Slashdot Mirror
Georgia Cop Issues 800 Tickets To Drivers Texting At Red Lights
McGruber writes "WSB-Television, Atlanta, tells us that Gwinnett County police officer Jessie Myers has issued more tickets for texting and driving than any other officer in the state. Officer Myers said he sees most people typing away on their phones while waiting at red lights. 'Most people think they're safe there,' Myers said. However, he said it's still illegal. 'At a red light, you're still driving, according to the law. You're on a roadway, behind (the wheel of) a car, in charge of it, with a vehicle in drive,' Myers said. Myers also tickets drivers using navigation apps. One driver said she was just using her phone's GPS. The law forbids that and Myers issued her a ticket. "That's right. You can't use your navigation while driving. Unless it is a GPS-only device, such as Garmin or Tom Tom, something that is not used as a communication device,' Myers said."
Citing them for texting, sure. Citing for using the GPS is fucking stupid. We do NOT want to revert to the days when people tried to manage folding and unfolding maps as they drove.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Good thing that the in-vehicle computers that cops use to check someone's plates isn't covered by this.
Hypocrites. Who will write them tickets?
Which is why I always put my car in [P]ark while stopped at traffic lights.
(I live in Cobb County, 2 counties over from Gwinnett and have received a ticket for "texting while driving")
You're not legally driving if your car is in park.
And I beat the ticket by forcing the cop to produce the dashcam footage. You could clearly see my reverse lights light up as the car was shifted from Park to Drive.
In fact, having a car in Park is one of the few exceptions written into the law.
I'm not going to get into the rest of it, I'm a cyclist and it amazes me how many people I notice have a phone to their ear while driving, especially in the daytime. Those are bad drivers. Texters are worse, so yeah, do it, but it's more sporting to get them in motion instead of at a stoplight, less they can argue against as well. Getting them at stoplights almost seems lazy.
Leave the map app guys alone. If it's displaying a map I don't care if it's dedicated or not, it's displaying a map, infact the phone could be the safer device, it's maps are updated constantly and they're more likely to have correct directions based on that tidbit, at least in cities like I live in where the map is constatly changing.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
A cop doing their job.
There is nothing short of an absolute, death-like issue that you need to be texting at a red light, or anywhere else while driving. Time and time again I've been behind people who were texting, the light turn greens and invariably I, or someone else, has to put on the horn to get them to pay attention to what they're doing as they're holding up traffic.
If you're that narcissistic or ADD that you think you need to be checking every ten seconds, go seek help.
Kudos to the cop enforcing the law.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I wish I had a push bumper on my car to give the people still sitting at a green light a little "nudge". It would be much more fun than laying on the horn. I'd love to see their reaction...
Hes doing his job, whether you like it or not. Dont blame the police for laws you dont like.
As a pedestrian I say great. People shouldn't be texting or checking their phones while driving. While folks might think it's safe at an intersection, I disagree.
I've almost been hit a number of times as drivers inch through a cross walk when they aren't paying attention. Or they turn on red and don't pay attention. It's super dangerous.
The amount of times I have missed a red light because the dickwad ahead is fucking with their phones and failed to roll on is phenomenal. By the time said dickwad has reacted to my horn, put the phone down, and moved on, the light is often changing. Don't be that dickwad.
[Sorry, this signature is unavailable in your country/region]
What I don't like about cops is that they prefer to enforce laws that are easy to enforce. They happily issue lots of traffic tickets, while drug dealers, rapists, murderers, burglars, muggers, etc. are not getting caught.
I've seen people fail to start driving when the light turns green because they were texting. I've seen people almost not stop for a light because they were looking at their screen. I've seen the driver behind me with both thumbs typing away on his device and therefore no hands on the wheel. I routinely see people driving along looking at their lap instead of where they're driving as they try to do a quick text.
So, I have no sympathy for people who are convinced they're so awesome at multi-tasking that they're trying to text and drive and end up getting a ticket.
I could walk 5 minutes from my house to an intersection, and if I stood in one place and simply photographed all of the drivers texting or talking on their phone (in their hand and gesturing with the other one), that I bet 30% or more of drivers are doing it.
If the stats tell us that distracted driving is causing a huge number of traffic accidents, then if the cop has decided to enforce the law on all of these people, too bad for them.
From what I've seen, those who can't resist a quick text at the stop light are also doing it while they're driving. It's often astounding to me just how many drivers are paying more attention to their phone than the cars around them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Bravo!
Texting at red lights too often turns into texting at green lights. I really hate sitting through a light cycle because the idiot in front of me hadn't noticed that the light had changed.
Because it's *so* difficult to pull over, put it in park, and program the GPS while not in motion?
My phone's GPS especially... tie it to Bluetooth, put on some music, and let the voice command play through the car's radio... it'll turn down the music volume to state the direction, and then turn it back up. And if I miss a turn, it will recalculate almost immediately and doesn't need to be reprogrammed. There's literally no sane reason for you to need to futz with it while the car is in a traffic lane.
There are many laws for which police officers use their own discretion in regards to enforcement of said laws. This is possibly a situation where the spirit of the law and the letter of the law are not in sync.
IANAL, YMMV, etc.
Bazinga.
Hes doing his job, whether you like it or not. Dont blame the police for laws you dont like.
Police have a huge amount of discretion in who they write up and for what. He could actually, y'know, work, and catch people posing some threat to those around him; but instead, he'd rather sit at a stop light and give tickets to fish in a barrel - To people at least trying to do the right thing and not text while driving (even if still technically "operating" their car).
So yeah, that still makes him a complete asshole. To all the good cops out there - This guy explains why we loathe you all so much. When you hear about shit like this, a good blanket party would do a world of wonders for your overall PR.
What I don't like about cops is that they prefer to enforce laws that are easy to enforce. They happily issue lots of traffic tickets, while drug dealers, rapists, murderers, burglars, muggers, etc. are not getting caught.
Where I live these are completely different cops. So no matter how active the traffic cops are, it doesn't make any difference to how police work other crimes.
Sometimes police abuse their position or become oppressive in measures inadvertently. Still as far as texting is concerned I think this should be punished in a more severe manner.
I know I know, people say what's the harm right?!
It only takes one time that you have almost killed someone or yourself due to texting to finally admit you are increasing risk to yourself and others. Texting goes a step beyond the distraction of hands free phones because you are occupying at least one hand and looking elsewhere than what's in front of you.
Over the years I have had several near misses and dangerous situations because of drivers that are texting, holding phones and generally not only preoccupied mentally with the conversation but also physically with no hands on the wheel.
Some texting ass nearly killed a cyclist one day as he slowly drove out of his lane and into a bicycle lane, just a 20cm or so is all it took. He held the steering wheel between his knees and was using his phone with both hands! -Do you think he would have gotten off the hook cause the cyclist didn't wear a helmet?
I know that you can text, stopped at a light (presumably only there) and nothing will happen. Harmless right? until that time that your clutch is raised ever so slightly and you rear into the car behind you or you didn't notice the cyclist creeping from the side, or the motorcyclists between your car and another...
You can imagine the scenarios. It's not about the 10,000 times it went right, it's about the one time it doesn't.
Feel this is unjustified? I welcome you to cycle or operate a two wheel vehicle for a time and see if that changes your mind. Let's remember that there are no such situations in which you must to text when you drive or are operating a vehicle. It's an action you can entirely do without. you can "like this" or comment that witticism later.
At the end of the day this is my life and I can do everything right on the road and still get hurt or worse because of someone else. If it was your life would you accept me texting or possibly putting you in danger? putting your children in danger?
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
It's par for the course for Gwinnett County... They're nothing but tax collectors who sit on i285 waiting for speeders entering the county... Now if they'd only start ticketing the people who consistently run red lights and sit in the damn intersections blocking traffic... But it's more profitable ticketing speeders under the super speeder laws in Georgia.
Just following orders? Where have I heard that before?
If he sees someone texting while actually driving (sitting there forever and a day with your foot on the brake wondering if the light is broken is not driving), I'm all for him issuing a ticket.
So a "good" cop in your mind is one who selectively enforces the law, and not one who enforces it equally?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
So all the other police aren't doing their jobs? I can understand whacking those who're texting/calling while driving; in fact I'm all for it. Red lights are iffy, ex: sometimes folks need a simple answer to pick something up along the way. But ticketing for using a phone's GPS/navigation? Dick move. Serious, serious dick move, and one that does not improve safety. In fact, it's probably safer and less distracting for my phone to vocalize directions than for me to have to look at paper maps. Even a phone's GPS map auto-tracks the vehicle and outlines the desired route, so there's less concentration needed to track where you are than on a legit paper map.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Imagine how much more real crime they could stop by re-assigning traffic patrol to more useful departments.
... you shouldn't be in control of a piece of heavy machinery (in this case an automobile).
Before red-light gadget users argue that they are in control of their habits, ask yourself why you're texting at a red light. It only takes a couple of minutes to remove yourself from the flow of traffic, do the texting, and safely reinsert yourself into the flow of traffic.
Considering how many people are killed in traffic accidents compared to say, murderers, then he is doing it right.
If he were a computer scientist, we would say he is going for Big O(n) improvements and pat him on the back.
THL phish sticks
None of those issues make the top 15 causes of death, whereas accidents are #5.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
The proper recourse is for people to pay attention. That typically means don't text and drive.
But how many are killed because people are texting while their vehicle is stationary?
*IF* the person puts the phone down and goes when the light changes, I have no problem with texting at a red light. I'd sure prefer it to texting while the vehicle is in motion.
If the person holds up traffic because they kept texting, then write a ticket for obstructing traffic.
And imagine how much more software we could release if they re-assigned marketing staff to software development!
Given the fact that we all are, technically, committing scores of crimes based on technical defintions of law and regulation, I would say that judgement is a key factor for a street-level cop. . .
Wrong. You can blame the po-po for giving tickets. They make the final call to give someone a ticket or not. They can also just give a warning or ignore it altogether. A good cop has had sufficient education and experience to make that judgement...
I'm guessing Officer Jessie "I issue more tickets for texting and driving than any other officer in the state" Myers isn't following your policy.
And ... if they're turning it into a competition by publishing a top-10 list of who issues the most, there's probably a lot of other officers who aren't either.
No sig today...
but cops can use their police computers to look up licence plates at a red light, or the can be on their police radio while driving at high speed.
Ah yeah, one rule for the cops, one rule for the plebs.
Can I read my paperback novel at the red light? Yep legal, can I drink my coffee and read the ingredients at the lights? yep.
Can I close my eyes and snooze for 30 seconds at the lights?
Stop nanny states making 5000000 rules about our lives, GET LOST govt. Enough rules is enough ok.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
But then how would they drive up the ticket money to pay for unneeded "new cars" and bribe money for their pockets?
Come on now. If you see a traffic cop, he's not there to "protect and serve." They are the Badged Highwaymen, state-sanctioned assholes whose job it is to flip the lights on behind random people in the universal cop-sign for "stick em up and hand over your wallet, brownie."
Actually, its much easier and safer for the cop to nail someone at a traffic light than to pull a suspected driver over and approach the vehicle not knowing what's actually going on inside. The texter is usually unaware the cop is there until it's too late. By then, the cop can determine if they are threat and have them dead to rights. Smart policing if you ask me.
Now, the rule on using a phone as a GPS and writing tickets for that? In NJ, it is illegal to operate ANY hand-held electronics while driving...that includes hands free phone use unless the phone is physically mounted in the vehicle. Somebody pointed out that apps like the new Google Maps or Waze are often superior to the in-car alternatives...offer turn by turn directions...and don't require the driver to fumble with it while driving.
Why are these laws in place? Ask the governor whose driver (a trooper) had an accident while operating a mobile device while driving.
While you're right about traffic deaths, it is still dubious for me how most traffic tickets save lives. Using a phone while stopped at a traffic light? Running a stop sign at low speed? Parking violations? Speeding 10 mph above the speed limit? I don't know. It's a very gray area. More serious crime, on the other hand, is pretty destructive to communities. I wonder if police behavior is actually driven by statistics of which policing activity is the most beneficial versus which is just easier?
I get a phone call, Pull to the side of the road on a public street, and take tall call. Am I still driving?
It is not the job of police to enforce EVERY law. The concept is called "selective enforcement" and result in things like cops issuing warnings, issuing a verbal scolding, or choosing not to cite at all for some things.
One question is often asked at interviews for police work is, "You catch your mother speeding. Do you give her a ticket?"
The proper answer is, "no". Departments don't want people who would give their own mother a speeding ticket. Contrary to popular belief, departments want thinking human beings, not robocops.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
They all get the same training. So if you have qualified developers doing sales, then yes you might want to re-assign a few if the sales team is doing busy work while the developers are in crunch time.
I'd be willing to bet that 90%+ of these texters while stationary also do it while moving.
There was a death caused exactly by that dring my journey in the UK yesterday - coming off a motor way, someone was texting while waiting for the lights on the slip road and didn't notice the lights had gone green and all the cars had cleared in front of them, and they got rear ended.
While it sucks to get busted, he's doing everyone a favor by strictly enforcing a terrible law. Everyday, you, I, and everyone violates laws. Not because we have a guilty mind or because we're bad people or doing anything wrong but because laws and regulations have grown to the point that it's not possible to live a strictly legal life. But if they're only selectively enforced, why should we care?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
amazing how driving flips a switch in a lot of peoples head.
the tolerance for 1 second delays (which can easily be made
up by the next light) goes to zero, and they get mad at the
slightest things.
Why can't you just wait a few seconds to send that text? Why is the onus always on everyone else to acquiesce to your idiotic, piss-poor behavior?
Just pull the fuck over, if the message is so important it has to be sent/read immediately.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
catch people posing some threat to those around him
How about the people who aren't watching the intersection they're sitting at, so when the light turns green they instinctively hit the gas, rather than looking at the slow-moving pedestrians?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I would love to see more drivers ticketed for using electronics while driving, it wouldn't break my heart to see the "fluffer and duster" crowd (make-up appliers) ticketed as well, I have nearly been hit and / or run off the road by each more times that is safe for my continued sanity to recall. If you are controlling a 400KJ missile you should damn well devote your attention to that, not your damned phone / tablet / appearance.
It's not his job to set up at a traffic light explicitly looking for harmless technical violations. He has discretion where he sets up and which traffic violations he focuses on. He's abusing that discretion. That makes him an ass hat.
Makes his chief an ass hat too, for not telling him to go look for actual dangerous behavior.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
than someone who isn't paying attention, lets traffic ahead of them pull off, and when they realize it's time to go, the light has changed to yellow. They proceed to run it leaving everyone else to sit at the red light. Those people need a phone enema.
Based on your example you know nothing about the police force and how it's structured.
First the cops that you see driving around in marked cars are actually tasked (for the most part) to uphold public *law enforcement* which includes traffic laws. While most of the examples you have given *could* be stopped if the crime committed is in progress by a beat cop the majority are up to detectives and special divisions of the police force to handle/solve, which you usually don't see driving around in marked cars.
So the so called cops you are complaining about are in fact doing the job for their position.
Not insightful.
Apples and oranges. A better analogy would be juggling different software developers between projects to set priorities but that doesn't give us a gratuitous dig at marketing people.
No matter where you go, there you are.
And they're always so smug about it. "Well you're technicallly breaking the law so fuck you."
Like the asshats who ticket you for drunk driving when you're sleeping in your car. Lesson learned: you're harder to catch if you're a moving target, save the texts for the highway, and drive home to sleep in your own bed.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Parked on the side of a street I can sort of understand, but parked in their own (presumably private) driveway?
That isn't a public road, so how do the DUI laws apply? As far as I know, you don't even need to have a driver's license, insurance, or vehicle registration if the car isn't operated on public roads. You should be able to drive as drunk as you want to if the vehicle stays on your own property...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Yes, the whole point of traffic laws is to keep people safe. Bumping up his quota by giving tickets to people who aren't driving in an unsafe manner doesn't make him a good cop.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
While the guy was a jerk for not paying attention while at a light, when a stationary car at a stop light gets hit, some of that blame must go to the person who rear ended him.
No matter where you go, there you are.
That's not the texting driver's fault, though. That's the asshat that rear-ended them's fault.
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
Hes doing his job, whether you like it or not. Dont blame the police for laws you dont like.
I can blame him. Because he uses excuses like these:
'At a red light, you're still driving. according to the law. You're on a roadway, behind (the wheel of) a car, in charge of it, with a vehicle in drive,'
There's a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Assholes like this guy who are more interested in the letter of the law are the reasons why laws get so complicated you need lawyers to interpret them. You can't just write a law that says, "it's illegal to text and drive." You have to define what constitutes driving, and then write an exception for being stopped at a light. Having every law consist of 30 pages of legalize is not in the best interests of society.
Why is texting and driving dangerous? Because every moment you're not looking in front of you, your car is covering a rather large distance. Unexpected things happen in the blink of an eye. If you're not moving, that's not an issue. His actions are not consistent with the spirit of the law. It's very reasonable to blame him.
I'm pretty sure the reason we have horns is to alert wayward pedestrians that they are about to get a hood ornament up their arse, or to notify other drivers that they are about to run over the front of our cars because they didn't check their mirrors before changing lane.
That is to say, emergencies.
If I hear a horn in traffic I automatically go to DEFCON 3 and eagerly watch my mirrors for the shit to hit the fan (or my rear bumper). However needing to reminding someone that they are (allegedly) in control of a tonne of steel is not an emergency, its just a display of selfishness and lack of self control. Just put the damn phone down. How hard is it?
[Sorry, this signature is unavailable in your country/region]
Yes! Texters at red lights are all too often self-centered, inconsiderate pukes. Keep up the good work officer!
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
Well, I was at a stop light once and the woman next to me was texting. I crept my car forward a couple of feet, she saw me accelerate, thought the light was green, and she proceeded to accelerate as if the light were green - right into the intersection without even looking up.
People get engrossed in their phones and don't pay attention - even at a red.
You're on a roadway, behind (the wheel of) a car, in charge of it, with a vehicle in drive
I'm typically in neutral at a red light, so does that make it OK? Does the gear matter, or is it because you are in the lane rather than on the shoulder? If a stationary car gets into an accident, isn't that always the other driver's fault anyhow?
It is not the job of police to enforce EVERY law. The concept is called "selective enforcement" and result in things like cops issuing warnings, issuing a verbal scolding, or choosing not to cite at all for some things.
One question is often asked at interviews for police work is, "You catch your mother speeding. Do you give her a ticket?"
The proper answer is, "no". Departments don't want people who would give their own mother a speeding ticket. Contrary to popular belief, departments want thinking human beings, not robocops.
What's funny about this is that if you were asked this for a job at a corporation, the proper answer would be "yes". So, you are supposed to be willing to sell out you're own mother for capitalism but not if she breaks the law.... :-P
That is not even remotely the same thing. Selective enforcement means choosing whether to enforce a law or not, that is a judgement call as to which crime takes precedence in enforcing.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
If they're down to busywork like writing tickets on technicalities that are obviously endangering nobody, they're already well past the point where they should be re-assigning.
I get a phone call, Pull to the side of the road on a public street, and take tall call. Am I still driving?
Is it a legal place to park, stop, or stand?
If so, then no, you're golden (I recommend putting it in park for safety's sake). If not, then yes, you're obstructing the flow of traffic.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
No, he's not doing his job.
The job of a police officer is to ensure the smooth and peaceful running of society. Police officers are supposed to use their better judgment to decide if they need to intervene in an unsafe situation. They're not supposed to be walking porcine bureaucrats looking to randomly drain and damage society by mindlessly misapplying draconian rules into incidental situations.
Texting while driving laws were put into place because of the extreme danger of distracted driving. That danger isn't present when parked at a light--you might annoy someone by not moving when the light changes, and you'll obstruct traffic in a non-dangerous manner. We have accepted the danger of people referencing, but not programming, their GPS while driving; we certainly haven't targetted GPS use while parked at a light. Ticketing people for these things is inappropriate, regardless of what the law actually says. The law was put in place specifically to address certain societal problems; these actions do not intersect with those problems, and so the officer should apply his legal discretion rather than acting like a predatory dickhead.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Yes actually.
I know, I know, it's fantasy, but yes, a cop that has the competence to act like something other than an autonomous robot and recognise when the law is unjust and counterproductive to enforce and so doesn't enforce it is exactly the type of cop I would love to have.
No I don't support bent cops who enforce it selectively to their or their friends benefit, but I don't think asking cops to apply a bit of common sense in law enforcement is really too much to ask.
In fact, I do have a friend who is a police officer and she does draw a distinction between pulling a commuter for going 35 in a 30 zone at 6 am in the morning on a road that is open, with good visibility and there is no one around and pulling a jack ass going 50 down the same road when it's busy, parked cars make it harder to see and there are kids walking home from school. She understands that the latter is actually a danger, but the former simply isn't and that pulling the former does nothing other than ruin someone's day, and make them hate the cops for such unnecessary enforcement.
The world isn't ever black and white and the idea that the law should only be enforced in a black and white manner simply means it has less respect from citizens because it doesn't reflect the real world. Some (all?) countries even allow cops explicitly to exercise a bit of common sense so it's not like the binary mindset on Slashdot that the law can only ever be applied black and white if an officer is doing what they should anyway is even correct. For example, police have the leeway to opt to not pursue prosecution in the UK for speeding if you can prove for example that your life was under threat.
Ultimately the best police officers are the ones that recognise what the law is intended to achieve - in this case, road safety, and that if enforcing the letter of the law doesn't achieve that, then it's pointless and possibly even counter-productive to enforce.
So yes, the cop in TFA is a jackass, incompetent, and emblematic of the inevitable race to the bottom of judging cops on how many convictions they get rather than how well they're doing in improving public safety which is the fundamental point of a police force.
Besides, one might argue in just focussing on people texting this cop is being selective in enforcement of laws anyway, because he's choosing to spend all his time enforcing texting laws and none of his time enforcing other laws letting breaches of them go unhandled. Really, this guy is just trying to make himself look like he has an awesome perp catch rate and nothing more, he's a lazy waste of tax payer's money, taking the easy route to try and make himself look like a relevant member of law enforcement by the figures.
Good lord this is the best news I've heard in a while. As someone who walks/bikes and rides public transportation quit a bit I'm a constant target of duechebag "drivers" texting away. It doesn't matter if you're stopped or not(except if the engine isn't running...) If you're texting while you're driving its wrong, and no sugar coated bullshit excuse can relinquish you of your responsibility while driving a motor vehicle.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
> I'd be willing to bet that 90%+ of these texters while stationary also do it while moving.
Yeah, let's just start by assuming one guilt indicates another. That isn't slippery at all....
Yea, you should pull over if you're going to fuck around with any sort of digital device that requires you to stop watching the road and taking your hands off the wheel. Is that really so hard to understand?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Actually it does matter. I have had cars stall and fail when attempting to accelerate from a stop. Discovered the spark plugs got fouled because of a blocked EGR valve. The car ran fine until that moment.
It is 100% the responsibility of the driver who collided with the obstruction for colliding with a non-moving obstruction. The person sitting at a light could be cited for obstruction of traffic; however that does not move the blame for the collision onto him. A person sitting at a light being a dufus could easily be a disabled car, a cop car, a deer, a construction worker, a driver experiencing a heart attack, or any number of things that the next driver needs to remain aware of and react appropriately to.
Or are you the type that also blames gun manufacturers for murders?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I'd bet that 90%+ of your statistic is 99.9% made up! You should probably work on being less jaded. I'd say a large majority of people are reasonable enough to only text at a red light and stay off their phones while driving. From my own car or from the sidewalk I still catch far more people talking with the phone up to their ear than I do catch people texting. Not being able to touch your Navigation for a couple seconds if its mounted to your windshield because its a 'phone' and not a separate $100+ device (that requires yearly subscriptions) is absolutely ridiculous, though.
Technically a 100% of the blame goes to the guy behind who did the rear-ending. I'd feel free to yell at the stationary driver, but it's not legal to just ram someone who doesn't accelerate fast enough for your liking.
I'd be willing to bet that 90%+ of these texters while stationary also do it while moving.
Then it'd be just as straightforward to catch them while moving, as it should be. And a lot easier for them to pull over under those circumstances, as well. I've seen people get lit up by a cop while stopped at a red light...who then panicked and pulled forward into the intersection to almost cause an accident.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
You aren't legally allowed to ram people who don't accelerate as fast as you'd like. It's 100% the rear-enders fault. Legally anyway...
Easy way to stop that problem. Don't do all of the "easy to enforce" things. Then they have nothing left but the drug dealers, rapists, murders, burglars, muggers, etc to catch.
You're only driving in the sense of some weird legal interpretation.
So, you admit, then, that in a legal sense you're still driving. Why the argument, then? Just follow the law and wait until you're not driving.
If you're in a car, stopped at a red light, there is absoloutely no harm in checking a stanav system that happens to be on a phone as opposed to standalone.
I would agree, if not for the fact that it is trivial to switch between a nav app and a texting app. Of course, if you really were just using the satnav you should be able to fight the ticket in court by pulling your own phone records. "Should" being the operative word (all depends on the judge).
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
No, it warrants better driver training. Right now we have air craft pilots train on simulators. We also have fire departments, police departments, military, oil rig crews, crane operators, semi truck drivers, network engineers, astronauts, first aid training, TSA personnel, Nuclear power plant personnel, train personnel, and a myriad of other jobs that all require a simulator for training. But for a standard drivers license you need to show you can drive around the block and memorize a test. We need to show that a person can handle an emergency while driving, not what its like on a sunny day at 35 miles an hour. We have had the technology for a low cost simulator at each dmv for a long time. States need to have them. Prove that a person can handle the most common accident situations safely and you will see the rates go down. Right now they are just not trained to see it happening and what to do when it happens.
There is no activity in a free society that is without risk. We could increase the size of our highway patrols 10 fold and we would not eliminate deaths on our roads.
The question is always one of acceptable risk vs costs. The opportunity cost of reducing highway fatalities by increasing police presence is a reduced presence in high-crime areas.
With a 1 in 100 chance that you will be injured in a car accident, driving is a risky activity. I argue that we as a society don't care that much about the risk - especially not enough to fund a massive increase in our police forces. Smoking kills far more people than car accidents, but I don't see much of a public push to rid the world of that habit. Why is that?
Simply, it is because we value our freedom over absolute security and we sure as hell do not want to pay for more police than is necessary to hold down violent crime.
I have a friend who is a police officer and when I asked him why a neighboring suburb (Edina, MN) was so aggressive about traffic tickets. He lives there (but is an officer in Minneapolis) and said that only a couple of locations are they actually interested in the "safety" component of traffic citations.
He says the rest are just about opportunities to "interview" drivers to fish for other charges -- drugs, drunk driving, etc. He says that some of the speed traps around Southdale shopping mall area nab shoplifters occasionally -- he says they find 10 of the same clothing item in a car and if the guy can't provide a receipt they confiscate the stuff, book the driver on suspicion of shoplifting and impound the car.
It's basically just another kind of "papiere, bitte" situation.
The UK has somewhat different customs in this area (and possibly different laws). I recall reading a comment a few months ago from someone in the UK talking about how many more cars get through a green light in the UK than the US because the UK drivers are all ready to start moving as soon as the light is green, rather than waiting for the car in front of them to move before taking their foot off the brake. It is perhaps unwise, but if that's the habit, it's more understandable.
From a restaurant window on a downtown corner, I recently viewed the following:
A large Jeep pulled up to the red light, followed by an SUV. I didn't see the first driver from my angle, but the SUV had a young woman who was texting something while waiting at the light. As the light changed, the Jeep began to move. It stopped abruptly because a late car from the cross street sailed through the intersection. Apparently cued only by peripheral vision, the woman in the SUV put her foot on the accelerator – without raising her head, while continuing to text. The SUV plowed into the back of the Jeep at a healthy speed, crumpling its own entire front end dramatically (but oddly, not doing any apparent damage to the Jeep, which had one of those large tires strapped to its back that I guess served as a buffer). Both vehicles pulled around the corner of the restaurant I was watching from, and I got to see the insurance information exchange. I found it interesting that the woman continued texting the instant the exchange was over and she had phoned for help.
Nominally, I suppose this was a moving accident but as its instigation happened when the SUV's driver was texting while motionless at a red light, I'm more sympathetic to the above article's cop's "unlawful communications" legal rationale than I might be otherwise. Although from the linked article and legality aside, the cop still sounds like a classic paper-dispensing jerk.
I do hope though that they don't over-do that to the point that people start playing bumper cars at the traffic light to prove that they weren't hesitating.
Or, you know... they could just not text while behind the wheel.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
There is no way a cop can enforce all laws mainly because even they don't know every single law. And yes, after speaking to a cop, it's extremely selective. They can choose to enforce any non-felony offense. They can decide to give you a warning or ruin your day. That kind of power is highly abused.
I'd be willing to bet that people with sports cars often drive faster than the speed limit. We should just issue them speeding tickets when they are stopped at red lights to save some time and trouble.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
About 10 times as many die from motor vehicle accidents each year in the US as died in the 911 attack. This doesn't warrant some traffic cop activity?
No.
It doesn't warrant "some traffic cop activity", it may warrant specific activity that was proven effective in reducing motor vehicle accidents (as opposed to just extracting money from citizens).
However, it definitely warrants investing in better infrastructure.
Do not repeat the classic politician fallacy:
1. Something must be done
2. X is something
3. Therefore, X must be done.
I will say this again: Throw out that stupid outdated "United States Constitution" and write a new one. We're way too far into broken hacks on top of hacks in this alpha-quality code to keep running it in production. One of the very large and obvious defects in this code is the complete failure to implement a good process for creating laws.
Every law should have a simple, plain-language English scope statement written at the top as a preamble. Every single bill. That states the goals of the law and the scope. If technically possible, the scope statement should be written originally in Latin and/or Ancient Greek; it is acceptable to write part of it in Latin and/or ancient Greek to solidly clarify certain descriptive portions while referring to the English portions of the law that specify technical concepts too new to translate into Latin and/or Ancient Greek properly.
An English scope statement will leave you with stupid shit like "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" ending in arguments on whether "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" references the National Guard or the actual individual citizens. A large part of that argument is over whether or not the meaning in 1780 was different from the way we'd interpret this sentence today. That is: a sane, rational, and learned person might generally interpret this to reference the People as a body and thus allow them to have their state raise a military force not under jurisdiction of the Federal Government; however, a sane, rational, and learned person *in* *1780* might correctly read this as that every individual person has the legal right to carry any weapon he wishes.
Latin and Ancient Greek are well-understood dead languages. Sanskrit is also well-understood and dead, but less generally accessible: as little as 50 years ago, Latin and Ancient Greek were both standard core education in America; they still are in some public and many private school systems. A firm working grasp of both Latin and Ancient Greek were necessary to enter top-tier colleges several decades ago. Statements written in these languages have exactly one interpretable meaning, or can be made to have exactly one interpretable meaning; that meaning won't change with linguistic drift over time, as with English, and we won't have to speculate over whether or not a sane, rational person in 1780 meant that each individual should have guns or that the people should be able to raise a non-Federal military force because the specific meaning is right there in clear Greek.
As for actual laws, it should be a 100% bullet-proof legal defense that the law is invalid because it doesn't accomplish its scope. The scope says the law attempts to implement certain measures and for a certain purpose; if either the measure implemented in the part of the law you broke isn't in the scope statement *or* the action you took doesn't fit with the reasoning behind the law (for example: operating your cellphone GPS while parked at a light does NOT pose a danger to others through distracted driving increasing the risk of mis-operating a moving vehicle), the law is not applicable and has no standing.
Remember: The law must satisfy the scope as explained in Latin and Ancient Greek. Any conflict in the English scope statement with these is overruled by these. The Latin and Ancient Greek must not conflict with one another. The Latin and Ancient Greek may be partial clarifications and explanations of the English scope statement, explicitly yielding specific parts of the English scope statement to interpretation. They may even cite that a certain part of the English scope statement cannot be sufficiently explained in Latin or Greek, put bounds on the scope, offer guidance, and yield remaining interpretation as does not run afoul of these bounds and guidance. The full text of the law is in English, but is not valid outside the bounds of this scope.
Are we cool yet?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
About 10 times as many die from motor vehicle accidents each year in the US as died in the 911 attack. This doesn't warrant some traffic cop activity?
No, it doesn't warrant it. It warrants changing your driver's licencing requirements and increasing the difficulty of the tests, so people who shouldn't be put in charge of a golf cart are incapable of passing.
Society sees traffic accidents as a problem of enforcement. It's not. We've been enforcing traffic laws for decades, and accident rates haven't significantly changed. The problem is, we've been handing out driver's licences like crackerjack toys for decades, so we've got complete and total morons behind the wheels of cars.
Take a look at some of the car accident videos on YouTube. Some of them, you wonder how they manage to put their pants on in the morning, because they're so stupid. Yet, the vast majority of these people (allowing for a few who just drive without licences) have passed a driver's test, and obtained a driver's licence.
There's your problem, right there.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Well, yea but, how can we make this Obama's fault?
how many of them where paid? how many that went to court were held up?
I know a lot of police officers. MOst of them are nice people doing their job.
some are assholes. Just like in any group of people.
based on the media report, this guy falls into the asshole camp.
for example:
The officer told us a little trick he uses: If he can't see your screen directly, he just counts the number of times you touch your screen.
So you saw me poking as something and you assume I'm texting? Yeah, see you in court. In fact, I urge everyone who got a ticket it to take it to court.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If they were pulling over speeders, or drunks, or people texting while actually driving, sure. But these are higway robbers when they do this:
- Wait for people who are stuck in traffic under a light that turns red.
- Set needless "no right turn on red" signs then wait for people who do.
- Set quota or reward systems for any of this, including speed traps.
OP is disgusting behavior that is the textbook definition of a robber highwayman, someone taking money by force with zero actual concern for the nominal spirit of the law.
They should be put in jail with other armed robbers. This is not a joke or hyperbole.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Two words for you :
DRUNK. DRIVING.
"In 2011, 9,878 people died in drunk driving crashes - one every 53 minutes" --MADD statistics.
Just saying....
Your mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's been opened.
Yes, you will always have criminals, but right now you can't tell the criminal from the untrained. Show in a simulator to a teen driver what its like to look at your phone and all of a sudden a deer is in your path and you have done far more than a ticket at a stop light because your lottery ticket came up that day.
we've been handing out driver's licences like crackerjack toys for decades, so we've got complete and total morons behind the wheels of cars.
Sure, but if you're going to make it harder to get a license you also need to give people other options for getting around. I live in Vancouver. A few weeks ago I was talking to a woman from Omaha who had moved to suburban Vancouver and she was amazed that she didn't really need a car. She could do everything she needed to do on public transit, with the occasional taxi thrown into the mix. In Omaha that wasn't possible - You simply needed to have a car (or so she said). So if you're going to make it harder to get a license (and by extension take some people off the road) you need to concurrently fund public transit.
I agree with you - I stop at the signs and lights because it's the safe thing to do, and secondarily because of the law.
I still stop at lights and signs even when driving when there is absolutely no one on the road, partly because maintaining the habit is important. Someone might reply, "but I'm so uber competent that I can blow through signs and red lights safely when I see there's no one about".
And that's bullshit - we're all still human, humans make mistakes, and eventually even the uber-competent dude will make one, and someone might die. To those totally awesome people, I say good luck, and I hope I don't share a road with you.
Their updated motto on their squad cars:
"To Collect and Serve..."
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Traffic related fatalities are on par with the amount of gun deaths in the U.S. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-traffic-deaths-rates/1784595/. Plus traffic related fatalities is the leading cause of death among children 2 to 14 years old http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810803.PDF.
One can make the argument that it's not clear the current method of enforcing traffic laws is actually helping those statistics, but that's another point (although the following article says speeding is the leading cause of traffic deaths in NYC: http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/03/18/dot-speeding-the-leading-cause-of-nyc-traffic-deaths-in-2012/). I personally think it's barbaric how many of our deaths and injuries come from vehicles. If you ask me more autonomous ways of driving couldn't come soon enough, in whatever form that takes.
Technically a 100% of the blame goes to the guy behind who did the rear-ending
Why did you even use the word 'technically'? 100% of the blame rightly goes to the one doing the rear ending. If my car died while waiting at a red light someone doesn't have the right to kill me.
Even if you are doing something illegal, that doesn't shift blame for the actual accident. If I am listening to a pirated song on my MP3 player when someone rear ends me I don't share in blame for that either.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
This is interesting to me because it's reminiscent of my thesis for Poli Sci. Fundamentally, the problem is that a constitution is a technical document, yet The Constitution was written as a poem, and assumed that it would be read by gentlemen.
I also recommended including a specific edition of a law dictionary as part of the whole, table of contents and index, inclusionary and exclusionary examples and one or two other things.
Good luck with that.
Traffic stops are one of the most dangerous activities that the police engage in on a regular basis. It's very easy to get hit by traffic, and you don't know who the person in the car is. They might just as well decide to pull a gun on you and when you try to put a little distance between you, you get hit by the truck in the next lane.
drug dealers, rapists, murders, burglars, muggers
One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others, by the time I finish my song?
Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Someone in a sports car sitting at a red light isn't violating a law. Someone texting while they are in control of a vehicle is violating a law. See the difference?
If you think that it's stupid for that to be illegal, then the solution is to change the law, not berate the cop.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
"Rights" are just a masturbatory fantasy some people have where they think certain "laws" are something else. You see, when we write a law, we sometimes write down things that sound fancy--like that people are endowed by some higher being with certain "rights". Or like that it is good and proper to help the poor, hence why you must pay extra taxes to shelter homeless drifters. Or like how killing babies is wrong, so birth control and condoms must be illegal because God says every sperm is sacred. That sort of thing.
In Islamic nations, immodesty is also not so much a "law" as a "moral corruption," and the law isn't really a thing that's written by people so much as it's very much a thing just like "rights" we have. That's why it's okay to behead women who wear miniskirts.
The only thing that ensures "rights" are that these laws are written in a medium that's incredibly difficult to change *and* that the government will face consequences for acting contrary to those laws. Constitutional law provides a framework by which certain laws cannot be amended without amending Constitutional law *or* by showing that certain parts of constitutional law conflict and that certain selective interpretation is necessary to best achieve the goals of constitutional law.
Not long ago, Latin and Ancient Greek (not Modern Greek) were taught in public school. Today we say that laws are impossible for the common man to interpret, and that we need lawyers. Is it not fathomable that criteria to be a lawyer would include adequate fluency in Ancient Greek and Latin to interpret laws by existing knowledge or by obtaining a dictionary and expanding your knowledge on the spot? Basic fluency in Latin would allow you to go, "What is that word?" and then expand your knowledge by opening a book and reading it. I'm not talking about "Conversational Latin" here; I'm talking about the ability to read poetry and books and old legal documents, pages and paragraphs. Basic fluency in Japanese is the ability to read a Japanese newspaper with its 2000-ish kanji, hiragana, and katakana, and functionally understand it; you will encounter other words in Japanese you don't know, but you can quickly look those up and your fluency grows. Same deal with Latin and Greek.
Time to go.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Seriously? As an honest reply to this (okay, I admit, I just got trolled) traffic cops are there for several reasons.
A) Revenue collection. I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit that up front.
B) Keeping traffic close to speed limits. Yeah, the definition of "close" varies from cop to cop, and that makes it hard for a driver to drive with a lot of confidence of just how fast you can drive without getting a ticket. I hate that. I'd like an up front admission of "The speed limit is 70, but we won't ticket anyone doing under 82 unless they are otherwise driving unsafely". We'll never see that. Besides, "driving unsafely" is hard to define, but it's easy to give the guy changing lanes unsafely a speeding ticket, and it punishes unsafe behavior about as well (which means, not very) as a reckless driving ticket does, but it takes less to defend in court.
C) Being nearby when there is an accident. A nearby traffic cop is a first-responder for a traffic accident, and that job saves lives. They also do care-and-comfort during and after accidents. You look in any highway patrolman's trunk, and you'll find a teddy bear to be given to the little kid that survived a traffic accident (whose parent maybe didn't).
Most good traffic cops (and almost all Highway Patrol) regard speeding tickets as a way to get traffic to slow down so when there is an accident, there will be fewer deaths. In their job, it's always "when" and not "if" there is an accident. Energy is mass times velocity squared, remember.
Doing A lets the state pay for more cops to be around for C. Can't really tell you if I like that trade-off or not.
And yeah, none of this stops me from being pissed when I get a speeding ticket. Don't they have something better to do than bug me when I'm not hurting anyone?!?! ;)
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
The problem is, it isn't endangering nobody. When you divert your attention from driving, you are endangering youself, your passengers, pedestrians and other drivers and passengers.
It's not *nobody*. If you're going to drive a nearly one ton missile, you should retain uninterrupted control. if you don't, you're negligent.
Not necessarily. Depends on where you live, I know of a couple cases where I live (Canada):
In Ayers v. Singh, 1997 CanLII 3410 (BCCA) the lead vehicle stopped suddenly at a green light after he became confused by a left turn signal that had turned red, and was then rear ended by a vehicle driven by the plaintiff:
In Niven v. Raguz, 1991 CanLII 506 (BCSC) the plaintiff stopped at a green light in anticipation of an amber light because a police car had been on her right. The defendant rear-ended her, and was found 80% liable for following too close, particularly because of the reasonable prospect of ice or snow on the road surface. The plaintiff was found 20% of the liability for making a stop that was unexpectedly abrupt in the circumstances:
If someone was stopped texting at a green light and they got rearended they would get some or all of the fault here.
I will say this again: Throw out that stupid outdated "United States Constitution" and write a new one.
The problem with that is that the original Constitution was written during the Age of Enlightenment. The philosophical underpinnings of our Constitution are nowhere to be found in modern society, and those in power are actively trying to sabotage institutions and movements that would lead to another Enlightenment. Any attempt to rewrite the Constitution would leave us worse off than we are now.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Curiosity overcame me. Apparently Georgia is one such state. Pedestrians in crosswalks have the right of way, even at lights.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Georgia law(O.C.G.A., or Original Code of Georgia Annotated; O.C.G.A. 40-8-91 (a)) requires that law enforcement vehicles used to enforce traffic laws be marked with, at the very least, four inch block lettering on the driver and passenger side, indicating the agency that operates the vehicle, and lettering on the deck lid(trunk) indicating the same. All other law enforcement vehicles, namely "unmarked" vehicles, are prohibited from initiating traffic stops, save for true exigent circumstances. Sadly, there are a few states that allow or tolerate unmarked law enforcement vehicle enforcement traffic law.
Virginia was the worst, from what I witnessed on my trips between Georgia and Washington, D.C. There were many areas where multiple "unmarked"(no agency markings, or any markings, and no lights mounted outside of the vehicle) vehicles were lined up, waiting to initiate stops for what seemed like every 10 miles, or so. That is inviting major risk where it can be easily avoided.
I do have a serious problem with some of the actions of the officer discussed in the aforementioned article. O.C.G.A. 40-6-241.2 doesn't broadly cover "operating a motor vehicle", unlike other O.C.G.A. Title 40 laws do. If a driver is at a point of rest, even with a motor vehicle that has its motor in active operation and the vehicle's transmission is set in a gear that allows for forward or rearward locomotion, there is no legitimate reason to cite said driver for operating a mobile phone, or other device not exempted by 40-6-241.2("...citizens band radios, citizens band radio hybrids, commercial two-way radio communication devices, subscription based emergency communications, in-vehicle security, navigation devices, and remote diagnostics systems, or amateur or ham radio devices."). Once the vehicle is in motion, the driver would be in violation of O.C.G.A. 40-6-241.2(unless the driver is one of the "special people" exempted by that law.
I am an ex-law enforcement officer in the State of Georgia. I arrested more than a few people for DUI without the vehicle being in motion during any of the time I, or any other law enforcement officer observed the violation(most traffic violations have to be observed by a law enforcement officer in order to stop and/or cite for the offense). So, I understand the distinction between driving, in the practical sense, and the legal view of being in control of a motor vehicle. This law isn't as broad as the officer believes it to be.
I do know a guy who got out of such a ticket by immediately chucking his keys into the neighbors lawn (out of reach), before the cops got on scene. Boy, were they pissed!
No you don't. No such event has happened anywhere other than an episode of Reno 911. Reno 911 is not reality, stop trying to act like it.
Thats one of the biggest bunches of bullshit that has ever been said by newly drinking and driving morons. There is no requirement for the cops to see the keys in the ignition, near the car or anything else. You don't get to skirt by with your 'clever' little trick. Sorry, you or your friend is full of shit. There are hundreds of different counters they can use to argue with you about it, but they don't. They just take your ass to jail for trying to bullshit them AND dui.
You're just repeating a high school meme spoken by idiot kids.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Contrary to to your ignorance, then just like now, not everyone on the planet was a bigoted asshole.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
No, of course not. It was just illegal for women to, oh I don't know, vote? And also blacks couldn't vote either, or go to school. Oh, and if a white man accused a black man of a crime, there was no need for court; until around 1920 it was legal to simply hang them right there. And we bought and sold them--in some states, if you were black, you were property, regardless. Oh and women knew their place, knew they didn't have a right to talk back, and knew they didn't belong... you know... outside, doing things.
Have you actually looked at what made this country great? Our crowning achievement is being a model for Adolf Hitler's extermination of the Jews. He quite liked how we handled the indigenous people of the North American continent.
Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination--by starvation and uneven combat--of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.
Toland, John. "Adolph Hitler", pg. 202.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Are you fucking kidding me? how can anyone defend purposefully distracted driving, driving with a cel phone in your hand.
Do you take your eyes off the road to change the radio station? I sure as hell don't. Same with the environmental controls. If its your car, you should not have to look down to find the correct button or knob, it all becomes muscle memory.
Its the fucking narcissistic facebook generation you are defending here. And it is by all means not only the youth who do this. No one needs to make a phone call, send a text, or check their facebook status while they are driving a car!!! Like seriously! how can people defend this bullshit! If you are driving in a car, keep your fucking eyes on the road!!! NO EXCEPTIONS! Check your status, or return that call WHEN YOU GET TO YOUR DESTINATION. Jesus christ. Finaly a cop doing their job, not pulling over someone for speeding or driving while black or some other bullshit and people on slashdot whine: whhaaa i want to play angry birds at stoplights because i cant have a minute of fucking downtime with my mind idle or i will get lonely and DIE.
fuck everything about using a phone while driving. cars should have cel phone jammers activated by default when the car is running. I have a recurring fantasy about buying one of the larger area effect jammers form deal extreme and mounting it in my trunk, with antennas poking out. This madness of hand held devices needs to stop. you can't even walk down the street anymore without dodging a bunch of zoned out zombies.
For fucks sake what has happened to society in the last 5 years? everyone only wants to be in their own little world where they are the center. I had a palm in 1997 and sure as hell wouldn't have been driving and using it. The barriers to entry have dropped and so have peoples common sense it seems. I would think slashdot would see the light, and yet here we are at 900+ comments, half of which are defending the god damn texters!!!
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
No, you really don't. You deserve a parking ticket, and you deserve blame for the traffic snarls and loss of income, but any actual accidents are the fault of the people who made the driving mistakes that caused them.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Wow, angry much? I sincerely hope you are never ever given authority over anything. Even imagining authority has you so juiced you forgot the entire context of the conversation.
I was clearly talking about texting in a stopped vehicle (you know, the topic from TFA and this whole thread). In a situation where moving the vehicle would actually break the law. If you can tell me how I might go off the road or run over someone in a vehicle that is not moving, I'd love to hear it.
No, you are wrong.
It is ALWAYS the responsibility of a drive to be able to stop safety in the visible road ahead.
ALWAYS.
You may not agree with it, but its the law, when you hit the back of a car in front of you (unless it
actively reversed in to you), you are ALWAYS at fault.
end of story.
Well, using your logic, if changing the station or adjusting environmental controls requires use of a touch screen as most smart phones have, then I would agree. However, changing the station and adjusting environmental controls don't require the use of a touch screen, so I don't have to look at them while I change the setting.
Automobiles have been designed with safety in mind.
Smart Phones have not.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
If the police were consistent in their arse-hattedness then the laws would be changed pretty damn quick. The fact that they are not gives the police leeway to be selective about such matters, which is bound to lead to persecution of those said police do not like in many cases.
A deer in my path while I have my car fully braked at a stop light is of no concern to me. The deer will likely move before I do, even if my light turns green.