Original Supporter Of Driving While Yakking Legislation Changes His Mind
from the too-much-to-legislate dept
Coming just days after a study showed more people than ever were driving while talking on their mobile phones, and weeks after a study showing that driving while talking makes you instantly "older" is this story about an early supporter of laws to stop driving while yakking who has completely changed his mind about the laws -- which he now believes are a problem. Not only do the bans not appear to make the roads any safer, people are discovering the unintended consequences from the ban -- mainly in the fact that there are plenty of other things more distracting in a car these days. In fact, many of the driving while yakking laws require "handsfree kits" which some think make the situation worse. By letting people have their hands free, they're able to start fiddling around with other distracting gadgets while talking on the phone and (oh yeah!) driving at the same time. The real issue, though, is that there are so many distractions in cars these days, that legislation is unlikely to be able to keep up in any meaningful way. A better solution would seem to be education. Let people know just how bad they drive when distracted and then enforce other driving laws better.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Wouldn't it be funny if
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Re: Wouldn't it be funny if
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all relative
Hence, I believe the best way to handle it is to recognize *contributing factors* adding to an existing law. Over here, we already have `driving without due care and attention' or `dangerous driving', both of which are employable on their own or as part of an actual accident incident. Effectively this makes it a scoring system: 2 marks for talking on phone, 1 for ferreting around for CDs when you can see a complex situation coming up ahead, etc. Then you can even choose a sentence based on severity of offence without multiplying offences themselves.
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Re: all relative
I sat at a light and watched 12 cars turning left. 8 were on the phone (no hands free), one was picking his nose. The other three were driving (or if they were talking they had handsfree).
Driving while using cell phones is legal here, but I still yell at every one that I see doing it, (When they have their windows down and can hear me.)
66% were on phone with no hands free. 8.33% were 'otherwise distracted'. 25% were paying proper attention to what they were doing. Of course that is a really small statistical universe.
My bottom line is, people take the time in the car to talk to people on the phone. Folks just need to hang up and drive. Save the phone calls, makeup application, eating and so forth for some other time.
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Fight Fire With Fire
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Re: Fight Fire With Fire
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No Subject Given
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Re: No Subject Given
Here, the anti-phone laws clearly HAVE NOT helped. So you think we should keep them, just because?
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I drive slower...
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Presumptive fault solution
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I ride a bike, in traffic
Cellphone swerve.
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