster I replied to didn't cite any study - he simply claimed that "studies show...".
Could you provide some specifics from "all the studies" to back up the claims made by the poster I responded to? I mean, it would certainly be more convincing that a huffy attitude.
You know, when younger drivers were not permitted to drive with their friends in the car, kids started riding in the trunk.
Wrong answer. It seems that for today's population, texting is more important than driving. This always-online trend is going to continue.
Possible solutions:
-> Car-pooling. Everyone but the driver can text
-> Usable public transit. Everyone can text
-> Commercialization of Urban Challenge winner: Cars that just drive themselves.
I believe if the money spent on ridiculous policies was spent improving alternatives, people would choose those.
I choose public transit or taxis.. precisely because I can have a phone call, text, review documentation.. and leave the mundane tasks like actually driving to others or machines.
I also own a car, enjoy driving and drive quite aggressively. That's for my enjoyment, and almost never in heavy traffic - which is why you're most prone to text anyways.
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
It's called common-fucking-sense. As I get older it seems to be becoming a a rarer commodity. Has anyone else(people with less than two decades of life experience need not apply) noticed this? Or is it I am becoming more cynical in my old age? I swear the human race appears to be getting dumber and dumber.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Don't stick any jellybeans up your nose.
I prefer the idea of permanently equipping every steering wheel with a giant spike directed at the driver's chest. Now who's gonna risk even a fender bender for the sake of a little text-gossip?
I'm a little surprised by the visceral reactions in nearly every comment on this article, so much that I feel compelled to play devil's advocate. I suspect people are picturing a mindless twit, cruising down the highway with both hands on a messaging device and eyes down, slowly drifting out of his or her lane. But I doubt most people engaging in "texting" in some form fit this stereotype. Many people are just sending or receiving one or two messages. "Pick up milk on the way home." "Which exit do I need to take?" "Something's happened, meet me at the hospital."
The danger posed by this type of distraction is completely dependent upon the situation. Are you on a rural highway with excellent visibility and no traffic for miles? Are you just glancing down to read a single message? Are you replying with a simple "ok" acknowledgement? It is possible to use a device like this with less distraction than changing a radio station. Not all "texters" are engaging in truly risky behavior.
But beyond that, if this is something you want to stop, you need to consider the psychology of the texter. Sending or receiving a message can take all of two seconds. It's hard enough convincing people that they need to pull over to take a phone call. For the maneuvers needed to actually take your car off of the highway and pull over to send or receive a text message, you've probably spent just as much time with your eyes not on the road in front of you than you would have spent just taking/sending the message on the highway, and you've lost 2 minutes to save yourself 2 seconds of distraction. And you're surprised that people don't do this?
(Note that I'm not going to touch the class of texter that's just driving around exchanging 50 banal texts with their boyfriend/girlfriend. I'm more concerned with someone that needs to take/send one or two text messages that may be relatively important to them.)
Penalizing something that people perceive to be so trivial isn't going to work. I can glance down at my radio for 2 seconds and achieve the same distraction as I'd get glancing down at my phone for 2 seconds, yet the law (and many of the commenters here) would punish me for the latter and not the former. What we need to do is make communication safer while driving. Why isn't my messaging device integrated with my car? My car knows when it's driving, and I can identify myself to my car. This would allow a "Do Not Disturb" setting, or automatic filtering of unimportant messages until I'm done driving. A heads-up display would be another great way to bring up urgent messages with a minimum of distraction. Android phones already have voice recognition, so there's a great way to respond too without needing to take your eyes and your hands away from the task of driving.
If roads were private, different roads would have different texting policies and people would have the choice of whatever they wanted. Which ever road had the the safest policy would get more business and then other roads would follow suit in order to stay competitive.
GPS enabled phones know when they're moving.... Disable the texting feature.!!
Sign me up for the texting, phoning, no-eating, high-occupancy-vehicle, no-drivers-under-21, smoking, no-speed-limit lane please.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
The same bastards that endanger your life by road texting, against the laws of the land and common sense, will invariably opt for the no-text road... then text!
Our problem is not texting, but bastards.
This isn't a texting problem per se, but an expression of the fact that U.S. citizens in general are rarely trained to drive properly. In European countries passing driver education is mandatory. It often takes several months to get through the courses on a part time basis - they're tough. And you pay a hefty price to get through those courses (usually in the thousands of dollars). Driving is NOT a right. Its a privilege. When you get behind the wheel you are stepping into one of the most dangerous instruments that every other citizen has to face while you are behind that wheel. But we treat driving like its child play. The vast majority of driver education courses and tests in the U.S. are a joke. Until we take the responsibility of driving more seriously, we will never solve the problem of incompetent drivers doing things while driving that only a certified idiot would do.
The technology exists to prevent texting if the phone is traveling at more that 5 MPH. But what if it's being used by a passenger? On a bus?
How about having the police automatically log the time/location of any accident or infraction and having the info cross-checked against the driver's cell phone billing. Just remember not to allow your spouse to text with your phone while you're driving. My wife was nearly killed in an accident where another driver left his lane for no apparent reason. I'd love to know if he had a phone in his hand.