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UAE Police Claim BlackBerry Outage Made Roads Safer
An anonymous reader writes "Road traffic accidents in Abu Dhabi and Dubai plummeted last week — and the local police have a theory as to why: drivers' BlackBerrys weren't working. Police in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have claimed that last week's worldwide BlackBerry outage, which frustrated business people around the world who were unable to communicate with their colleagues, had one positive result — less texting and reading of emails by people who should have been concentrating on driving instead. There could be other factors at play, however. For instance, popular UAE soccer player Theyab Awana was killed in a high speed crash near Abu Dhabi in September, amid claims that he was sending a message on his BlackBerry when he hit a lorry. The football star's father, Awana Ahmad Al Mosabi, made an emotional plea to people not to use smartphones while driving, and a Facebook campaign against the use of BlackBerry Messenger while driving has grown in popularity."
Yes, blame BlackBerries and their incredibly difficult to type on keyboards.
In all seriousness, though, why isn't it a campaign against texting while driving?
Having seen people swerving from lane to lane while talking or texting, there's no doubt in my mind cell usage while driving should be banned.
But I'm amazed that Abu Dhabi and Dubai have such a high penetration of Blackberries in their country that the outage could actually make a difference in road safety statistics. That's just amazing to me.
I wonder what would happen to the safety stats if all cell phones were disabled for a day as an experiment? (Not that it'll ever happen.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Most people accept that texting and cellphones cause accidents. But, most people also think they're better drivers than everyone else, and therefore it's okay for them to do it. Even cops do it. I see them all the time.
The only solution is making it illegal internationally. But considering the U.S. alone only bans it in a handful of states, we have a long way to go of convincing people that their ego doesn't make it okay.
Duh, just look to see if accidents increased again when service was restored.
It's still dangerous even if you are in rural Nebraska, even if it isn't as dangerous as it is in the cities and there's ultimately no reason why one should be talking on the phone without at least a headset.
False sense of security.
There have been studies, and more well known, mythbusters did an episode on something very similar (is talking on a cellphone while driving just as bad as drinking and driving), and while mythbusters is a bit hollywood science at times, they confirmed the myth. Texting isn't that far off. And in other studies, is just as bad.
But don't take my word for it, take a look at all the studies and materials.
There's a reason why texting/talking on the phone is rapidly becoming illegal while driving. But hey! Maybe in Nebraska, facts and truths aren't the norm!
The headset is nearly useless. Talking over the phone is more distracting than a car passenger, because passengers realize when to stfu because of situational cues, and you aren't pressured to keep the conversation going when the situation demands all your attention since a passenger realizes this, but a phone participant doesn't and keeps on going.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002374605_cellphones12.html
My family and I were traveling on I-95 in the US and saw a woman playing a violin while driving. No joke. Presumably, she was steering with her knees. In disbelief, I wanted to get a better look, but I wouldn't risk being in the lane adjacent to her. I think we need a campaign to ban playing musical instruments while driving.
Remember folks, this is the same RIM/Blackberry that wouldn't grant UAE and a few other countries a private BBM server so they got pissed and shut down the service. This article holds a little more than bias. The summary could read "The evil blackberry services were shutdown and our country is safer for it" and the overall message would remain the same.
Yes, the drivers here (in Abu Dhabi) really are that bad. Blackberry's are not illegal here as other posts have said; they have huge billboards advertising the latest ones all over the place (Blackberry's were banned at one point, but RIM have let the UAE government to see the traffic, as has happened in many countries recently). The cars are also heavily tinted because of the sun, so it's almost impossible to tell what people are doing in their cars.
You also have a good mix of Indian, Pakistani, Arab, European and African drivers who all have different ideas about driving. It is not unusual for the middle lane on a 5 lane road to turn left in front of everyone else going straight.
But the most common accident is being rear-ended by drivers using their phones and not looking at the road. And I can say that over the last week I have seen less accidents, so the numbers actually sound right.
... BlackBerry outage, which frustrated business people around the world who were unable to communicate with their colleagues, ...
Unable to communicate? Despite the fact that the phone & text services were not affected?