cell phone jammers are illegal ?yes no. I dont know if that is even a good option I never used one or researched a cell phone jammer. If everyone had one in thier car would it disrupt the service as a whole?Is there an alternative?
I do wish people would just have a little common sense.Fact is they dont.They care mostly of themselves and whats infront of them or not. If you take thier poor selfish thought process out of the equation it would work.Im sure there are other examples in the past of people misusing something that effects others in this case it kills them, sometimes whole generations of a family. With a huge trickle down effect to whats left of the family.Who may have done nothing wrong any of them.Overtime if it becomes a real problem for society then it will be addressed. Handing people tickets isnt going to work.There is no way a cop could tell unless your using your cell in front of them.Or if they checked your phone after the damage has been done.So if that many people get away with it the problem is still there.
Really I'm done with this thread no need to reply to me.
I don't usually post on something like this, but on this topic, I have to.... After reading the first page or two on how all the distractions that could be in your car should be banned....all I have to say is LOL! Who has to look at the radio to turn the volume up? Who has to look at their passenger while carrying on a conversation? Most things that were mentioned you don't have to take your eyes off the road. I do agree some people can text without looking at their phone, but they have to read the incoming messages sometime. Unless you can read an entire text in less than a second, then don't do it! Texting while driving, walking, shopping, eating, in the same house should be banned permanently by the entire US. I know way too many people who text and if I am having a conversation with them and they get a text, the conversation is put on hold while they reply back. What else are they going to put on hold while answering a text? Honestly, it is sooooo much easier to push up to 10 numbers then talk, than it is to do 1000 keystrokes to have a conversation. If 10 numbers is too much, try speed dial
Seems the people in the operating room giving you an operation are texting during your operation!
"A peer-reviewed survey of 439 medical technicians published this year in Perfusion, a journal about cardio-pulmonary bypass surgery, found that 55 percent of technicians who monitor bypass machines acknowledged to researchers that they had talked on cellphones during heart surgery. Half said they had texted while in surgery."
Seems the people in the operating room giving you an operation are texting during your operation!
"A peer-reviewed survey of 439 medical technicians published this year in Perfusion, a journal about cardio-pulmonary bypass surgery, found that 55 percent of technicians who monitor bypass machines acknowledged to researchers that they had talked on cellphones during heart surgery. Half said they had texted while in surgery."
By JOAN LOWY Associated Press
WASHINGTON December 15, 2011 (AP)
When someone is talking to you, your brain is listening, processing and thinking about what's being said even if you're in the driver's seat trying to concentrate on traffic.
That's why drivers get distracted during cellphone conversations, even when using hands-free phones, researchers say. It's also part of the reason why the National Transportation Safety Board made a recommendation this week it knows a lot of drivers won't like that states ban hands-free, as well as hand-held, cellphone use while driving.
It's not where your hands are, but where your mind is that counts, NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman told reporters.
The board doesn't have the power to force states to impose a ban, but its recommendations carry significant weight. And, judging from the public reaction, they've already started a national conversation on the subject. NTSB has been swamped with calls, emails and tweets from drivers both praising and condemning the action.
It's the proposed hands-free ban that has generated the most controversy.
What's next? No passengers? No kids? No tuning the radio? Maybe NTSB will ban driving altogether, was the tenor of the response on Twitter.
The scientific evidence, however, is generally with NTSB, researchers said.
"There is a large body of evidence showing that talking on a phone, whether hand-held or hands-free, impairs driving and increases your risk of having a crash," Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said.
Jim Hedlund, a safety consultant and former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration official, recently examined 300 cellphone studies for the Governors Highway Safety Association. He couldn't recall a single study that showed drivers talking on a headset or hands-free phone were at any less risk of an accident than drivers with one hand on the wheel and a phone in the other.
A similar analysis for the government of Sweden recently came to the same conclusion: "There is no evidence suggesting that hands-free mobile phone use is less risky than handheld use."
What's missing is hard evidence that accidents are increasing because of cellphone use. One reason is that U.S. privacy laws have made it difficult for researchers to study whether cell phones were in use in accidents in the U.S. The two large studies that have been done in Canada and Australia found drivers were four times more likely to have a crash if talking on a cellphone. It didn't matter whether the cellphone was hands-free or hand-held.
But that hasn't translated to an increase in highway fatalities in the U.S., where they hit their lowest level since 1949 last year.
Of 6,000 drivers surveyed by the highway administration, 40 percent said they don't consider it unsafe for drivers to talk on a hands-free cellphone. Less than 12 percent said that about a hand-held phone.
Marcel Just, director of Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, isn't surprised.
It's counterintuitive to think that hands-free talking is dangerous because people don't have any sense that their conversation is draining brain power away from driving, but that's exactly what's happening, he said.
Just is the co-author of a 2008 study that used driving simulators to test the performance of drivers not engaged in conversation and drivers who could hear someone talking to them through headphones. Drivers took the simulator tests inside an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine that recorded images of changes in their brains while driving, including which areas of the brain were used for driving. The amount of the brain devoted to driving was 37 percent less in drivers who could hear someone talking to them than for drivers not using cellphones.
"The human mind can multitask, but each task is performed with less brain power and lower proficiency," Just said.
The driving simulators also showed a deterioration of skills on the part of drivers who could hear someone talking to them, including weaving between lanes and edging over the side of the road.
"When someone is speaking your native language, you can't will yourself to not hear and process it. It just goes in," Just said. Even if a driver tries to ignore the words, scientists "can see activation in the auditory cortex, in the language areas (of the brain). "
Accident investigators have seen cases of drivers talking on hands-free phones whose minds are so engrossed in their conversations that they ran into something plainly visible.
In a 2004, a bus driver taking students on a class trip drove his 12-foot-high bus into a 10-foot, 2-inch-high bridge arch in Alexandria, Va., peeling off the roof of the bus. There were signs warning drivers about the height of the bridge, and the bus driver was familiar with the route. He also saw a bus in front of him change lanes to avoid the low arch. But the bus driver, who was talking a hands-free phone at the time, drove right into it.
"There is a standard code for crash investigations called roughly 'look, but didn't see.' In other words, I was looking in the right place, but I didn't register what was there," Hedlund said.
Of course, drivers don't have to be using cellphones to have conversations they talk with passengers all the time. But talking to an adult passenger doesn't involve the same risk as a phone conversation, researchers said. That's because passengers are engaged in the driving experience with the driver. If they see a danger, they'll usually warn the driver. Passengers also tend to instinctually adjust their conversation to the level of traffic and other difficulties confronting the driver.
There are lots of other things that go on in cars that are risky: eating and drinking, tuning the radio, studying maps and applying makeup, for example. Just like talking on the phone, most of those things involve a choice by the driver.
As for the screaming toddler in the backseat demanding attention, "some things are just part of life," McCartt said.
55 percent of technicians who monitor bypass machines acknowledged to researchers that they had talked on cellphones during heart surgery. Half said they had texted while in surgery."
This can all be resolved with technology. Texting can be made hands-free if we could automatically translate speech into text. On the receiving side we just need to convert text back to speech. I bet we could do this on a Prop.
EDIT: I just did an internet search, and discovered that there is a much simpler technology that already does something like this, and it doesn't even require the intermediate text conversions. It's called voicemail! Not only that, but there is a voice mode where you can actually send and receive at the same time. I believe it was invented a few years ago by some guy named Alex Bell, or something like that.
Yes technology can resolve this - just have all communicating, texting and dialing devices disabled when one is behind the wheel.
Watching this thread grow to five pages has been rather confounding. It just seems we want to deny the solution should apply particularly to ourselves.
The simple fact that autos have killed more people than all the wars in history is really central to the issue. We love our conveniences and our economic growth more than our physical security.
Maybe we are justifying the continued use of the biggest killer of humans the world has ever known (sounds good; I don't know if it is true) by saying 'ok, ban this trivial part that causes a few more deaths'.
I am totally against texting while driving or cell phone use--unless it is hands free--while driving. However, I am against abridging the U.S. Constitution even more. A lot more.
Maybe we are justifying the continued use of the biggest killer of humans the world has ever known (sounds good; I don't know if it is true) by saying 'ok, ban this trivial part that causes a few more deaths'.
I am totally against texting while driving or cell phone use--unless it is hands free--while driving. However, I am against abridging the U.S. Constitution even more. A lot more.
--Bill
Bill, I don't think there has ever been any mention of amending the Constitution. The States change their laws due to the NTSB recommendation.
I suppose Federal funding could be used as an "incentive"...
The recommendation is the most far-reaching yet by the National Transportation Safety Board, which in the past 10 years has increasingly sought to limit the use of portable electronic devices -- recommending bans for novice drivers, school bus drivers and commercial truckers. Tuesday's recommendation, if adopted by states, would outlaw non-emergency phone calls and texting by operators of every vehicle on the road.
No one has mentioned amending the Constitution. If the Constitution were to be amended to ban cell phone/texting use while driving, that would be an exercise of our system at work in its grandest fashion. (This is not going to happen, though. We can't even amend the Constitution to get a balanced budget, much less to ban cell phones/texting while driving!!!) What I am saying--and what I am afraid of--is abridging the Constitution via local or congressional legislation and law to ban cell phone/texting use while driving. Constitutionalists will file suit immediately if such a law were passed. Heck, they probably already have the suit and injunction prepared, ready to drop on a Federal court.
Despite my complete rejection of cell phone/texting use while driving, I would completely and enthusiastically support any attempt to ban such short of an amendment to the First Amendment. (I don't think we are going to amend the First Amendment.)
Having said all that, I do believe legislation will be proposed, passed, and implemented to ban cell phone/texting use while driving either on the local, state, or federal levels. THEN the First Amendment law suits will be filed.
No one has mentioned amending the Constitution. If the Constitution were to be amended to ban cell phone/texting use while driving, that would be an exercise of our system at work in its grandest fashion. (This is not going to happen, though. We can't even amend the Constitution to get a balanced budget, much less to ban cell phones/texting while driving!!!) What I am saying--and what I am afraid of--is abridging the Constitution via local or congressional legislation and law to ban cell phone/texting use while driving. Constitutionalists will file suit immediately if such a law were passed. Heck, they probably already have the suit and injunction prepared, ready to drop on a Federal court.
Despite my complete rejection of cell phone/texting use while driving, I would completely and enthusiastically support any attempt to ban such short of an amendment to the First Amendment. (I don't think we are going to amend the First Amendment.)
Having said all that, I do believe legislation will be proposed, passed, and implemented to ban cell phone/texting use while driving either on the local, state, or federal levels. THEN the First Amendment law suits will be filed.
--Bill
Since 35 states already have bans or partial bans, it seems safe to say the courts do not believe the bans violate the first amendment.
Since 35 states already have bans or partial bans, it seems safe to say the courts do not believe the bans violate the first amendment.
You are right. It does. I wonder if the courts have considered and dismissed suits challenging the bans on First Amendment grounds? (Rhetorical question; I can look it up as easily as you.)
Do you know if any state has banned hands-free cell phone use while driving?
I remain firmly convinced there will be First Amendment challenges. State actions merely set the stage for Constitutional challenges. If there were no state actions, there would be no Constitutional challenges. (Duh.)
MY dear old grandpa always said, "Most people in the graveyard had the right of way."
Years ago in Taiwan, I witnessed a guy on a motor scooter that was on a cell phone get broadsided by a car for running a red light. Nothing remarkable in that, but when he refused to get up because he was unfinished with his phone call, I was taken back a bit. After all, he was lying in the middle of a busy intersection.
I really wonder how use of a cellular phone in a potentially lethal context is a First Amendment right.
The real problem is when people think the rules should apply to everyone but themselves. Hence we have global warming and here in Taiwan I just attended yet another feast with yet another course of sharks fin soup, and so on......
It used to be said that 'The business of America is business' and that was bad enough. Now the business of America is legislative gridlock. We don't need more laws so much as we need more people with a better sense about custom and reasons for respecting customs.
I remain firmly convinced there will be First Amendment challenges. State actions merely set the stage for Constitutional challenges. If there were no state actions, there would be no Constitutional challenges. (Duh.)
--Bill
Depending on the circumstances, the rights of one person can directly conflict with with rights of another.
For example, does the right to listen to loud music on your car stereo conflict with the right of someone who must endure your noise in their own home?
A person's "rights" end when they infringe upon the rights of another - common sense IMHO...
It used to be said that 'The business of America is business' and that was bad enough. Now the business of America is legislative gridlock.
The business of America is still business. (And that is good.) But, many share your view concerning legislative gridlock. It is obvious: Legislative gridlock is the current state of affairs. However, the very existence of gridlock is an example of how perfectly our system is working. The next election will bring about what The People desire. America may move to the left. America may move to the right. America may not move and legislative gridlock will continue to rule the day.
The beauty of the system is that whatever happens, The People make the decision. The Founders designed it to be ponderous and full of inertia to prevent fundamental modification to the system without a lot of debate. Such a system engenders thought and debate and may even fall to lower levels full of acrimony, such as now. Thought, debate, and acrimony--some of it venomous--are the mechanisms by which the system works. I don't have to agree with the results to appreciate the process of which I am an integral part.
Think about my use of the words and phrases 'inertia', 'a lot of debate' (twice), and 'process.' Our system is designed to work slowly. We can only be guaranteed a voice if this huge system has time to hear it. Inertia in the system is the key to its success as it guarantees that nothing will happen quickly, giving The People their right to be heard and heeded.
Personally, I am very dissatisfied with today's conditions as are most Americans from the left to the right. But, it is that very dissatisfaction that contributes to changing today's situation. Fortunately, the system of government we enjoy gives me time to hear what others have to say, to think about what they said, to say what I want, and participate in effecting changes. This is a good definition of a good system.
A good system that takes a long time to work is far better than a bad system that works very quickly. Patience is a virtue by virtue of the difficulty of obtaining it or, nothing is ever easy.
[EDIT: It is not possible to offend me on this forum. I enjoy your thoughts.]
ST. JAMES, Mo. (AP) The text was about something innocuous: A request to go to the county fair. It set off a highway pileup that took two lives, injured dozens and left two school buses and a pickup truck in a crumpled heap.
As the nation debates a federal recommendation to eliminate cellphone use in cars, the high school band students from St. James who were involved in the wreck last year have already done it themselves. After losing one of their classmates, many of the teens made a vow: Using a cellphone behind the wheel is something they just won't do.
The young man who was on the other end of the pivotal text exchange, who says he didn't know his friend was driving, is still haunted by the catastrophic result of what began as a simple message about their plans.
"I pretty much feel like it was my fault," said the young man, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that his name not be used because he fears retaliation from people who might blame him.
He was texting with 19-year-old Daniel Schatz, who investigators say set off the accident by slamming into the back of a semi cab that had slowed for road construction. The buses then crashed into the wreckage. Schatz and a 15-year-old girl on one of the buses, Jessica Brinker, were killed instantly.
The National Transportation Safety Board has cited that accident in its push to ban drivers from using cellphones even hands-free devices. That recommendation has already met with resistance from lawmakers around the country who fear an unprecedented reach into people's driving habits.
But young people in St. James, a sleepy town of about 3,700 near the Mark Twain National Forest, have already changed their behavior.
"The majority of us will refuse to text and drive because of this," said Ian Vannatta, 16, who was on one of the buses and is a new driver. "It's the difference between life and death."
Emily Perona, now an 18-year-old senior, survived the bus crash with a broken pelvis despite sitting just one seat ahead of Brinker.
"If a text or a call is that important, it should be no problem pulling over to the side of the road and then take care of what you need to," Perona said. "No life is worth texting your friend or anybody back while you're behind the wheel."
The events of Aug. 5, 2010 spelled out in a chilling Missouri State Highway Patrol report convinced her of that.
Vannatta and Perona were among about 50 St. James band students piled onto separate buses one for boys, the other for girls on their yearly pilgrimage to Six Flags St. Louis.
Conditions were clear, though several stretches along the freeway were under repair. The buses made their way through two work zones before rolling up to a third at Gray Summit, about 40 miles southwest of St. Louis.
Michael Crabtree, a 43-year-old trucker bound for St. Louis for a load, had just gotten onto Interstate 44 driving a semi cab without a trailer. Near Gray Summit, along a straight, uphill ribbon of highway, he slowed for road work when he saw in his rearview mirror a silver pickup barreling down on him. He braced for impact.
The 2007 GMC driven by Schatz a former University of Missouri reserve quarterback and a Republican state lawmaker's son from nearby Sullivan hit Crabtree's cab at 55 mph.
Tour bus driver Eugene Reed saw the wreck from behind, pulled over and scrambled out to warn other approaching drivers. That's when both of the St. James buses rolled by.
The lead bus driver told investigators she straddled the eastbound lanes' center line to get around the tour bus. She glanced in the mirror to see what Reed was doing when her bus, carrying the girls in the band, rammed the pickup truck from behind.
Perona recalls everything just shaking, then thinking, "God, help me." In a confused haze, she peered out the left window and saw the bus had tilted skyward.
"It's almost like I blacked out," she remembers. "Then all of a sudden, I was struck."
The second St. James bus had just crashed into the pileup with such force that its front cab broke through the back of the first and into the very back seat, where
Brinker sat directly behind Perona.
"I waited, and I prayed," Perona said.
The violent impact sent the first bus up onto the pickup truck, crushing it, and even atop the semi cab, where the bus came to rest pointed up, almost like a rocket ready to launch.
On the second bus, Vannatta recalls the impact as merely a blur.
"All I remember is seeing the glass shatter, hitting the seat and hearing screaming," he said of the collision that sent him lurching into the seat ahead of him, leaving him with a compression spinal fracture that damaged four of his vertebrae.
Retiree Dan Schrock, who was traveling with his wife from their home in Crescent, Okla., to visit their son in Cincinnati, saw debris flying and stopped to help.
He found the front door of the lead bus too high off the ground for the girls to escape, and the back door was jammed against the pavement. Schrock and other rescuers improvised. Another man managed to climb in as Schrock stood outside a passenger window, ankle-deep in diesel fuel spilling from the bus, and helped lift the girls to safety.
"They just looked like they were in shock," said Schrock, now 76. "They really weren't screaming or crying, just total shock."
Vannatta remembers sitting along the roadside, where a hasty triage was unfolding: The unhurt in one group, those with minor injuries in another. "Those majorly hurt were shipped off as fast as they could," the teenager said.
While both school bus drivers were charged with careless driving, their cases have not yet gone to court.
In the end, it was Schatz's texting that caused the wreck, the patrol and the NTSB determined.
The friend with whom Schatz was texting had known him since childhood. Their exchange that morning was about plans to spend the day at a county fair, the friend told AP. He said he thought Schatz was at work.
Phone records obtained by the Highway Patrol showed that the friend first texted Schatz at 9:58 a.m. An exchange of 10 other texts followed. When the friend sent a final text at 10:09 a.m., Schatz never replied.
"I just figured he got busy," said the young man. He learned later his friend died at about that moment.
Perona waved away any blame for the wreck.
"Everyone makes mistakes," said Perona, who has rebounded from the broken hip and a damaged nerve that until last August left her with a dragging foot, forcing her to drop out of band her senior year as a clarinet player because she couldn't march. "You just need to learn from them."
Trumpet-playing Vannatta, who before the tragedy had never been in a wreck, has taken caution to another level. He puts the phone away when behind the wheel no exceptions. And he avoids the freeway in his Ford F-150 pickup, taking an outer road to his warehouse job some 15 minutes from home.
Around St. James, the NTSB's call for a total ban on behind-the-wheel cellphone use has blunted the community's efforts to move on from losing a girl whose burial plot includes plaid pink socks homage to Brinker's always-colorful attire that friends say matched her cheery character.
"I still go to her grave on occasion, where I pray and talk to her," Vannatta said. The tragedy "is something that will stay with this community for a very, very long time. It's going to and has changed all of our lives."
Ron--I remember when that tragedy occurred. The students made the right decision not to use cell phones while driving, again. Perhaps, more people will make the same decision. There are many, many things people should not do while using cell phones, driving is only one of them. But, there are many, many, many combinations of things people can do that are dangerous and deadly. Should the government research every combination and ban it, or let free people use their own common sense?--Bill
Where would you draw the line ron? When it works for ron(self centered).Reminds me of a local person who shot his neighbor for mowing his yard.This could go on and on. Another waste of time.The only solution would be limit all noise or sound proof your home.Even the no loud noise after a certain time of day doesn't work for everyone.Modern society is noisy.People work and sleep 24 7.I think its funny how you said those punks. Why because it wasn't your favorite song.Down with all songs ron doesn't like.
The title of Bill Maher's new book comes to mind -- "The New New Rules (A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their A**)"
Everyone driving faster than I do is a maniac and everyone slower is a dope.
I bet that I've been driving without getting a ticket longer than graffix is old. (:
How about a mandatory device on the top a car that lights up brightly, for all to see, when there's cellphone activity inside that car?! It's not like you really can't tell, but still.
Where would you draw the line ron? When it works for ron(self centered).Reminds me of a local person who shot his neighbor for mowing his yard.This could go on and on. Another waste of time.The only solution would be limit all noise or sound proof your home.Even the no loud noise after a certain time of day doesn't work for everyone.Modern society is noisy.People work and sleep 24 7.I think its funny how you said those punks. Why because it wasn't your favorite song.Down with all songs ron doesn't like.
They may have issuses.So could you?
It's not about what song is playing - it's about noise and infringing on the rights of someone else and intimidation.
Several cities have passed ordinances which allow boomcars to be impounded and some allow equipment to be confiscated.
Luckily elected city officials recognize noise pollution as a quality-of-life issue and continue to strengthen noise laws and increase fines and penalties.
Google "boomcars" if really want to gain an understanding of the issue.
If we ban everything that can cause harm, what kind of society would we be living in? The thing is, there are already laws that address these issues but they are not well enforced. Operating a motor vehicle is looked upon as a right rather than a privilege. Anyone with poor enough judgment to be texting while driving is likely to be a hazard to others when not texting as well. Bans are a patch that don't really work. Cell phone use is illegal here now but that does not stop people from using them while driving, it's those people that are most likely to be a danger to others. And of course you see the police using cell phones - special training I guess.
Also, as this accident was described, texting was not the real issue. What really caused the problem was following too closely - by the bus drivers. That's not stopping people from using it as an example of the dangers of texting though is it? Nothing, I repeat nothing that happens to a vehicle in front of you, short of traveling backwards, should be able to cause you to have an accident. If it does, then you were too close.
In most of the world w Western Law, you are innocent until proven guilty - i.e. you don't even have to present a defense.
Here in California, USA, there is SORT of an exception. If you rear end somebody in traffic, for practical purposes you are guilty until you prove there was some mitigating factor.
There is no law against following too close - you screw up, you pay. Considering the absence of an enforceable law, there are remarkably few (considering all the drivers) rear end accidents.
Same thing for other "problems". Don't ban electronics while driving. If you are involved in an accident while texting (or anything else) start getting ready to prove your innocence - 'cause the other guy doesn't have to prove you guilty.
Comments
I do wish people would just have a little common sense.Fact is they dont.They care mostly of themselves and whats infront of them or not. If you take thier poor selfish thought process out of the equation it would work.Im sure there are other examples in the past of people misusing something that effects others in this case it kills them, sometimes whole generations of a family. With a huge trickle down effect to whats left of the family.Who may have done nothing wrong any of them.Overtime if it becomes a real problem for society then it will be addressed. Handing people tickets isnt going to work.There is no way a cop could tell unless your using your cell in front of them.Or if they checked your phone after the damage has been done.So if that many people get away with it the problem is still there.
Really I'm done with this thread no need to reply to me.
Seems the people in the operating room giving you an operation are texting during your operation!
"A peer-reviewed survey of 439 medical technicians published this year in Perfusion, a journal about cardio-pulmonary bypass surgery, found that 55 percent of technicians who monitor bypass machines acknowledged to researchers that they had talked on cellphones during heart surgery. Half said they had texted while in surgery."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/health/as-doctors-use-more-devices-potential-for-distraction-grows.html
Interesting since hospitals say cell phones interfere with medical equipment...
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/research-shows-hands-free-phones-risky-15159825
Research Shows Hands-Free Phones Just as Risky
By JOAN LOWY Associated Press
WASHINGTON December 15, 2011 (AP)
When someone is talking to you, your brain is listening, processing and thinking about what's being said even if you're in the driver's seat trying to concentrate on traffic.
That's why drivers get distracted during cellphone conversations, even when using hands-free phones, researchers say. It's also part of the reason why the National Transportation Safety Board made a recommendation this week it knows a lot of drivers won't like that states ban hands-free, as well as hand-held, cellphone use while driving.
It's not where your hands are, but where your mind is that counts, NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman told reporters.
The board doesn't have the power to force states to impose a ban, but its recommendations carry significant weight. And, judging from the public reaction, they've already started a national conversation on the subject. NTSB has been swamped with calls, emails and tweets from drivers both praising and condemning the action.
It's the proposed hands-free ban that has generated the most controversy.
What's next? No passengers? No kids? No tuning the radio? Maybe NTSB will ban driving altogether, was the tenor of the response on Twitter.
The scientific evidence, however, is generally with NTSB, researchers said.
"There is a large body of evidence showing that talking on a phone, whether hand-held or hands-free, impairs driving and increases your risk of having a crash," Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said.
Jim Hedlund, a safety consultant and former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration official, recently examined 300 cellphone studies for the Governors Highway Safety Association. He couldn't recall a single study that showed drivers talking on a headset or hands-free phone were at any less risk of an accident than drivers with one hand on the wheel and a phone in the other.
A similar analysis for the government of Sweden recently came to the same conclusion: "There is no evidence suggesting that hands-free mobile phone use is less risky than handheld use."
What's missing is hard evidence that accidents are increasing because of cellphone use. One reason is that U.S. privacy laws have made it difficult for researchers to study whether cell phones were in use in accidents in the U.S. The two large studies that have been done in Canada and Australia found drivers were four times more likely to have a crash if talking on a cellphone. It didn't matter whether the cellphone was hands-free or hand-held.
But that hasn't translated to an increase in highway fatalities in the U.S., where they hit their lowest level since 1949 last year.
Of 6,000 drivers surveyed by the highway administration, 40 percent said they don't consider it unsafe for drivers to talk on a hands-free cellphone. Less than 12 percent said that about a hand-held phone.
Marcel Just, director of Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, isn't surprised.
It's counterintuitive to think that hands-free talking is dangerous because people don't have any sense that their conversation is draining brain power away from driving, but that's exactly what's happening, he said.
Just is the co-author of a 2008 study that used driving simulators to test the performance of drivers not engaged in conversation and drivers who could hear someone talking to them through headphones. Drivers took the simulator tests inside an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine that recorded images of changes in their brains while driving, including which areas of the brain were used for driving. The amount of the brain devoted to driving was 37 percent less in drivers who could hear someone talking to them than for drivers not using cellphones.
"The human mind can multitask, but each task is performed with less brain power and lower proficiency," Just said.
The driving simulators also showed a deterioration of skills on the part of drivers who could hear someone talking to them, including weaving between lanes and edging over the side of the road.
"When someone is speaking your native language, you can't will yourself to not hear and process it. It just goes in," Just said. Even if a driver tries to ignore the words, scientists "can see activation in the auditory cortex, in the language areas (of the brain). "
Accident investigators have seen cases of drivers talking on hands-free phones whose minds are so engrossed in their conversations that they ran into something plainly visible.
In a 2004, a bus driver taking students on a class trip drove his 12-foot-high bus into a 10-foot, 2-inch-high bridge arch in Alexandria, Va., peeling off the roof of the bus. There were signs warning drivers about the height of the bridge, and the bus driver was familiar with the route. He also saw a bus in front of him change lanes to avoid the low arch. But the bus driver, who was talking a hands-free phone at the time, drove right into it.
"There is a standard code for crash investigations called roughly 'look, but didn't see.' In other words, I was looking in the right place, but I didn't register what was there," Hedlund said.
Of course, drivers don't have to be using cellphones to have conversations they talk with passengers all the time. But talking to an adult passenger doesn't involve the same risk as a phone conversation, researchers said. That's because passengers are engaged in the driving experience with the driver. If they see a danger, they'll usually warn the driver. Passengers also tend to instinctually adjust their conversation to the level of traffic and other difficulties confronting the driver.
There are lots of other things that go on in cars that are risky: eating and drinking, tuning the radio, studying maps and applying makeup, for example. Just like talking on the phone, most of those things involve a choice by the driver.
As for the screaming toddler in the backseat demanding attention, "some things are just part of life," McCartt said.
40% - the reduction in motor vehicle accidents in Abu Dhabi during a recent three day Blackberry outage.
That is one scary statistic.
Bill190,
Given the amount of bacteria that live on/in phones that is also worrying. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/13/mobile-phones-uk-e-coli
EDIT: I just did an internet search, and discovered that there is a much simpler technology that already does something like this, and it doesn't even require the intermediate text conversions. It's called voicemail! Not only that, but there is a voice mode where you can actually send and receive at the same time. I believe it was invented a few years ago by some guy named Alex Bell, or something like that.
Watching this thread grow to five pages has been rather confounding. It just seems we want to deny the solution should apply particularly to ourselves.
The simple fact that autos have killed more people than all the wars in history is really central to the issue. We love our conveniences and our economic growth more than our physical security.
Maybe we are justifying the continued use of the biggest killer of humans the world has ever known (sounds good; I don't know if it is true) by saying 'ok, ban this trivial part that causes a few more deaths'.
I am totally against texting while driving or cell phone use--unless it is hands free--while driving. However, I am against abridging the U.S. Constitution even more. A lot more.
--Bill
Bill, I don't think there has ever been any mention of amending the Constitution. The States change their laws due to the NTSB recommendation.
I suppose Federal funding could be used as an "incentive"...
No one has mentioned amending the Constitution. If the Constitution were to be amended to ban cell phone/texting use while driving, that would be an exercise of our system at work in its grandest fashion. (This is not going to happen, though. We can't even amend the Constitution to get a balanced budget, much less to ban cell phones/texting while driving!!!) What I am saying--and what I am afraid of--is abridging the Constitution via local or congressional legislation and law to ban cell phone/texting use while driving. Constitutionalists will file suit immediately if such a law were passed. Heck, they probably already have the suit and injunction prepared, ready to drop on a Federal court.
Despite my complete rejection of cell phone/texting use while driving, I would completely and enthusiastically support any attempt to ban such short of an amendment to the First Amendment. (I don't think we are going to amend the First Amendment.)
Having said all that, I do believe legislation will be proposed, passed, and implemented to ban cell phone/texting use while driving either on the local, state, or federal levels. THEN the First Amendment law suits will be filed.
--Bill
Since 35 states already have bans or partial bans, it seems safe to say the courts do not believe the bans violate the first amendment.
Do you know if any state has banned hands-free cell phone use while driving?
I remain firmly convinced there will be First Amendment challenges. State actions merely set the stage for Constitutional challenges. If there were no state actions, there would be no Constitutional challenges. (Duh.)
--Bill
Years ago in Taiwan, I witnessed a guy on a motor scooter that was on a cell phone get broadsided by a car for running a red light. Nothing remarkable in that, but when he refused to get up because he was unfinished with his phone call, I was taken back a bit. After all, he was lying in the middle of a busy intersection.
I really wonder how use of a cellular phone in a potentially lethal context is a First Amendment right.
The real problem is when people think the rules should apply to everyone but themselves. Hence we have global warming and here in Taiwan I just attended yet another feast with yet another course of sharks fin soup, and so on......
It used to be said that 'The business of America is business' and that was bad enough. Now the business of America is legislative gridlock. We don't need more laws so much as we need more people with a better sense about custom and reasons for respecting customs.
Depending on the circumstances, the rights of one person can directly conflict with with rights of another.
For example, does the right to listen to loud music on your car stereo conflict with the right of someone who must endure your noise in their own home?
A person's "rights" end when they infringe upon the rights of another - common sense IMHO...
The beauty of the system is that whatever happens, The People make the decision. The Founders designed it to be ponderous and full of inertia to prevent fundamental modification to the system without a lot of debate. Such a system engenders thought and debate and may even fall to lower levels full of acrimony, such as now. Thought, debate, and acrimony--some of it venomous--are the mechanisms by which the system works. I don't have to agree with the results to appreciate the process of which I am an integral part.
--Bill
WOW!
idbruce--
Think about my use of the words and phrases 'inertia', 'a lot of debate' (twice), and 'process.' Our system is designed to work slowly. We can only be guaranteed a voice if this huge system has time to hear it. Inertia in the system is the key to its success as it guarantees that nothing will happen quickly, giving The People their right to be heard and heeded.
Personally, I am very dissatisfied with today's conditions as are most Americans from the left to the right. But, it is that very dissatisfaction that contributes to changing today's situation. Fortunately, the system of government we enjoy gives me time to hear what others have to say, to think about what they said, to say what I want, and participate in effecting changes. This is a good definition of a good system.
A good system that takes a long time to work is far better than a bad system that works very quickly. Patience is a virtue by virtue of the difficulty of obtaining it or, nothing is ever easy.
[EDIT: It is not possible to offend me on this forum. I enjoy your thoughts.]
--Bill
'
I feel the same way
For Mo. students, cellphone debate isn't academic
ST. JAMES, Mo. (AP) The text was about something innocuous: A request to go to the county fair. It set off a highway pileup that took two lives, injured dozens and left two school buses and a pickup truck in a crumpled heap.
As the nation debates a federal recommendation to eliminate cellphone use in cars, the high school band students from St. James who were involved in the wreck last year have already done it themselves. After losing one of their classmates, many of the teens made a vow: Using a cellphone behind the wheel is something they just won't do.
The young man who was on the other end of the pivotal text exchange, who says he didn't know his friend was driving, is still haunted by the catastrophic result of what began as a simple message about their plans.
"I pretty much feel like it was my fault," said the young man, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that his name not be used because he fears retaliation from people who might blame him.
He was texting with 19-year-old Daniel Schatz, who investigators say set off the accident by slamming into the back of a semi cab that had slowed for road construction. The buses then crashed into the wreckage. Schatz and a 15-year-old girl on one of the buses, Jessica Brinker, were killed instantly.
The National Transportation Safety Board has cited that accident in its push to ban drivers from using cellphones even hands-free devices. That recommendation has already met with resistance from lawmakers around the country who fear an unprecedented reach into people's driving habits.
But young people in St. James, a sleepy town of about 3,700 near the Mark Twain National Forest, have already changed their behavior.
"The majority of us will refuse to text and drive because of this," said Ian Vannatta, 16, who was on one of the buses and is a new driver. "It's the difference between life and death."
Emily Perona, now an 18-year-old senior, survived the bus crash with a broken pelvis despite sitting just one seat ahead of Brinker.
"If a text or a call is that important, it should be no problem pulling over to the side of the road and then take care of what you need to," Perona said. "No life is worth texting your friend or anybody back while you're behind the wheel."
The events of Aug. 5, 2010 spelled out in a chilling Missouri State Highway Patrol report convinced her of that.
Vannatta and Perona were among about 50 St. James band students piled onto separate buses one for boys, the other for girls on their yearly pilgrimage to Six Flags St. Louis.
Conditions were clear, though several stretches along the freeway were under repair. The buses made their way through two work zones before rolling up to a third at Gray Summit, about 40 miles southwest of St. Louis.
Michael Crabtree, a 43-year-old trucker bound for St. Louis for a load, had just gotten onto Interstate 44 driving a semi cab without a trailer. Near Gray Summit, along a straight, uphill ribbon of highway, he slowed for road work when he saw in his rearview mirror a silver pickup barreling down on him. He braced for impact.
The 2007 GMC driven by Schatz a former University of Missouri reserve quarterback and a Republican state lawmaker's son from nearby Sullivan hit Crabtree's cab at 55 mph.
Tour bus driver Eugene Reed saw the wreck from behind, pulled over and scrambled out to warn other approaching drivers. That's when both of the St. James buses rolled by.
The lead bus driver told investigators she straddled the eastbound lanes' center line to get around the tour bus. She glanced in the mirror to see what Reed was doing when her bus, carrying the girls in the band, rammed the pickup truck from behind.
Perona recalls everything just shaking, then thinking, "God, help me." In a confused haze, she peered out the left window and saw the bus had tilted skyward.
"It's almost like I blacked out," she remembers. "Then all of a sudden, I was struck."
The second St. James bus had just crashed into the pileup with such force that its front cab broke through the back of the first and into the very back seat, where
Brinker sat directly behind Perona.
"I waited, and I prayed," Perona said.
The violent impact sent the first bus up onto the pickup truck, crushing it, and even atop the semi cab, where the bus came to rest pointed up, almost like a rocket ready to launch.
On the second bus, Vannatta recalls the impact as merely a blur.
"All I remember is seeing the glass shatter, hitting the seat and hearing screaming," he said of the collision that sent him lurching into the seat ahead of him, leaving him with a compression spinal fracture that damaged four of his vertebrae.
Retiree Dan Schrock, who was traveling with his wife from their home in Crescent, Okla., to visit their son in Cincinnati, saw debris flying and stopped to help.
He found the front door of the lead bus too high off the ground for the girls to escape, and the back door was jammed against the pavement. Schrock and other rescuers improvised. Another man managed to climb in as Schrock stood outside a passenger window, ankle-deep in diesel fuel spilling from the bus, and helped lift the girls to safety.
"They just looked like they were in shock," said Schrock, now 76. "They really weren't screaming or crying, just total shock."
Vannatta remembers sitting along the roadside, where a hasty triage was unfolding: The unhurt in one group, those with minor injuries in another. "Those majorly hurt were shipped off as fast as they could," the teenager said.
While both school bus drivers were charged with careless driving, their cases have not yet gone to court.
In the end, it was Schatz's texting that caused the wreck, the patrol and the NTSB determined.
The friend with whom Schatz was texting had known him since childhood. Their exchange that morning was about plans to spend the day at a county fair, the friend told AP. He said he thought Schatz was at work.
Phone records obtained by the Highway Patrol showed that the friend first texted Schatz at 9:58 a.m. An exchange of 10 other texts followed. When the friend sent a final text at 10:09 a.m., Schatz never replied.
"I just figured he got busy," said the young man. He learned later his friend died at about that moment.
Perona waved away any blame for the wreck.
"Everyone makes mistakes," said Perona, who has rebounded from the broken hip and a damaged nerve that until last August left her with a dragging foot, forcing her to drop out of band her senior year as a clarinet player because she couldn't march. "You just need to learn from them."
Trumpet-playing Vannatta, who before the tragedy had never been in a wreck, has taken caution to another level. He puts the phone away when behind the wheel no exceptions. And he avoids the freeway in his Ford F-150 pickup, taking an outer road to his warehouse job some 15 minutes from home.
Around St. James, the NTSB's call for a total ban on behind-the-wheel cellphone use has blunted the community's efforts to move on from losing a girl whose burial plot includes plaid pink socks homage to Brinker's always-colorful attire that friends say matched her cheery character.
"I still go to her grave on occasion, where I pray and talk to her," Vannatta said. The tragedy "is something that will stay with this community for a very, very long time. It's going to and has changed all of our lives."
So everybody in the city should soundproof their home so some punk can blast his music loud enough to be heard blocks away.
Makes perfect sense - NOT. That behavior is typical self-centered look-at-me mentality
They may have issuses.So could you?
Everyone driving faster than I do is a maniac and everyone slower is a dope.
I bet that I've been driving without getting a ticket longer than graffix is old. (:
How about a mandatory device on the top a car that lights up brightly, for all to see, when there's cellphone activity inside that car?! It's not like you really can't tell, but still.
It's not about what song is playing - it's about noise and infringing on the rights of someone else and intimidation.
Several cities have passed ordinances which allow boomcars to be impounded and some allow equipment to be confiscated.
Luckily elected city officials recognize noise pollution as a quality-of-life issue and continue to strengthen noise laws and increase fines and penalties.
Google "boomcars" if really want to gain an understanding of the issue.
Really you've been driving for 33yrs PJ?
That is certainly true and it is increasing dramatically. Infrasound from boomcars is particularly annoying to many - hence the recent crackdowns.
Illegally modified exhaust systems on cars and motorcycles contribute to the cacaphony. Again, more cities are passing stringent laws in response.
In most of the world w Western Law, you are innocent until proven guilty - i.e. you don't even have to present a defense.
Here in California, USA, there is SORT of an exception. If you rear end somebody in traffic, for practical purposes you are guilty until you prove there was some mitigating factor.
There is no law against following too close - you screw up, you pay. Considering the absence of an enforceable law, there are remarkably few (considering all the drivers) rear end accidents.
Same thing for other "problems". Don't ban electronics while driving. If you are involved in an accident while texting (or anything else) start getting ready to prove your innocence - 'cause the other guy doesn't have to prove you guilty.