U.S. Goverment Shames Texting Drivers on Twitter (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader writes: "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is the federal body tasked with automotive safety," reports the Verge, adding "If you look at NHTSA's Twitter feed right now, you'll find that it's just a non-stop stream of burns aimed at people who admit -- sometimes gleefully -- that they text and drive."

For example, seeing a tweet that read, "I have no problem texting while driving, but I won't text while going down stairs, the NHTSA replied "You might not have a problem with the texting & driving...but we do. Stay off your phone and #justdrive - it's not worth it." And seeing a tweet that read "I text and drive way too much," they responded, "Um, agreed... Please realize you're putting yourself and others in danger, and a silly text isn't worth it. #justdrive".
The Verge argues "For what it's worth, NHTSA is right: countless studies have linked texting in the driver's seat with higher accident rates... Getting shamed online by a government agency is far harsher than getting shamed by a friend -- but it's still a lot better than getting killed over an email." To which the NHTSA responded on Twitter, "Thanks for the shoutout, .@verge! #justdrive"

Comments

Re:NHTSA does not have moral authority to shame

[Anonymous Coward]

It's costs a lot of money to buy cars and destroy them.

Oh, I see, you didn't think that they let the car companies provide them test samples directly, did you? How silly. That's just an invitation to commit fraud by providing samples that don't match what is manufactured. That's why they buy cars from random dealers.

Re:Good. Texting drivers kill people.

[Applehu Akbar]

My dad was killed by a texting driver while he rode his bike. The whole thing was caught on his camera, and in the video from his rear-facing camera, you can even see, in crystal clear high definition, that the driver's head is looking down towards her lap the whole time.

This also happened in one well known case in Los Angeles, where the texter was a cop. He was not even indicted:
http://www.dailynews.com/gener...

Re:Harsh laws...

[AmiMoJo]

Public transport in most of the UK is terrible. Some cities, like inner London and Birmingham, are an exception, but for the most part a car is essential.

Drinking and driving became socially unacceptable here, much like smoking indoors has. It was down partly to some pretty shocking advertising on TV, and the potential repercussions of being caught (fine, points on licence, massively increase mandatory insurance costs).

Re:Harsh laws...

[squiggleslash]

In most of the UK, a car isn't merely unessential, it's a liability, with no space on the roads and great difficulty parking it. On the odd occasion a city's bus system is subadequate, a bicycle is almost always a superior way to get around compared to a car.

British people bitch and moan about transit, sure. That's partially because it's transit, and like the weather, the post office, and TV, it's something everyone bitches and moans about regardless of quality; but it's also partially because that's what British people do, about everything.

I've only been in one place, a part of rural Wales, where a car was probably something you'd want, but even so I didn't need one, I used bicycles and rail and the occasional bus to get where I wanted to go.

Re:Harsh laws...

[TheRaven64]

I don't disagree that public transport is pretty bad in much of the UK (unless your baseline for calibration is the USA), but there are some important differences. Cities in the UK tend to interleave different property types. This means that most people live within easy walking distance of a pub (most villages collect around one and you'll find at least one in most residential areas of a city). In contrast, UC city designers like ensuring the places where people live and places where people want to be are as far apart as possible, so that it's basically impossible to get from home to a bar without driving.

As a knock-on effect from this, if you do need to get to the pub in a car and there aren't busses (and there often are in many cities, though they're not always convenient), a 10-15 minute ride in a taxi is pretty cheap. Most US cities sprawl so much that it's a 30-40 minute drive, which is a lot more expensive.