Truckers get paid by the mile. Pulling over for a few minutes to correspond with the boss amount to unpaid work time. As for the text-to-speech thing, wtf? If text-to-speech actually makes it any safer (and there is some evidence it does not) then there would not have been an accident in the first place, and we would not be in court trying to figure out who is responsible.
Look, the law is not concerned with 'what ifs' and 'possibilities', it is concerned with what actually happened and what a 'reasonable man' would make of that. Would a 'reasonable man' think that when a truckers boss sends him a text, the boss actually thinks the trucker is going to lose money by pulling over to read it? Maybe if the company had a policy of paying extra miles every time they sent a text. Otherwise no, a reasonable person would come to the conclusion that the boss knows damn well the driver is going to read it while driving, even if that is not what they intend them to do. And knowing a probably outcome, and doing it anyway is called negligence.
There is no prosecutor, because this is not about criminal law. This is a civil law, about deciding who is responsible for an accident. There can be more than one responsible party. And you are seriously deluding yourself if the think the following exchange is unlikely:
Plaintiff: Were you reading a text? Trucker: Yes P: Why? T: My company sends out traffic alerts as text messages P: And why is that important enough for you to break the law by reading them? T: Because if I miss the alert and get caught in traffiic my delivery will be late. And the company has a policy that three late deliveries in a month is grounds for termination. P: Is it true that you send out text alerts for traffic problems? Boss: Yes P: Is it true that you have a policy of termination for late delivery? B: Yes P: Do you expect your drivers to break the law by reading these texts? B: Certainly not. We expect the driver to look at the texts the next time he stops P: And how many times does a driver stop on a 200 mile trip B: Generally none P: I see. So why did you sent him the text? B: He should pull over to read the texts P: Do you provide him with a phone to be used only for receiving these texts? B: No P: So you expect him to pull over every time anyone sends him a text? B: Yes P: Wouldn't that make him late, possibly later than being caught in traffic? B: Maybe P: So why do you send the texts, if he doesn't make any scheduled stops, and he can't realistically pull over every time his phone beeps? B: Um P: Are you sure you don't think he will read your texts while driving?
The driver in this case was a truck driver, he probably worked for a trucking company. Now, suppose his boss had the habit of texting him 'urgent' information, and that continued employment depending on responding to/acting on those texts.
The driver has free will
. Yep, and his 'free will' choice is now 'ignore the text and lose my job, or look at the text and maybe be in an accident'. I'm guess that one of those outcomes is much more likely than the other - so much for his 'free will'.
The driver has moral awareness
Yep, and probably a big part of that awareness is his responsibility to provide for his family
The driver is capable of being in control of the situation
Which situation is he in control of? The employment situation, or the reading a text situation?
Yes, the driver is responsible for his actions, and NOBODY has claimed otherwise. But what possible reason is there of stripping the bos of HIS moral responsibility for putting the driver in that position (of having to choose between keeping his job and looking at a text) in the first place? THAT is what the judge is getting at, and you have not provided any valid argument against it.
'By this logic'... What, exacly, is that logic? The thinking that there could possibly be a circumstance where the texter could be held liable (since that is what the judge said)? If that is the issue (and it must be), then your position is that there can be NO circumstances where the texter could be held liable, right?
OK, what about a trucking company that decides it would be a good idea to text it's drivers traffic alerts. The trucker now has a choice: ignore the text, miss the alert, and be late with his delivery (counting against him because he ignored the alert), pull over every time he gets a text, even if it is only a minute since the last one (causing him to be late, counting against him again), or read the text. If he chooses 'read the text' and is involved in an accident, why on earth shouldn't the company be held responsible for putting him in that position? They know he is driving, it is his job. They know he will read text because the consequences of not reading the text fall on him.
A text message does not have an 'expectation'. The sender of a text message does. So in your case, your expectation is that the person will only look when he is not driving. However, some people may have a different expectation, such as a delivery mans boss. He may have the expectation that when he texts his employee, the employee will respond ASAP. And in such a case, the texter should be held liable.
Yes, I do feel that Verizon should be held liable. I agree that the circumstances are very narrow and the summary was making it seem extreme. My objection was just to your use of the word 'never'. There are real cases where it makes sense to hold the texter liable, but they are indeed rare.
Not so. As an example, I know someone who was rear-ended by a Verizon truck. The driver of the truck was checking texts from his dispatcher. Why was he doing that while driving? Per his explanation, it counted against them if they did not acknowledge an instruction in a certain amount of time. Now, Verizon settled this case quickly, but I can imagine if it were more serious it would have gone to court. And I can absolutely see Verizon being held responsible for putting the employee in a position like that.
Good God, not this idiotic statement again. He never said any such thing. He was telling a story about the development of their first commercial computer. He said that he had his engineers draw up a design on paper. He then took that paper design to 20 different potential buyers to gauge interest. He said 'I hoped to get five orders, we got eighteen.' He was not making some grand prediction about the world market for computers, he was hoping to get a minimum of five orders for a particular as-yet-to-be-built computer, after showing it to a grand total of 20 customers.
I can offer a guess as to #1. Most likely Placebo Corp has a corporate donations policy, and corporate decides when and who to give donations to. However, there is some project manager who begged and pleaded for a budget of $X and didn't spend it all. Now, he wants to get rid of the 'excess' money because he is afraid next years budget will be lowered because he didn't spend all of this years. So, this manager, and apparently his flunkies, are trying to commit fraud against their company by claiming they spent the money on a legitimate expense while really they just gave it away. The problem is, the company will take those 'expenses' and claim them as tax deductions, when in fact there was no expense. The company has now just committed tax fraud thanks to these bozos.
IMHO, whoever hatched this scheme or agreed to go along with it needs to be fired ASAP.
Companies can write of legitimate expenses related to R&D, etc. Donating money is not a legitimate expense. Claiming it is a legitimate expense is fraud, plain and simple. If you want to donate money, go ahead. That is also deductible and can be written off. Or maybe you can explain how you submit a fake invoice to your company (no matter what your motivations are) and NOT have that show up as a (fraudulent) expense on their tax forms.
You are the one who doesn't know what it means. From the IRS website:
"The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency."
Do you see anything in there about doing paid work for someone?
In 1964, most windows were still glazed with a single pane. They let lots of heat in during the summer and out during the winter. In addition, the sun coming in through the windows tended to fade carpets and furniture. Today, with double and triple glazing, and low e coatings, we get the light without the problems.
To be clear, if you are in the US your FICO 'credit score' does not contain this kind of stuff. That score is made up of your available credit, repayment history, etc. The 'credit agencies' you refer to are not the agencies that give the FICO score. They are companies that try to determine an applicants creditworthiness in places that don't have the equivalent of FICO scores.
These companies aren't banks. They are on-line 'better' ways of getting a loan. Lenddo, from the Philipines, is (according to their web site) "the world’s first online platform that helps the emerging middle class use their social connections to build their creditworthiness and access local financial services." Kredittech, from Germany, "uses BIG DATA and complex machine-learning algorithms to make better credit decisions." Kabbage, from the US, gets loans for small businesses, and they use real-time pay-pal data to see cash flow.
There is ZERO corroborating evidence that this story is true. None (at least none that has been presented yet).
There are lots of people who look at 'corroborating evidence' and come to the conclusion that there must be a creator. Does all of that 'corroborating evidence' mean that their creation stories are true?
Exactly. This is similar to the story a few weeks ago where someone on Long Island said they got a visit from the FBI because one person searched 'pressure cookers' while someone else used a different computer to seach for something else. Of course the/. crowd was all over this, claiming that this was proof that the NSA was doing deep packet inspection of every transaction, Google was forwarding all queries to the NSA, etc, etc. Then when the real story came out it was that the guys ex-boss called the local police when he noticed that the guy had done some searches for pressure cookers on his work computer.
Many times the people on here remind me of the old Gilda Radner sketches where Emily Litella would go on a rant about something, only to find out she misunderstood what was actually happening, then say 'Oh, that's very different. Never mind'.
It means that the thing is a relatively safe weapon. What do you think it means? Very few people shoot guns with the intent to kill another person. How many rounds of ammo were fired in the US last year? I am guessing millions. How many of those rounds were fired while attempting to kill another person? A few thousand.
You could apply your wonderful reasoning to ANYTHING that can be used as a weapon. How many people were killed last year by getting hit on the head with a hammer? How many of those hits were intentional? What does that say about hammers?
If you actually invest (like the GP said) and don't speculate, the odds are still in your favor. Things like 'getting information 2 seconds earlier' do not affect investors, they affect speculators. Unless the entire market is permenantly and constantly losing money (it isn't) the odds are in your favor if you buy and hold a diversified portfolio.
And how exactly do those greater discrepancies in vehicle speed lead to fatal accidents? They don't (unless of course the person who considers himself the superior driver, ie the speeder, has to take some action when he encounters the slower traffic and causes an accident).
Deaths per billion vehicle miles: Canada 8.2, US 8.5. Not exactly a large difference there. There is more of a difference in per capita deaths, but that could be because the average Canadian drives less than the average American. If you're not on the road, you're not likely to be killed in a car accident.
Because per mile driven tells you how safe (or dangerous) it is to be on the road, while per capita just tells you how likely it is for someone to be killed in an accident. The per capita rate fluctuates with population and driving habits (number of miles driven), so it is not a good indicator of road safety and/or improvements.
So you're saying that the US has done nothing to improve traffic safety? No cell phone or texting laws, no crackdowns on DWI, no improvements to cars or roads? Traffic fatalitiies (per mile driven) have decreased almost every year for the last 90 years. Your post says absolutely NOTHING about 'America's priorities'.
The controls themselves were simpler, but the usage of the oven was much more complicated. Today, with the 'complex' controls, if you want to thaw a pound of meat you hit the 'thaw meat' button, and maybe enter the weight of the meat. In the 70's, with the 'brain dead simple' controls, the procedure was look at a chart to find 'thaw meat'. The chart said 'Set power level to x, run for 2 minutes, wait 2 minutes, set power level to y, run 3 minutes, rotate food, wait 2 minutes' etc. Failure to properly follow the chart meant ruining your food. The result was (at least in my house) that the microwave was used primarily for boiling water. My parents (who were in their 30's in the 70's when they got their first microwave) still use the microwave primarily for boiling water. This has nothing to do with them being old or unable to grasp new concepts.
Authorization means that the owner has given you permission. Period. It has NOTHING to do with technical controls. The means of notification of authorization (or lack thereof) are immaterial. As soon as they received the C&D letter they were unauthorized and knew it. Stop pretending it is otherwise.
What do you think happens when you go to a website? Too stupid to know? OK, I'll tell you: you use their servers. There is NO WAY that you are looking at ANYTHING on Craigslist, or any other website, without using their property.
Slashdot Mirror
Truckers get paid by the mile. Pulling over for a few minutes to correspond with the boss amount to unpaid work time. As for the text-to-speech thing, wtf? If text-to-speech actually makes it any safer (and there is some evidence it does not) then there would not have been an accident in the first place, and we would not be in court trying to figure out who is responsible.
Look, the law is not concerned with 'what ifs' and 'possibilities', it is concerned with what actually happened and what a 'reasonable man' would make of that. Would a 'reasonable man' think that when a truckers boss sends him a text, the boss actually thinks the trucker is going to lose money by pulling over to read it? Maybe if the company had a policy of paying extra miles every time they sent a text. Otherwise no, a reasonable person would come to the conclusion that the boss knows damn well the driver is going to read it while driving, even if that is not what they intend them to do. And knowing a probably outcome, and doing it anyway is called negligence.
There is no prosecutor, because this is not about criminal law. This is a civil law, about deciding who is responsible for an accident. There can be more than one responsible party. And you are seriously deluding yourself if the think the following exchange is unlikely:
Plaintiff: Were you reading a text?
Trucker: Yes
P: Why?
T: My company sends out traffic alerts as text messages
P: And why is that important enough for you to break the law by reading them?
T: Because if I miss the alert and get caught in traffiic my delivery will be late. And the company has a policy that three late deliveries in a month is grounds for termination.
P: Is it true that you send out text alerts for traffic problems?
Boss: Yes
P: Is it true that you have a policy of termination for late delivery?
B: Yes
P: Do you expect your drivers to break the law by reading these texts?
B: Certainly not. We expect the driver to look at the texts the next time he stops
P: And how many times does a driver stop on a 200 mile trip
B: Generally none
P: I see. So why did you sent him the text?
B: He should pull over to read the texts
P: Do you provide him with a phone to be used only for receiving these texts?
B: No
P: So you expect him to pull over every time anyone sends him a text?
B: Yes
P: Wouldn't that make him late, possibly later than being caught in traffic?
B: Maybe
P: So why do you send the texts, if he doesn't make any scheduled stops, and he can't realistically pull over every time his phone beeps?
B: Um
P: Are you sure you don't think he will read your texts while driving?
It's all so nicely black and white, isn't it?
The driver in this case was a truck driver, he probably worked for a trucking company. Now, suppose his boss had the habit of texting him 'urgent' information, and that continued employment depending on responding to/acting on those texts.
The driver has free will
. Yep, and his 'free will' choice is now 'ignore the text and lose my job, or look at the text and maybe be in an accident'. I'm guess that one of those outcomes is much more likely than the other - so much for his 'free will'.
The driver has moral awareness
Yep, and probably a big part of that awareness is his responsibility to provide for his family
The driver is capable of being in control of the situation
Which situation is he in control of? The employment situation, or the reading a text situation?
Yes, the driver is responsible for his actions, and NOBODY has claimed otherwise. But what possible reason is there of stripping the bos of HIS moral responsibility for putting the driver in that position (of having to choose between keeping his job and looking at a text) in the first place? THAT is what the judge is getting at, and you have not provided any valid argument against it.
'By this logic'... What, exacly, is that logic? The thinking that there could possibly be a circumstance where the texter could be held liable (since that is what the judge said)? If that is the issue (and it must be), then your position is that there can be NO circumstances where the texter could be held liable, right?
OK, what about a trucking company that decides it would be a good idea to text it's drivers traffic alerts. The trucker now has a choice: ignore the text, miss the alert, and be late with his delivery (counting against him because he ignored the alert), pull over every time he gets a text, even if it is only a minute since the last one (causing him to be late, counting against him again), or read the text. If he chooses 'read the text' and is involved in an accident, why on earth shouldn't the company be held responsible for putting him in that position? They know he is driving, it is his job. They know he will read text because the consequences of not reading the text fall on him.
A text message does not have an 'expectation'. The sender of a text message does. So in your case, your expectation is that the person will only look when he is not driving. However, some people may have a different expectation, such as a delivery mans boss. He may have the expectation that when he texts his employee, the employee will respond ASAP. And in such a case, the texter should be held liable.
Yes, I do feel that Verizon should be held liable. I agree that the circumstances are very narrow and the summary was making it seem extreme. My objection was just to your use of the word 'never'. There are real cases where it makes sense to hold the texter liable, but they are indeed rare.
Not so. As an example, I know someone who was rear-ended by a Verizon truck. The driver of the truck was checking texts from his dispatcher. Why was he doing that while driving? Per his explanation, it counted against them if they did not acknowledge an instruction in a certain amount of time. Now, Verizon settled this case quickly, but I can imagine if it were more serious it would have gone to court. And I can absolutely see Verizon being held responsible for putting the employee in a position like that.
Good God, not this idiotic statement again. He never said any such thing. He was telling a story about the development of their first commercial computer. He said that he had his engineers draw up a design on paper. He then took that paper design to 20 different potential buyers to gauge interest. He said 'I hoped to get five orders, we got eighteen.' He was not making some grand prediction about the world market for computers, he was hoping to get a minimum of five orders for a particular as-yet-to-be-built computer, after showing it to a grand total of 20 customers.
I can offer a guess as to #1. Most likely Placebo Corp has a corporate donations policy, and corporate decides when and who to give donations to. However, there is some project manager who begged and pleaded for a budget of $X and didn't spend it all. Now, he wants to get rid of the 'excess' money because he is afraid next years budget will be lowered because he didn't spend all of this years. So, this manager, and apparently his flunkies, are trying to commit fraud against their company by claiming they spent the money on a legitimate expense while really they just gave it away. The problem is, the company will take those 'expenses' and claim them as tax deductions, when in fact there was no expense. The company has now just committed tax fraud thanks to these bozos.
IMHO, whoever hatched this scheme or agreed to go along with it needs to be fired ASAP.
Companies can write of legitimate expenses related to R&D, etc. Donating money is not a legitimate expense. Claiming it is a legitimate expense is fraud, plain and simple. If you want to donate money, go ahead. That is also deductible and can be written off. Or maybe you can explain how you submit a fake invoice to your company (no matter what your motivations are) and NOT have that show up as a (fraudulent) expense on their tax forms.
You are the one who doesn't know what it means. From the IRS website:
"The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency."
Do you see anything in there about doing paid work for someone?
In 1964, most windows were still glazed with a single pane. They let lots of heat in during the summer and out during the winter. In addition, the sun coming in through the windows tended to fade carpets and furniture. Today, with double and triple glazing, and low e coatings, we get the light without the problems.
To be clear, if you are in the US your FICO 'credit score' does not contain this kind of stuff. That score is made up of your available credit, repayment history, etc. The 'credit agencies' you refer to are not the agencies that give the FICO score. They are companies that try to determine an applicants creditworthiness in places that don't have the equivalent of FICO scores.
These companies aren't banks. They are on-line 'better' ways of getting a loan. Lenddo, from the Philipines, is (according to their web site) "the world’s first online platform that helps the emerging middle class use their social connections to build their creditworthiness and access local financial services." Kredittech, from Germany, "uses BIG DATA and complex machine-learning algorithms to make better credit decisions." Kabbage, from the US, gets loans for small businesses, and they use real-time pay-pal data to see cash flow.
There is ZERO corroborating evidence that this story is true. None (at least none that has been presented yet).
There are lots of people who look at 'corroborating evidence' and come to the conclusion that there must be a creator. Does all of that 'corroborating evidence' mean that their creation stories are true?
Exactly. This is similar to the story a few weeks ago where someone on Long Island said they got a visit from the FBI because one person searched 'pressure cookers' while someone else used a different computer to seach for something else. Of course the /. crowd was all over this, claiming that this was proof that the NSA was doing deep packet inspection of every transaction, Google was forwarding all queries to the NSA, etc, etc. Then when the real story came out it was that the guys ex-boss called the local police when he noticed that the guy had done some searches for pressure cookers on his work computer.
Many times the people on here remind me of the old Gilda Radner sketches where Emily Litella would go on a rant about something, only to find out she misunderstood what was actually happening, then say 'Oh, that's very different. Never mind'.
It means that the thing is a relatively safe weapon. What do you think it means? Very few people shoot guns with the intent to kill another person. How many rounds of ammo were fired in the US last year? I am guessing millions. How many of those rounds were fired while attempting to kill another person? A few thousand.
You could apply your wonderful reasoning to ANYTHING that can be used as a weapon. How many people were killed last year by getting hit on the head with a hammer? How many of those hits were intentional? What does that say about hammers?
If you actually invest (like the GP said) and don't speculate, the odds are still in your favor. Things like 'getting information 2 seconds earlier' do not affect investors, they affect speculators. Unless the entire market is permenantly and constantly losing money (it isn't) the odds are in your favor if you buy and hold a diversified portfolio.
And how exactly do those greater discrepancies in vehicle speed lead to fatal accidents? They don't (unless of course the person who considers himself the superior driver, ie the speeder, has to take some action when he encounters the slower traffic and causes an accident).
Deaths per billion vehicle miles: Canada 8.2, US 8.5. Not exactly a large difference there. There is more of a difference in per capita deaths, but that could be because the average Canadian drives less than the average American. If you're not on the road, you're not likely to be killed in a car accident.
Because per mile driven tells you how safe (or dangerous) it is to be on the road, while per capita just tells you how likely it is for someone to be killed in an accident. The per capita rate fluctuates with population and driving habits (number of miles driven), so it is not a good indicator of road safety and/or improvements.
So you're saying that the US has done nothing to improve traffic safety? No cell phone or texting laws, no crackdowns on DWI, no improvements to cars or roads? Traffic fatalitiies (per mile driven) have decreased almost every year for the last 90 years. Your post says absolutely NOTHING about 'America's priorities'.
The controls themselves were simpler, but the usage of the oven was much more complicated. Today, with the 'complex' controls, if you want to thaw a pound of meat you hit the 'thaw meat' button, and maybe enter the weight of the meat. In the 70's, with the 'brain dead simple' controls, the procedure was look at a chart to find 'thaw meat'. The chart said 'Set power level to x, run for 2 minutes, wait 2 minutes, set power level to y, run 3 minutes, rotate food, wait 2 minutes' etc. Failure to properly follow the chart meant ruining your food. The result was (at least in my house) that the microwave was used primarily for boiling water. My parents (who were in their 30's in the 70's when they got their first microwave) still use the microwave primarily for boiling water. This has nothing to do with them being old or unable to grasp new concepts.
Authorization means that the owner has given you permission. Period. It has NOTHING to do with technical controls. The means of notification of authorization (or lack thereof) are immaterial. As soon as they received the C&D letter they were unauthorized and knew it. Stop pretending it is otherwise.
What do you think happens when you go to a website? Too stupid to know? OK, I'll tell you: you use their servers. There is NO WAY that you are looking at ANYTHING on Craigslist, or any other website, without using their property.