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New York Turns Rest Stops Into 'Texting Zones'
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has announced a new plan to cut down on texting while driving: 'texting zones' along state highways. Existing parking areas, rest stops, and Park-n-Ride facilities will be designated as places for drivers to pull off the road and send text messages. There will be 91 locations to start, along with a few hundred signs to notify drivers. Cuomo said, "With this new effort, we are sending a clear message to drivers that there is no excuse to take your hands off the wheel and eyes off the road because your text can wait until the next Texting Zone." This follows a 365% increase in tickets issued for distracted driving this summer, compared to last summer. The increase comes in part from New York state police using unmarked SUVs with "platforms higher than an average vehicle, allowing officers greater ability to see into other vehicles and detect individuals in the process of sending text messages."
They could, they just think signs will help. Just like all those "Keep right except to pass" signs that everyone in NY ignores.
This may be the first relevant "First post". Because it's exactly as useful, effective and accurate as "texting zones"
"Which, of course, means nothing to the impatient texters who didn't see the sign because they were looking at their phone.
ftfy
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Cuomo, I beg you. For God's sake... please designate a drinking zone. Please.
Maybe service? New York has a lot of rural, hilly areas where you might get a revolving half-bar of service even on Verizon or AT&T. The smaller carriers, like Sprint and T-Mobile, have no chance in these locations.
I don't know if they've confirmed cell service for all networks in these places specifically. If not, it's going to draw the attention of lawyers all over the state.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
This sounds stupid.
It sounds stupid . . . because it is stupid . . . but a lot of drivers are even more stupid . . . apparently.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
People may not want to stop for unmarked cars even if they do have flashing lights. There are some very strange & sick people out there and some of them impersonate police.
Trying to prevent distracted driving is simply an infeasible task. The reality of the world is that drivers are becoming increasingly distracted with every passing year, from GPS navigation devices to touchscreen radios, from Amber alerts on digital traffic signs to digital advertising billboards. All the other pieces of additional visual information that we didn't encounter twenty years ago make driving less safe, but reversing that trend is a bit like draining the Atlantic Ocean with a soup spoon. Not only will you never get there, but you'll also never really make any appreciable progress even though at first glance, you might think you are. Instead, we have to design vehicles, traffic lights, and other systems to be resilient to distraction and to minimize the negative ramifications thereof.
The reason for such an approach is that the problem you describe is not even remotely limited to texting; it also occurs for adjusting the radio, changing the air conditioning, scratching your back, or doing any of a million other possible things while stopped at the light. These things are only a problem because the traffic lights in America are substandard.
The best way to explain is with a quick anecdote. While walking around in Europe last week, by my estimation, about 80% of drivers were either on the phone or texting at lights, yet when the light turned green, they moved. Why? Because European traffic lights indicate not only when the light is about to turn red, but also when it is about to turn green. As a result, they don't have to constantly watch the light, waiting patiently for it to suddenly switch from red to green, but instead can glance up periodically and notice that it has moved to a red + yellow state (or red + orange in Europe), stop what they are doing, and be ready to begin driving again when the light turns green a few seconds later.
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Indeed, and especially assuming the officer that pulls you over is a plain clothes officer. Given some attempts at police impersonators, I've seen recommendations FROM POLICE that if there's a question of an unmarked / un-uniformed officer pulling you over, to call dispatch and verify. Maybe that doesn't work in 'merica where you'll be thrown in Guantanamo before your call can be completed.
What if I get a scrap of wood, paint it to look like a cellphone, and get pulled over for texting because a policeman saw me glancing at it and poking at it while driving. Have I broken a law? What precisely or generally would I be charged with?
Taking it further: suppose I get pulled over for bona fide texting, but in the time it takes to be pulled over I launch an app that wipes out record of my having texted, and I switch my phone for the above-mentioned painted wooden block and take the position that I was not using my cellphone... perhaps because I resent the non-coherence of a law that targets cellphone users while leaving numerous other driver distractions untouched... or perhaps because I just like seeming like I'm important... or whatever. Other than going to the trouble of checking my cell records to see if I was sending texts, or just insisting that they don't believe me, what argument does law enforcement have? What if I can point to youtube videos I've posted of me using the wooden block numerous times in traffic, for the hell of it?
I think this would be interesting, as it would force The System to clarify whether doing ANYTHING that looked remotely like texting was illegal. That's a distinction they've been spared so far by the built-in assumption that if it looks like a cellphone then it is one... from a prosecutorial perspective, that's really an important pillar of the law in its current form.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
You call them "texting zones", and I call them, "downloading-hentai-and-wanking-'til-I-get-blisters zones".
Vive la difference!
You are welcome on my lawn.
Actually, the *old* police state, just catching up with technology. I can't imagine a more awful place to live, where your every move is subject to surveillance and unlawful searches. What's worse is that New Yorkers actually vote these fascists in office.
Guess you get to lie in the bed you make after all. No sympathies here.
A goodly number of them ARE police officers.
I bet the truck driver got a good laugh out of that one, two hotshots colliding with each other.
Drivers caught texting while driving should lose their license for a year on the spot on the first offense, no exceptions. Such wanton disregard for public safety is inexcusable. The fact that the tickets are such a minor offense right now does practically nothing to discourage this dangerous behavior.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
No, have a real 'drunk driving is bad' law. None of that suspended license stuff.
1) If you are driving drunk, and kill someone, you are executed. No exceptions. 2) Do you even need another rule?
It's been repeatedly established that the death penalty is no deterrent to crime. What we need is a ban on people possessing mobile phones. People don't kill people, people driving and texting with mobile phones kill people. These dangerous weapons are too powerful to be in the hands of the general population. The Founding Fathers never imagined this when they crafted the First Amendment.
:)