I was on a business trip when "V for Vendetta" was released, and all the TSA security announcements at the airport as I was flying back home made me cringe because all I could think of was, "This is for your protection." I still shudder when I hear the propaganda^Wsecurity announcements at the airport.
A truly erroneous hard-left outlook, but stupidity is fitting given your account name. Jihadists are very clear about their intentions. It has almost nothing to do with forcing our economies on them. The primary driver of jihad is the desire to subjugate the entire world to the dictates of Islamic dictatorship. Radical Muslims view the non-Muslim controlled parts of the globe as the world they are at war with, and the war they are waging is to impose their religion on all non-Muslims. Other justifications for jihad are at best secondary motivators. And shame on you for whitewashing and apologizing for the unquestionably evil, outrageously heinous campaign of misery and death waged by radical Islam.
That's a bit of a simplistic view, I think. From what I understand, it isn't even Islam that's the problem, it's Wahabbism, which is to Islam as Baptists, Catholics, or any other denomination is to Christianity -- merely a subset. And you are completely ignoring the entire economic standing of those drawn to Wahabbism. If you want a better idea of what drives radical Islam -- and what we can do about it without making what friends we have left in the world our enemies, too -- I highly recommend the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.
Did you think that through before posting? The "nekkid picture" IS the government spying on you. And what makes you think the government isn't going to spy on you outside the screening checkpoint, anyway?
I'm becoming radicalized, but it's because of the B.S. that TSA is pulling nowadays. Seriously, if TSA/DHS doesn't back off, they will find Americans displaying less and less restraint at security check points. If this...:
Don't give TSA ideas. Next thing you know, we will be sedated, stripped naked (for real, not just electronically), and then rolled on gurneys into the airplane's cargo hold, where we will sleep soundly until the airplane arrives at its destination, at which time, if we're lucky, TSA will administer an antidote to the sedative and we *might* wake up. If they read the labels right. Maybe.
Do you seriously believe that laws regarding unlawful arrest and detainment without a warrant will slow them down one bit when the 4th Amendment hasn't?
Which is why if I must fly any time in the near future, I'm declining the scanner. At least I'm going to make it painfully obvious (no pun intended) what security theatre has really come to.
Fine. So we can't scale for an intensive search to every airport in the U.S. We can, however, scale for random screenings and/or reasonable suspects rather than every frigging person who wants to fly on an airplane. Seriously, in the history of the United States, how many U.S. flag airplanes have been hijacked? How many people have died due to terrorism? This attitude that we must invasively search every flyer is rather like wearing a Faraday cage every time we step outside during the summer because we're afraid of getting hit by lightning.
yeah, a scared untrained mob vs 4 trained individuals in a small space. Not going t stop a take over of the aircraft.
Wanna bet? Flight 93, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber prove otherwise. Yeah, Flight 93 crashed, but the hijackers already had control of the aircraft when the passengers found out what was going down. There are other examples of passengers taking out suicidal hijackers, but most Americans have never heard the stories because they happened elsewhere (I remember reading about a group of passengers who took out a suicidal hijacker in Africa in the mid 90s, but it wasn't CNN that brought the story to me).
Secure flight deck doors...
Yes, and we already have that.
...and a auto pilot code that can't be turned off is the real way to go. It would make any attempt useless.
You do realize that the certification requirements for an autopilot state that the pilot *has* to be able to override it, because from time to time, they do fail, right? I will refuse to get on board -- or allow my family to get on board -- any airplane that has an autopilot that the pilot can't shut off, because the odds of a runaway autopilot are far greater than the odds of a terrorist hijacking.
Mid flight explosion? get rid of the scanner and get a few dogs. Hell, just one dog people have to walk past on their way down the gang plank.
Yeah, I agree with you there. My dumbest dog is a lot smarter and a whole lot more trustworthy than those goons at TSA -- especially the ones dictating policy.
I don't care what finally wakes up the American sheeple, just as long as something finally does. Incidentally, I, for one, have been screaming in protest of all three issues for at least seven years, now.
I've heard that old saw so many times before, and it still makes me puke when I hear it. One of the classic examples of an unarmed society with a much lower crime rate is Japan. I *lived* in Japan, for seven years (unlike a lot of the people who parrot that example), and I will guarantee that the lower crime rate in Japan has much, much less to do with whether or not the average citizen is allowed to own a gun, and much, much more to do with culture. The Japanese *do not tolerate* those who break with tradition or societal rules. We Americans practically worship the rebels. The Japanese also don't muck around with criminals. When a suspect is arrested, they are guilty unless proven innocent, and once incarcerated, it's not a trip to the country club (albeit with Bubba in the shower and iron bars in the windows) -- it's sit on your knees on a concrete cell until you are allowed to move, then back on your knees again.
If you really want to know how disarming the population affects crime rates, compare the crime rates before and after in a single location before and after gun laws are changed, or compare crime rates in cities in, for example, right-to-carry and no concealed-carry states. For example, there is a very interesting graph of the crime rate in Florida before and after it passed a right-to-carry law in 1987 at http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp . In other words, I see your "...concealed weapons has surely made America one of the most respectful places in the world..." and raise you a "Indeed, and the handgun bans in Washington D.C., Chicago and NYC have certainly made them safe places to live!"
But...but...but...I saw an article on-line yesterday showing that TSA had successfully confiscated 130 items this year alone, including such dangerous items as tweezers and a vial of heroin*!
*Okay, the list also included a ceramic knife, but seriously, that just pales in comparison to OMG, TWEEZERS!!!
I sincerely doubt that most anyone in public office gives a rip if John Q. Public is sexually assaulted by properly authorized agents of the government before getting on an airplane. I fully expect the Tea Party new blood to become assimilated into business as usual fairly quickly. Unless things *really* start changing soon, what I foresee happening is eventually enough people get angry and frightened enough by what they see happening around them -- the terrorist boogeyman, the economy collapsing while Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue just get richer and richer, etc. -- and we get a second American Revolution. And if you have an ounce of common sense, that prospect will scare the bejeebers out of you, because outside of Star Wars, rebellions and revolution are anything but romantic.
I seem to recall George W. saying something to the effect of, "If you don't help us, you are at war with us," after 9/11. We may not have "declared war on everyone who disagreed with us," but we sure didn't mind using the threat of military reprisals to bully anyone and everyone who might have been on the fence on the issue. Then, lest anyone think that we were just full of hot air, we invaded two sovereign nations just to prove the point.
Do we like it or not - this is something that could not be avoided. It is probably better if it is done legally, above board and with clear and well defined game rules instead of a cloak and dagger.
Yeah, because we've seen how well that has worked with the Constitution. Without that legal, above board, clear and well defined game rule on the government, the TLAs could just lock people away on a foreign island*, "not torture" them in violation of the eight amendment**, prohibit owners or managers of legitimate businesses from seeking legal advice when the TLAs come looking for information on their clients***, or take away other rights that have been guaranteed in the Constitution****. If you think simply making something "legal and above board" will keep the Feds from slowly encroaching on our rights, I think recent history proves you are sadly mistaken.
*Guantanamo, if that wasn't already obvious
**waterboarding, ditto
***NSLs, ditto
****Alberto Gonzalez and the right to habeus corpus; see also the sixth and eighth amendments and tell me how well we've lived up to that in Guantanamo.
So instead of suffering a little pain and cleaning the cruft out now, we prolong the agony with life support? I'm sorry, but that just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
While I wouldn't say the FAA is overstepping its bounds, I would certainly argue they tend to be (IMHO) unnecessarily heavy handed in the general aviation segment. I've been a pilot since 1991, and one of the first categories of aviation that captured my interest after I got my pilot's license was what is euphemistically called "amateur-built, experimental" airplanes. The reason why the experimental airplanes were so fascinating is that is where *all* of the innovation in light airplanes was taking place. To the best of my knowledge, there were no *certified* single-engine piston airplanes being manufactured that were made of anything other than aluminum, tube and fabric (like a Super Cub) or wood. No piston engines had any kind of electronic engine controls or electronic fuel injection, even though such technology had been used in automotive engines for about a decade. A fast certified airplane piston single could do about 180, maybe 200, mph. More common speeds were between about 100-120 mph. In short, the "state of the art" for certified, piston-powered, single-engine airplanes had remained frozen for about 20 years.
Meanwhile companies making experimental "kitplanes" -- which did not need FAA certification to fly -- were churning out fiberglass hot rods that routinely hit 300+mph, using all kinds of advanced technology. One guy featured in a mid-90s issue of "Kitplanes" designed and built his own glass cockpit (i.e., CRT displays for navigation and engine monitoring instrumentation; IIRC, he still used analog gauges for airspeed and attitude) and outfitted it to a Lancair 320 that he had built. When asked why certified airplanes lagged so far behind the kitbuilt market, airplane manufacturers invariably gave the same two answers: liability costs and certification costs. The situation has improved marginally since the FAA approved the Light-Sport category in the early 2000's (2003, I think?), but three out of five piston singles that Cessna currently sells are still 50 year old designs: the 172, 182 and 206.
Bringing all of this back on-topic, this is what I desperately DON'T want to happen to the Internet. Can you imagine if we were all still running W2K because that was all that could legally be connected on-line, due to the prohibitive cost of certifying another operating system to connect to the Internet? What if the government decides that open source software is impossible to certify, since anyone can modify the source code, and therefore, the regulators can never be sure that the web server or web browser you compiled from source *really* meets certification requirements? It's a stretch, but that's essentially happened to general aviation. Ultimately, excessive government regulation stifles innovation. I really don't want to see that happen on-line.
You completely missed the point. Child welfare workers don't typically make visits to posh high-end neighborhoods; they typically visit the slums. If your car jams cell phone transmissions, then you can't just drive two blocks away and park to make the call; you drive two blocks away (while God only knows what is happening at the scene you just left; she might have been the only reason the alcoholic, drug-addicted, mentally ill spouse hasn't yet started shooting), then get out of the car and walk far enough away that the car is no longer jamming your cell phone signal while *still in a bad neighborhood*, and now with no safe place to run to if the neighborhood punks try to mug or rape you. Great plan, Einstein.
if ever my ability to drive were compromised due to the device: I would have thrown it on the floor consuming minutes and battery life without a moments hesitation.
Agreed. I've been there and done that, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Yeah, but 4X WHAT? If it increases the odds of having an accident from 0.00001% to 0.00004%, I can probably live with that. If it increases the odds from 25% to 100%, I'm probably not going to be too jazzed about that. Unfortunately, the link you provided doesn't provide that information, so I really can't tell if that's really a significant increase or if it's just someone with an agenda spinning the stats to say what they want the stats to say.
What, exactly, is your point? You start out sounding like you are in favor of the jamming technology by trying to compare it with bringing a hand gun to school, which is about as poor an analogy as I can think of: first, adults aren't going to school -- kids are -- and the law doesn't even allow kids to purchase hand guns, so nice try, but F-A-I-L; second, cell phones have legitimate uses, even in a car, but there is no legitimate reason for a kid to have a hand gun in school; third, yeah, we should punish the nut jobs that cause rampages, but instead, we are getting our garters in a bundle over people talking on a cell phone in places like cars and movie theaters, which is clearly MUCH more important.
Maybe it *is* "proven" that cell phone use while driving increases the chance of being in an accident, but would you like to guess how many accidents I've been in where cell phone use is a contributing factor? That's right: ZERO. Yes, yes, "the plural of anecdote is not data", etc., I get it...but in over twenty years of driving -- okay, only 10-15 years since cell phones became popular -- you'd think that if it really was that much of a risk*, it would have caught up with me by now.
FWIW, I do agree with your comment about seat belt use, even though I rather suspect you were being sarcastic and didn't really mean it. If I'm too stupid to wear a seat belt in the car, then who else's business is it, anyway? I suppose maybe my body flying through the window *could* pose a hazard to others, but I kind of doubt that's a significant risk, so yes, I SHOULD be able to die gloriously in an accident, if that's what I choose. You can make a case about minors being buckled up, but theoretically, at least, adults should be able to weigh the pros and cons and make their own decisions.
I also agree that a blanket ban on cell phone transmissions from/in cars is an overbearing solution to a real problem, but I have no idea what you were trying to say after that. You think it's a good idea to tack on a fee or charge for using a device that actually increases the safety of talking on a phone while driving? That's a really dumb idea. If I'm going to insist on talking on the phone while driving, at least do everything possible to reduce the risk of that behaviour as low as possible. Besides, I've *already* paid a fee to have the hands-free device in my car in the first place and you want to tack on an additional charge? Brilliant.
Finally, you conclude by telling a story about someone you saw driving while distracted...but who wasn't using a cell phone. Should we therefore ban pencils and paper in cars, too? Or are you arguing that it doesn't matter if someone is using a cell phone or not; a distracted driver is a distracted driver, and is therefore dangerous? I really can't tell which side of the argument you are on.
*Which makes me wonder about the statistical risk. It's one thing to say, "there risk is increased by a factor of 100", and quite another to say that "the risk increases from 0.0001% to 0.01%". Just saying that it's statistically "more likely" does nothing to say if the risk is high enough to be worth noticing, just that it's more risky than the baseline.
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...Remember, this is to keep you safe...
I was on a business trip when "V for Vendetta" was released, and all the TSA security announcements at the airport as I was flying back home made me cringe because all I could think of was, "This is for your protection." I still shudder when I hear the propaganda^Wsecurity announcements at the airport.
A truly erroneous hard-left outlook, but stupidity is fitting given your account name. Jihadists are very clear about their intentions. It has almost nothing to do with forcing our economies on them. The primary driver of jihad is the desire to subjugate the entire world to the dictates of Islamic dictatorship. Radical Muslims view the non-Muslim controlled parts of the globe as the world they are at war with, and the war they are waging is to impose their religion on all non-Muslims. Other justifications for jihad are at best secondary motivators. And shame on you for whitewashing and apologizing for the unquestionably evil, outrageously heinous campaign of misery and death waged by radical Islam.
That's a bit of a simplistic view, I think. From what I understand, it isn't even Islam that's the problem, it's Wahabbism, which is to Islam as Baptists, Catholics, or any other denomination is to Christianity -- merely a subset. And you are completely ignoring the entire economic standing of those drawn to Wahabbism. If you want a better idea of what drives radical Islam -- and what we can do about it without making what friends we have left in the world our enemies, too -- I highly recommend the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.
Did you think that through before posting? The "nekkid picture" IS the government spying on you. And what makes you think the government isn't going to spy on you outside the screening checkpoint, anyway?
I'm becoming radicalized, but it's because of the B.S. that TSA is pulling nowadays. Seriously, if TSA/DHS doesn't back off, they will find Americans displaying less and less restraint at security check points. If this...:
...had been my child, there would be a TSA screener in the morgue and I'd be in jail.
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/tsa-screener-terrorizes-3-year-old-girl
Good point. I wasn't aware it had gone that far, though. Sigh...welcome to the U.S.S.A.
Don't give TSA ideas. Next thing you know, we will be sedated, stripped naked (for real, not just electronically), and then rolled on gurneys into the airplane's cargo hold, where we will sleep soundly until the airplane arrives at its destination, at which time, if we're lucky, TSA will administer an antidote to the sedative and we *might* wake up. If they read the labels right. Maybe.
Do you seriously believe that laws regarding unlawful arrest and detainment without a warrant will slow them down one bit when the 4th Amendment hasn't?
Which is why if I must fly any time in the near future, I'm declining the scanner. At least I'm going to make it painfully obvious (no pun intended) what security theatre has really come to.
Fine. So we can't scale for an intensive search to every airport in the U.S. We can, however, scale for random screenings and/or reasonable suspects rather than every frigging person who wants to fly on an airplane. Seriously, in the history of the United States, how many U.S. flag airplanes have been hijacked? How many people have died due to terrorism? This attitude that we must invasively search every flyer is rather like wearing a Faraday cage every time we step outside during the summer because we're afraid of getting hit by lightning.
yeah, a scared untrained mob vs 4 trained individuals in a small space. Not going t stop a take over of the aircraft.
Wanna bet? Flight 93, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber prove otherwise. Yeah, Flight 93 crashed, but the hijackers already had control of the aircraft when the passengers found out what was going down. There are other examples of passengers taking out suicidal hijackers, but most Americans have never heard the stories because they happened elsewhere (I remember reading about a group of passengers who took out a suicidal hijacker in Africa in the mid 90s, but it wasn't CNN that brought the story to me).
Secure flight deck doors...
Yes, and we already have that.
...and a auto pilot code that can't be turned off is the real way to go. It would make any attempt useless.
You do realize that the certification requirements for an autopilot state that the pilot *has* to be able to override it, because from time to time, they do fail, right? I will refuse to get on board -- or allow my family to get on board -- any airplane that has an autopilot that the pilot can't shut off, because the odds of a runaway autopilot are far greater than the odds of a terrorist hijacking.
Mid flight explosion? get rid of the scanner and get a few dogs. Hell, just one dog people have to walk past on their way down the gang plank.
Yeah, I agree with you there. My dumbest dog is a lot smarter and a whole lot more trustworthy than those goons at TSA -- especially the ones dictating policy.
I don't care what finally wakes up the American sheeple, just as long as something finally does. Incidentally, I, for one, have been screaming in protest of all three issues for at least seven years, now.
I've heard that old saw so many times before, and it still makes me puke when I hear it. One of the classic examples of an unarmed society with a much lower crime rate is Japan. I *lived* in Japan, for seven years (unlike a lot of the people who parrot that example), and I will guarantee that the lower crime rate in Japan has much, much less to do with whether or not the average citizen is allowed to own a gun, and much, much more to do with culture. The Japanese *do not tolerate* those who break with tradition or societal rules. We Americans practically worship the rebels. The Japanese also don't muck around with criminals. When a suspect is arrested, they are guilty unless proven innocent, and once incarcerated, it's not a trip to the country club (albeit with Bubba in the shower and iron bars in the windows) -- it's sit on your knees on a concrete cell until you are allowed to move, then back on your knees again.
If you really want to know how disarming the population affects crime rates, compare the crime rates before and after in a single location before and after gun laws are changed, or compare crime rates in cities in, for example, right-to-carry and no concealed-carry states. For example, there is a very interesting graph of the crime rate in Florida before and after it passed a right-to-carry law in 1987 at http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp . In other words, I see your "...concealed weapons has surely made America one of the most respectful places in the world..." and raise you a "Indeed, and the handgun bans in Washington D.C., Chicago and NYC have certainly made them safe places to live!"
But...but...but...I saw an article on-line yesterday showing that TSA had successfully confiscated 130 items this year alone , including such dangerous items as tweezers and a vial of heroin*!
*Okay, the list also included a ceramic knife, but seriously, that just pales in comparison to OMG, TWEEZERS!!!
I sincerely doubt that most anyone in public office gives a rip if John Q. Public is sexually assaulted by properly authorized agents of the government before getting on an airplane. I fully expect the Tea Party new blood to become assimilated into business as usual fairly quickly. Unless things *really* start changing soon, what I foresee happening is eventually enough people get angry and frightened enough by what they see happening around them -- the terrorist boogeyman, the economy collapsing while Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue just get richer and richer, etc. -- and we get a second American Revolution. And if you have an ounce of common sense, that prospect will scare the bejeebers out of you, because outside of Star Wars, rebellions and revolution are anything but romantic.
I seem to recall George W. saying something to the effect of, "If you don't help us, you are at war with us," after 9/11. We may not have "declared war on everyone who disagreed with us," but we sure didn't mind using the threat of military reprisals to bully anyone and everyone who might have been on the fence on the issue. Then, lest anyone think that we were just full of hot air, we invaded two sovereign nations just to prove the point.
I'm okay with four ounces. That's about how much espresso I make in the morning, anyway. (That corn syrup in soda is muy evil! :)
Do we like it or not - this is something that could not be avoided. It is probably better if it is done legally, above board and with clear and well defined game rules instead of a cloak and dagger.
Yeah, because we've seen how well that has worked with the Constitution. Without that legal, above board, clear and well defined game rule on the government, the TLAs could just lock people away on a foreign island*, "not torture" them in violation of the eight amendment**, prohibit owners or managers of legitimate businesses from seeking legal advice when the TLAs come looking for information on their clients***, or take away other rights that have been guaranteed in the Constitution****. If you think simply making something "legal and above board" will keep the Feds from slowly encroaching on our rights, I think recent history proves you are sadly mistaken.
*Guantanamo, if that wasn't already obvious
**waterboarding, ditto
***NSLs, ditto
****Alberto Gonzalez and the right to habeus corpus; see also the sixth and eighth amendments and tell me how well we've lived up to that in Guantanamo.
So instead of suffering a little pain and cleaning the cruft out now, we prolong the agony with life support? I'm sorry, but that just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
Don't know why you posted AC. That is, IMHO, one of the most insightful posts I've seen in a long while. Well said.
While I wouldn't say the FAA is overstepping its bounds, I would certainly argue they tend to be (IMHO) unnecessarily heavy handed in the general aviation segment. I've been a pilot since 1991, and one of the first categories of aviation that captured my interest after I got my pilot's license was what is euphemistically called "amateur-built, experimental" airplanes. The reason why the experimental airplanes were so fascinating is that is where *all* of the innovation in light airplanes was taking place. To the best of my knowledge, there were no *certified* single-engine piston airplanes being manufactured that were made of anything other than aluminum, tube and fabric (like a Super Cub) or wood. No piston engines had any kind of electronic engine controls or electronic fuel injection, even though such technology had been used in automotive engines for about a decade. A fast certified airplane piston single could do about 180, maybe 200, mph. More common speeds were between about 100-120 mph. In short, the "state of the art" for certified, piston-powered, single-engine airplanes had remained frozen for about 20 years.
Meanwhile companies making experimental "kitplanes" -- which did not need FAA certification to fly -- were churning out fiberglass hot rods that routinely hit 300+mph, using all kinds of advanced technology. One guy featured in a mid-90s issue of "Kitplanes" designed and built his own glass cockpit (i.e., CRT displays for navigation and engine monitoring instrumentation; IIRC, he still used analog gauges for airspeed and attitude) and outfitted it to a Lancair 320 that he had built. When asked why certified airplanes lagged so far behind the kitbuilt market, airplane manufacturers invariably gave the same two answers: liability costs and certification costs. The situation has improved marginally since the FAA approved the Light-Sport category in the early 2000's (2003, I think?), but three out of five piston singles that Cessna currently sells are still 50 year old designs: the 172, 182 and 206.
Bringing all of this back on-topic, this is what I desperately DON'T want to happen to the Internet. Can you imagine if we were all still running W2K because that was all that could legally be connected on-line, due to the prohibitive cost of certifying another operating system to connect to the Internet? What if the government decides that open source software is impossible to certify, since anyone can modify the source code, and therefore, the regulators can never be sure that the web server or web browser you compiled from source *really* meets certification requirements? It's a stretch, but that's essentially happened to general aviation. Ultimately, excessive government regulation stifles innovation. I really don't want to see that happen on-line.
You completely missed the point. Child welfare workers don't typically make visits to posh high-end neighborhoods; they typically visit the slums. If your car jams cell phone transmissions, then you can't just drive two blocks away and park to make the call; you drive two blocks away (while God only knows what is happening at the scene you just left; she might have been the only reason the alcoholic, drug-addicted, mentally ill spouse hasn't yet started shooting), then get out of the car and walk far enough away that the car is no longer jamming your cell phone signal while *still in a bad neighborhood*, and now with no safe place to run to if the neighborhood punks try to mug or rape you. Great plan, Einstein.
if ever my ability to drive were compromised due to the device: I would have thrown it on the floor consuming minutes and battery life without a moments hesitation.
Agreed. I've been there and done that, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Yeah, but 4X WHAT? If it increases the odds of having an accident from 0.00001% to 0.00004%, I can probably live with that. If it increases the odds from 25% to 100%, I'm probably not going to be too jazzed about that. Unfortunately, the link you provided doesn't provide that information, so I really can't tell if that's really a significant increase or if it's just someone with an agenda spinning the stats to say what they want the stats to say.
What, exactly, is your point? You start out sounding like you are in favor of the jamming technology by trying to compare it with bringing a hand gun to school, which is about as poor an analogy as I can think of: first, adults aren't going to school -- kids are -- and the law doesn't even allow kids to purchase hand guns, so nice try, but F-A-I-L; second, cell phones have legitimate uses, even in a car, but there is no legitimate reason for a kid to have a hand gun in school; third, yeah, we should punish the nut jobs that cause rampages, but instead, we are getting our garters in a bundle over people talking on a cell phone in places like cars and movie theaters, which is clearly MUCH more important.
Maybe it *is* "proven" that cell phone use while driving increases the chance of being in an accident, but would you like to guess how many accidents I've been in where cell phone use is a contributing factor? That's right: ZERO. Yes, yes, "the plural of anecdote is not data", etc., I get it...but in over twenty years of driving -- okay, only 10-15 years since cell phones became popular -- you'd think that if it really was that much of a risk*, it would have caught up with me by now.
FWIW, I do agree with your comment about seat belt use, even though I rather suspect you were being sarcastic and didn't really mean it. If I'm too stupid to wear a seat belt in the car, then who else's business is it, anyway? I suppose maybe my body flying through the window *could* pose a hazard to others, but I kind of doubt that's a significant risk, so yes, I SHOULD be able to die gloriously in an accident, if that's what I choose. You can make a case about minors being buckled up, but theoretically, at least, adults should be able to weigh the pros and cons and make their own decisions.
I also agree that a blanket ban on cell phone transmissions from/in cars is an overbearing solution to a real problem, but I have no idea what you were trying to say after that. You think it's a good idea to tack on a fee or charge for using a device that actually increases the safety of talking on a phone while driving? That's a really dumb idea. If I'm going to insist on talking on the phone while driving, at least do everything possible to reduce the risk of that behaviour as low as possible. Besides, I've *already* paid a fee to have the hands-free device in my car in the first place and you want to tack on an additional charge? Brilliant.
Finally, you conclude by telling a story about someone you saw driving while distracted...but who wasn't using a cell phone. Should we therefore ban pencils and paper in cars, too? Or are you arguing that it doesn't matter if someone is using a cell phone or not; a distracted driver is a distracted driver, and is therefore dangerous? I really can't tell which side of the argument you are on.
*Which makes me wonder about the statistical risk. It's one thing to say, "there risk is increased by a factor of 100", and quite another to say that "the risk increases from 0.0001% to 0.01%". Just saying that it's statistically "more likely" does nothing to say if the risk is high enough to be worth noticing, just that it's more risky than the baseline.
Sure. And if the driver is the only person in the car, you've *probably* got an open and shut case. If not...