Will Politicians Now Ban Walking While Talking On A Mobile Phone?
from the but-are-they-reasonable-risks? dept
In the past we've seen stories about hikers not doing a very good job preparing for a hike, figuring that as long as they have a mobile phone with them, they can always call for help should things go wrong. Some recent studies are also now suggesting that students tend to take more risks when they have a mobile phone. Of course, by "risks" the studies uncover two things: the first is that students are more likely to walk through certain areas late at night if they have a mobile phone than without. Whether or not that's a reasonable risk is unclear. If someone were attacked, then they likely wouldn't be able to call for help, though if they're already on the phone it could be useful. Of course, the report also suggests that if they're chatting on the phone in such an area, they may not be paying careful attention to their surroundings, making them more vulnerable. The second finding (of a different study by the same researchers) found that people talking on mobile phones are much more likely to cross a busy road in front of traffic than those not on mobile phones.If this sounds familiar, it might be because we've all seen plenty of studies that point out if you're driving while on a mobile phone, you're also more likely to be distracted and drive poorly. Yet, while there are all these new laws to ban driving while yakking on your mobile phone, will we now see legislation proposed to ban walking while yakking on your mobile phone as well? At some point, people need to learn to take responsibilities for their own actions -- and if they're making riskier decisions while talking on a phone, it's fine to educate them, but that doesn't mean we need to create a law to ban each and every activity.
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Filed Under: mobile phones, risky behavior, students
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Walking vs driving
And finally even if the ped was the only one to get hurt, how would you feel if you were the driver?
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Re: Walking vs driving
Oh, and swerving is a terrible driving strategy. No matter what, brake unless you are certain you won't hit something else.
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Re: Ped v. Driver
Drunk in public is illegal in most states. In some parts of the nation it'll even get you tased, bro.
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Re: Re: Ped v. Driver
Also, I was a researcher on a VR study relating to cell phone use. Talking on a cell phone was distracting, but no more so than talking to another person in the car. There were some advantages to having a passenger - they might react to something you haven't seen, etc. But there are disadvantages too - you don't feel the need to make eye contact with a person on a cell phone.
As long as you are using a hands free headset the problem is greatly reduced.
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Re: Re: Re: Ped v. Driver
Sounds like it was a pretty crappy study. I don't blame you for not citing it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ped v. Driver
Given that I only posted results, not methodology, I can conclude that you think it was a crappy study because it didn't give you the results you liked.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ped v. Driver
You conclude incorrectly (not surprisingly). The fact that you "only posted results, not methodology" and failed to cite it made it appear to be crappy. No wonder it wasn't published.
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Re: Re: Ped v. Driver
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or we can look at it another way, same scenario only you die this time and i am phisicaly fine. but now scared for life because i killed some one. i attend therapy twice a week and i dont seem to be making any progress. also i have to deal with everyone trying to find a way to make me guilty for your death. i know it was an accident but was there something i could have done to prevent it.
thanks for ruining my life by talking on your mobile and walking at the same time.
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What's next? Can't listen to music as a pedestrian? How about outlawing chewing gum or talking to a friend while walking as both may be distracting activities???
You have no idea how saddened I am to see the pile of horse manure this country has been reduced to.
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Can't these people find something worthwhile to study? Common freaking sense is enough to deduce this drivel. Next suck-tastic study: "Breathing shown to be good for your health!" followed by: "Study overturned. Certain contaminants in air bad for you." Welcome to the 19th century. (Scientifically speaking.)
Seriously. People need to start bitch-slapping people who run these studies. They'd learn how to think properly if we beat them enough times. At the very least, they'd stop trying for fear of physical abuse.
Also, your satire is well noted Mike, but I have this annoying feeling in my gut that says someone, somewhere (probably even multiple people) would consider the idea of passing legislation which would ban "walking and talking" a pretty damn good idea.
Feh.
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Will Politicians Now Ban Walking While Talking On
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Re: Will Politicians Now Ban Walking While Talking
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Re: Will Politicians Now Ban Walking While Talking On
But you hit the nail right on the head: the more laws we have, the higher the probability that lawyers and judges will have no shortage of clients and cases.
And to that end, the more poorly written and ambiguous the laws are, the better.
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I look at it like legalizing drugs
So it is with the cell phone yacker. If they walk in front of a bus, likely they weren't the prize of the gene pool to begin with.
Driving cell phone yackers have a hard metal shell around them, so bottom of the gene pool or not, they mostly survive.
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Walkin Talkin
of others...The no talking and walking rule is already in effect on some military bases....
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Re: Walkin Talkin
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Re: Walkin Talkin
The military is a different animal all together, and even though some of the regs are dumb, they do have legitimate reasons for them.
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Re: Walkin Talkin
--Glenn
8]
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Only then will the almighty gubmint be able to protect us feckless scum from ourselves!
/sarcasm
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Retards.
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iPod
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Dumb survey questions
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I mean, that's reasonable to me. Physically interacting with the phone is usually the most distracting part.
Are there any laws which ban drivers from using cell phones entirely?
I wonder if the second part of the study cited also checked hands free headset usage.
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Re:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080305104905.htm
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A side note...
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Re: A side note...
You mean like for cops too? I can't count the number of times I've seen cops driving and using a cell phone or tapping away at their in-car computers.
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Talking on cell versus to your passenger
Common sense is apparently beyond the reach of many lawmakers, and has been for years.
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Driving while talking on a mobile phone.
The danger is the distraction the CONVERSATION causes. Not the fact you're using one hand to drive.
Such ridiculous laws need to be removed. Laws should reflect real dangers not imaginary and subjective ones.
You either ban driving while talking or don't.
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Re: Driving while talking on a mobile phone.
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http://gizmodo.com/364254/british-protecting-local-textards-by-padding-lampposts
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It's some private group that came up with the idea, not the government. To say that "England wants to do" this is false.
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Too late...
New York beat everyone to it over a year ago.
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>_>
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Next up, A public ban on words of some politician's wim.
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walking and driving
if you actually think they're going to do anything but generate revenue for the judicial system you're delusional.
add it to the list of stupid crap we allow to exist in the name of "safety".
what else is on that list?
the war on drugs, the war on terror, wars in general, george bush and dick cheney, politicians in general, and oh yeah, law enforcement officials.
all of it is self-serving, and definitely not in OUR best interest.
stupid people need to be weeded out. we are continuously curbing natural selection until we end up in an Idiocracy.
I for one will not doom my children to a land of fucking retards. the u$a has little hope of climbing out of this hole, what with mediocrity being worshipped and all.
people are content to sit idly by and let the dumbest rules dictate their lives. have fun with that. the rest of us are evolving ;)
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So, I think we should just ban walking while talking, period. I mean, if you're walking next to your friend and you're talking to them, you're probably constantly turning your head to look at them. It's natural, really, because you want to see their facial expressions and watch their hand gestures. If you're doing that, though, not only are you distracted by the conversation you're having, but you're not even keeping your eyes focused on what's in front of you!
I'm glad that the people conducting these studies have finally realized what a problem this has been throughout the centuries and are willing to address it!
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Re:
I guess you can think what you want, but talking on a cell phone is different from talking to someone there with you.
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As such, the cell-phone talking pedestrian has, effectively, caused an accident (unless you feel you could blame the driver in this situation, which frankly I don't.)
That said, I still don't think we should ban "talking on the phone while walking."
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Think For Yourself Sheep...Baaaah
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No.
Doug
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Still waiting for the Walking and Chewing Gum Law that the Blondes bring us...
Those Stupid Blondes.. Geez. They ruin it for everyone.
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Banning phones in cars
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Ban Walking and Talking?
The human body is not a lethal weapon at walking speed, a car on the other hand...
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its all about the benjamins
People are just naive, studies show that talking while driving is and can be distracting enough to make you possibly more dangerous on the road. I've yet to see a study which clearly shows that its the fact of having your phone to your head vs just talking via hands free is what makes the difference. The true difference is the distraction of TALKING, no matter the venue, if you are talking to someone in the car, or talking via hand held device, or talking through your car speakers, ...it doesn't matter, you are still being distracted.
And don't get me started on all the types of distractions that keep you from driving safely...playing with your gps, playing with your car radio, eating food, playing with the random gadgets in your car, etc... why haven't these things been outlawed? Simple, if you banned radios the after market would die, if you banned eating food, the fast food (and others) industry would take a huge hit, if you banned gps their sales would plummet. If you ban cell phones people would go bonkers, however, if you just make people purchase an semi expensive hands free set...you are creating a new market :).
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Re: its all about the benjamins
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Re: its all about the benjamins
The difference is the degree of distraction. If you're saying that talking to a passenger is just as distracting as talking on a cell phone then you are ignoring the science and probably just trying to justify your own bad behavior.
If you ban cell phones people would go bonkers,...
Who's talking about banning cell phones? (other than your own straw man here that is) However, I could imagine someone like you "going bonkers" if they weren't allowed to use one while driving.
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Ban cell phones
If driving while on a cell phone causes accidents and walking while talking on a cell phone causes accidents, then the government needs to take the logical step and ban cell phones. Why have separate laws for driving, walking, or any other activity when a single banning will do the job?
How many people have gotten into a car accident when using their home phone? None.
How many people have walked into a dangerous neighborhood when using their home phone? None.
I rest my case.
But in case you need more: suppose a driver is talking on a cell phone and hits a child. A child!
We need to ban cell phones to protect the children!
Did you know that radical Muslims use cell phones?
If you don't support the cell phone ban, then you must be supporting terrorism! Ban the cell phone before we see another 9/11!
(end sarcasm)
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Re: Ban cell phones
How many people have gotten into a car accident when drunk at home? None.
How many people have walked into a dangerous neighborhood when drunk at home? None.
I rest my case.
But in case you need more: suppose a driver is drunk and hits a child. A child!
We need to ban drunk driving to protect the children!
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DUI
Do you also thing think that drunk driving should be legalized?
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Cell phone as a distraction
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Re: Cell phone as a distraction
Simple: Because it isn't as distracting and doesn't impair driving ability the way that using a cell phone does. Got any more stupid questions?
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Re: Re: Cell phone as a distraction
As with any new technology, once there is major acceptance (ie: everyone has a cell phone now) there are learning curves to acceptable behaviors and use. And there is always a tendency to blame new and old problems on such devices. Why not, they are an easy target. We'll we've had a steady increase of accidents over the last ten years...so then someone shows some random graph which pairs accidents and the number of people with cell phones (even though having a cell phone doesn't necessarily mean you are talking while driving) Some random interest group (made up of an extremely tiny portion of the population) lobbies some 100 year old life termed congress person into starting a bill to ban cell phones. This makes them look good because "all" the data shows that clearly cell phones are causing accidents to rise. The problem is that so many variables are left out of these slippery slop logic trails. How about the fact that more people own cars now, more people drive, more people are on the road, populations are growing at a much higher rate than they are able to maintain roads, speaking of maintenance the roads are in horrible condition all over the country, statistically potholes cause way more accidents than cell phones...but do you ever hear about that? NOPE, why? because no one is going to back that argument.
#59 (re #58) I hope you were referring to patriot act 1 because it had alot of useful merit and kept with our privacy rights, etc. If you think Patriot Act 2 (the current standard) was good for freedom/rights/privacy/safety/etc you are sorely mistaken. It was essentially a free pass for the government to do whatever it wants and to hide under the guise of "war on terror" Wait till you say the wrong combination of words on your cellphone and get thrown in prison for 1/2 a year with no representation, no actual charges brought against you, and all your rights as an American citizen taken away from you. That's the love of Patriot Act 2.
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