I only cross-posted so the poster would get the message
Would you believe that my uncle actually taught his kids how to drive with their knees? He actually drove with his knees with his mother (my grandmother, maybe 80 at the time) >I agree with your thoughts but I would like to add another item - as I was
turns em red, very quickly. used for emergency vehicles.
Yes. I was behind a woman leaving San Pedro and by the time we got to Long Beach, she had changed her blouse, put on deodorant and makeup and brushed her hair.
Seems to me that cell phones in moving cars creates 3 groups of drivers. Sort of like walking while chewing gum;
It's really only those in group 3 that concern me. A 'stupidity' test for cell phone endorsement on your licence, maybe??
Nah, that wouldn't last long in any democracy which insists on allowing idiots to vote.
Regards, Al.
I know when I am drving and talking on my cell phone that when the call is dropped in the middle of a conversation I swerve, accelerate and look down... sure as heck hope I am not tailgating somebody like you in my rusty old truck when this happens.
My favorite was when I was driving on the expressway and first the woman used one of those eyelash curlers (in traffic - moving) and then got out an eyeliner (?) pencil and drew a line of makup under her eye. Imagine if she had been hit or had to stop fast during EITHER thing??? Agggggh!
With the call from an irate boss or mother in law? ;)
What might help stop it is if police were to put it on accident reports and tickets and the insurance companies were allowed to gouge for cell phone use for every claim or ticket. Just like speeding tickets, it's not the ticket cost that stops the people it's the insurance financial body blow that stops most.
Just ask any young kid paying $6G a year for insurance on his rice rocket if it's the tickets cost, or the insurance cost he's worried about.
Cell phones don't cause deaths... Stupidity causes deaths. That is like asking how many guns save lives as oppsoed to cause deaths. Its not the gun, its the moron using it. Lets not restrict my abilities cause someone else is limited. Why should I have to be held back. Make them learn to be like the rest of us. This is what causes the degradation of the American society. We keep holding back our people to some miniscule level that everyone can maintain. Great, so I have to be stupid cause someone else is.
Trust me, I know I have been able to save 3 lives while using my cell phon on the freeway. One drunk that slammed into the median wall and then veered back across the highway into a ditch. A lady that fell asleep while driving and went through a guardrail. the third was a fellow that had some front end part on his car bust while driving and veered him into a median wall and flip his car. I happened to be the only other person on the road in all three incidents. Two of which were at least 6 or 7 miles from the nearest exit and were late at night so who knows if anything was open. I have 3 lives saved, and I have never taken a life using my cell phone.
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Sorry I wasn't more clear. By "vehicle-specific", I was referring to line-of-sight, as in you aim the gun at a single vehicle at a time and only that vehicle is affected. Apparently, the device required no codes unique to a given make/model -- it acted on any ignition.
The cop community was also toying with the idea of using a low-profile (it was rather flat!) rocket-propelled cart which accomplished the same thing. It would reside under the front bumper of the cop car. When needed, the pursuing cop would release it and send it speeding under the offending vehicle, whereby it would send an EMP burst up under the car and knock out the ignition. I saw this one demonstrated on a tv news broadcast a few years back. Another EMP design involves a portable or permanent disc in the road. The offending vehicle drives over it and bam! The cops flip a switch and the suspect's ignition is dead.
Anyhoo, I was only joking about actually putting this technology in the hands of civilians.
Hi...
And you used your cell phone to save these folks, by using it to call while you continued merrily down the road?? :)
Besides, no one has suggested or even hinted that they not be used in an emergency.
Cops have discretion, judges have even more.
Coupla years ago I had to take my youngest grandchild to the hospital in a hurry. Had to turn left off a major road onto another major road to enter the emergency room. Slowed for the red light, then went ahead. Pulling into the hospital lot a cop (Winnipeg) followed me. Soon as he saw me jump out and head into the emergency room carrying the child he drove off.
Ken
======== You would just make it worse because they would be trying to figure out what happened to the phone and calling the person back...all the while not watching the road. ===============
How about we simplify all this (in the US, at least) and declare that anyone who has an accident while talking on a cell phone is guilty of contributory negligence, therefore their insurance doesn't pay for the repairs?
An interesting idea. Might be the most effective in curbing the problem. Would have to be carefully thought out, though--how, for example, to decide who's at fault in a sudden stop on the hwy? How to prove that the person following a) was on the phone at the instant of the accident (subpoenaing the bill would not be enough to correlate the times); and b) would have been able to react more quickly had they not been on the phone?
Seems like it might be too complex to determine with certainty, and would lend itself to abuse--I sure as hell don't want to have to fight the legal weight of my insurance company to prove that I *wasn't* on the phone if they were to say that I was.
Then I hope you never have an emergency. I know the person I helped last week when he skidded his Chevy Malibu in a quarter inch of standing water on the road in the fast lane, and landed in on the guardrail in the slow lane, was mighty happy to use my cell phone to call AAA because he didn't have one of his own. The nearest pay phone was on the other side of the highway, and crossing US Highway 1 in New Jersey on foot is suicide in clear weather, much less heavy rain.
At that point, I decided that driving on bald tires like this guy was doing was probably just as dangerous as talking on your cell phone while driving.
Oh spare me your politics.
Exactly. It amazes me how a lot of the people who want cell phones banned (and not just while driving, BANNED) are the same types who also complain about how cars are more expensive now because they have to have things liek ABS, daytime running lights and airbags. But isn't it the same thing? In both cases, we're MAKING everyone have something they don't want (or, eliminate something they do want) because they're not trusting people to take care of themselves.
Yes, cell phone use should be banned while driving, and you can bet mine stays in the back seat where I toss it, turned off while I'm on the road. But the best defense isn't jamming, it's keeping your eyes out for people who are doing stupid things while driving, just like you you would be on the look out for a drunk driver or any other threat. If they're swerving, or clearly not paying attention, then I stay the hell away from them, and if they manage to get in an accident with me anyway, then you better believe that I'm gonna hit them in their pocketbook. the best lesson learned is the expensive one.
It also strikes me that people are hot and bothered about cell phones, yet have absolutely NO problems with the kind of stuff that police officers carry in their vehicles. You yacking on your cell phone is a menace, but what about the guy or girl in blue who is yakking on their radio (and anyone with a police scanner can tell you it's not always about their work), yakking on THEIR cell phone when s/he doesn't want a conversion to go out over the air, probably eating lunch on the go, AND typing and looking at a mobile computer terminal, all in a Ford Crown Vic that seems to have a penchant for blowing up (see
Rocket propelled carts being launched by police cars in pursuit? There's a low risk set up! Would the cart be tethered to the police car? Have it's own guidance system? Sounds like a low powered torpedo with wheels!
What's the range of an EMP sufficient to shut down a car, e.g., anybody nearby going to get shutdown as well?
IMHO hands free cell phones don't address the real problem, i.e., diverting the driver's attention if the call gets "complicated".
Up here in Ontario, they HAVE NO RADIOS in the cruisers. All they have is the "data terminal" or Laptop computer, which does all the communicating.
I believe it does have voice capability, but I'm not sure. Then they have their Walkies.
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