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cartman
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PostSat Oct 31, 2015 9:45 pm 
What part of using the phone while driving is against the law do you not understand? To anyone who uses the phone while driving: DISRACTED DRIVING IS IMPAIRED DRIVING. Here's what's going to happen if you injure someone because you were on the phone: You will go to JAIL. You may lose your job. You should lose your license. When the other party--or their surviving family--sues you, you will: Lose your house. Lose your car. Lose your retirement fund. In short, your entire life will be screwed up FOREVER. Which will still be less terrible than what YOU did to the person you hurt. You get in a wreck and hurt someone because you were on the phone, you will deserve everything that comes down on you. EVERY. DAMN. THING. Leave the phone off in the car. No call is worth the risk.

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Ski
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PostSat Oct 31, 2015 10:14 pm 
well, yeah... okay... but were any of those consequences suffered by the guy who rear-ended Cyclopath a couple years ago while texting? are there any examples anyone can cite where someone has been incarcerated for causing an accident while talking on their cell phone and/or texting while driving?

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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cartman
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PostSun Nov 01, 2015 8:04 am 
Google search turns up numerous cases of drivers jailed for killing others while talking or texting on the phone. Several of these cases involved fatalities to cyclists. But it was this case, and watching others do it in cars I'm riding in that caused me to post about it. From King County's site: "From 2008 to 2012, distracted driver-involved crashes accounted for at least 20% of all traffic fatalities in King County, killing 86 people (average 17 people each year) and seriously injuring an additional 338 people." "Using a cell phone can pose a serious cognitive distraction even with a hands-free (headset, speakerphone, or other) device. As a general rule, drivers should make every effort to move to a safe place off of the road before using a cell phone." Multiple studies about the risk of using cell phones while driving here. And using hands free devices? That's still distracted driving.

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Tom_Sjolseth
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PostSun Nov 01, 2015 9:07 am 
cartman wrote:
And using hands free devices? That's still distracted driving.
What about having a conversation with a passenger? Distracted or not?

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Doppelganger





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PostMon Nov 02, 2015 10:27 am 

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joker
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PostMon Nov 02, 2015 11:04 am 
Tom_Sjolseth wrote:
What about having a conversation with a passenger? Distracted or not?
Yes, can be. But there is at least some evidence that talking on the phone, hands-free or not, is more distracting than talking with someone in the car. My own experience is that when talking on the phone, the person on the other end is not aware of what's going on in the car unless I break the flow of the conversation to tell them (e.g. "hitting a cluster$%&#, need to stop talking for a minute..."), but this happens more naturally when the other person is in the car with me. So I find it a little more easy and natural to focus on driving situations as they arise when talking with someone who is in the car versus the phone. Some of the research evidence seems to bear this out:
Quote:
That is, a conversation on the phone cannot be successfully broken into arbitrary units, but instead is composed of ‘‘turns’’ that engage the central processing bottleneck for prolonged periods of time (e.g., pausing in mid-sentence/thought impedes the flow of the conversation);moreover, this turn-taking is often asynchronous with the processing demands of driving. Supporting this idea is the observation that in-vehicle conversations do not interfere with driving as much as cell-phone conversations do because there is a greater ability to synchronize an in-vehicle conversation with the processing demands of driving than there is with a cell-phone conversation.
Of course at the end of the day, it comes down to the driver being clear with themselves about needing to focus first on the driving task. I think one challenge with phones is the slippery slope from a quick chat hands-free to texting.

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wolffie
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PostMon Nov 02, 2015 1:13 pm 
Can't cite evidence, but I've heard many times that the accident rate for teenaged drivers goes way up when there's a passenger in the car. I don't like to talk when I drive, and I know I'm a bit distracted when I do. [It helps if your passenger is a professional driver, and you know they're watching you.] Useful thought exercises: Explain to the family of the child you've just killed why your text message was more important than their child's life. Imagine waiting for your family's plane to land in the dark & storm while the pilots, in the final approach, are talking on their cell phones ("...yeah Babe, I'll be on the ground in about 5 minutes, blah blah blah...").

Some people have better things to do with their lives than walking the dog. Some don't.
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Randito
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PostWed Nov 04, 2015 2:57 pm 
I moved to NYC recently for family recently (newborn twin grand daughters and a 20 mo grandson) The idea of driving here doing anything other than white-knuckle hyper-aware driving is laughable here -- any attempt to use a phone while driving in any manner result in a collision very quickly. Besides you need a free hand to lean on the horn...

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Cyclopath
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PostWed Nov 04, 2015 3:39 pm 
Ski wrote:
well, yeah... okay... but were any of those consequences suffered by the guy who rear-ended Cyclopath a couple years ago while texting? are there any examples anyone can cite where someone has been incarcerated for causing an accident while talking on their cell phone and/or texting while driving?
The guy wasn't incarcerated. The police didn't even show up, no one was injured. My car was totaled in the incident, which was really a shame because it was paid off, and I owe lots of thousands on the one I'm driving now. If someone had been killed I'm sure the police would have handled it differently though. Injured? I don't know, this isn't TV.

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Cyclopath
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PostWed Nov 04, 2015 3:40 pm 
Tom_Sjolseth wrote:
cartman wrote:
And using hands free devices? That's still distracted driving.
What about having a conversation with a passenger? Distracted or not?
It's less distracting to have a conversation with a person who's there than with a person who's not there. Because you can plainly see their body language, facial expression, and everything else, you don't spend a lot of "clock cycles" (think: CPU) on trying to figure those things out. Humans evolved to fill a social niche, not a driving one. Also, a passenger in the car can point out a deer on the side of the road and then shut the hell up so you can concentrate. People on the phone don't know when you're getting into heavy traffic, bad lighting, or whatever else that requires your attention.

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coldrain108
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PostWed Nov 04, 2015 4:39 pm 
RandyHiker wrote:
Besides you need a free hand to lean on the horn...
especially with the other hand out the window giving the one finger salute...

Since I have no expectations of forgiveness, I don't do it in the first place. That loop hole needs to be closed to everyone.
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Tom_Sjolseth
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PostWed Nov 04, 2015 6:46 pm 
I'm assuming you have some statistics to so matter-of-factly be stating your opinion. Less distracting or not, I'd rather not have some gov't entity (who can seldom get ANYTHING right) tell me I can't use a hands-free device in my car. YMMV. Good luck enforcing a ban on hands-free devices.

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Randito
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PostWed Nov 04, 2015 7:06 pm 
coldrain108 wrote:
RandyHiker wrote:
Besides you need a free hand to lean on the horn...
especially with the other hand out the window giving the one finger salute...
Nah -- you always need at least one hand the wheel -- you never know when an electric delivery bike is going fly through a red light going the wrong way on a one way or when pedestrians are going to walk out into the middle of the street -- I think grand theft auto is really just a simulation of driving in Manhattan.

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joker
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PostWed Nov 04, 2015 8:12 pm 
My brother in law drove a cab in Manhattan for a while. Watching him navigate the avenues was amazing. Different sort of craziness than I grew up driving in around Boston. One of his more memorable rules was " never use your turn signal to change lanes - sign of weakness!!" Have fun in your new home Randy. That is quite a change for you! Oh well,I wish I'd managed to get out skiing with you more while you were still here!

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Roly Poly
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PostWed Nov 04, 2015 10:27 pm 
I cannot help but be curious as to why the OP posted this? Was there an incident that occurred?

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