about the cellphone in cars thing....

[Nanotech9]

ok, so how is talking on a cellphone in a car more distracting than talking to another person in a car, or even a group of people in a car while driving?

i personally think they are both equally distracting, and that neither one should be illegal.

[coleslaw]

You are not holding that person in your hand though. I think that holding the phone and not being able to have full control of the wheel (especially if you have a manual transmission) is the most distracting thing. Also, you have to listen more closely and take more of your concentration off of the road as opposed to listening to someone inside the car with you.

[Nanotech9]

mmmkay, good point.

BUT, when theres a real person in the car, you tend to Look at them, instead of the road. Especially with kids in the backseat....

[whitak24]

i think that before they bar the use of cell phones, they should make it illegal to have a radio in the car. i mean, between changing stations, swapping cds, messing with the volume, etc, i'm way more distracted by that than my cell.

[Speedfreak]

Maybe not everyone drives like crap while using a phone in a car, but there have been many accidents because of it.

Man.. I could talk to people in a car without ever looking at them. I can't hear everything on the road and I can't read people's lips, so I use my senses the way I should. I look at the road and listen to people talk.

[Tuvi]

i kind of almost had an accident while on a cell phone in my car. i was trying to make a left turn at this weird 4 lane intersection with a median strip on both sides and no stop light. so i was turning with one hand and the cell in the other and i got to the point in my turn when i couldn't move my arm anymore. so i took my hand off real fast and tried to grab the other end of the wheel, but the wheel turned the other way or something and i swerved to the right and almost hit another car. but now i always use my headset thing.

there have been a couple times that i've almost rearended people while changing radio stations and whatnot. i usually don't look at the radio when changing it, but sometimes i do. most of the times i've "almost" hit people have been in slow moving traffic and stuff like that.

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by Tuvi
i kind of almost had an accident while on a cell phone in my car. i was trying to make a left turn at this weird 4 lane intersection with a median strip on both sides and no stop light. so i was turning with one hand and the cell in the other and i got to the point in my turn when i couldn't move my arm anymore. so i took my hand off real fast and tried to grab the other end of the wheel, but the wheel turned the other way or something and i swerved to the right and almost hit another car. but now i always use my headset thing.


I would hope at that point most people would understand that it is more important to be a little rude to the person on the phone and put the phone down to grab the wheel, then to hit another car. ;)

[OC]

I always my cell phone headset when I'm in the car. It's not my habit to call when driving anyway, but at least this way I have both hands free to actually operate my vehicle.

-OC

[johnnymk]

I was in back of a large dump truck last week on an Interstate highway who was staying in the left lane. I couldn't figure why he wasn't moving to the right lane when he had the chance. Well, after a couple of miles, I pass him on the right, and I look over and the idiot is yacking on his *&%$* cellphone. Figures!!
I have a great solution about this cellphone dilemma. If a person is involved in an accident and it can definitely be proven that he was talking on a cellphone, his insurance automatically goes up $1000 a year for so many years. If he hits a pedestrian or kills someone in a vehicle, he automatically goes to jail for a year.

[pennypinch]

I'm with you, Nano. I'll admit, talking on the phone, even with a headset, can be a minor distraction, but certainly no worse than a radio, another person in the car, children, videos, navigation, glare from the sun, reading street signs, eating, putting on makeup, etc. etc.

Sure, they tell you not to do lots of these things, but none of 'em are illegal. It's a question of frequency: you find more people talk on the phone than, say, eat in their cars, when both are equally dangerous. They either need to bar all activity in cars, or ban none of it.

[Speedfreak]

Ya, that way only the people who actually drive bad while on the phone will be punished.

But then, other people will see it as if a person is killed because of someone driving and talking on the phone, then it could have been prevented if there was a law against it.

[pennypinch]

Originally posted by johnnymk
I have a great solution about this cellphone dilemma. If a person is involved in an accident and it can definitely be proven that he was talking on a cellphone, his insurance automatically goes up $1000 a year for so many years. If he hits a pedestrian or kills someone in a vehicle, he automatically goes to jail for a year.

So if I'm talking on my phone, and someone runs a red light and smacks into me, I'm at fault?

Obviously, I know what you're saying, but I refer to my above comment: there are tons, TONS of things more dangerous to do in a car. Another case of reverse elitism.

[Tuvi]

Originally posted by Speedfreak



I would hope at that point most people would understand that it is more important to be a little rude to the person on the phone and put the phone down to grab the wheel, then to hit another car. ;) yeah i know. i'm always rude to people on the phone. it really wasn't a matter of me not wating to be rude, but just that i thought i could do the manuever that iw as trying to do. i only swerved a little bit and the car that i almost hit wasn't all that close to me. i exaggerated the story just a tad to make a point.

[chrissy]

Originally posted by pennypinch
I'm with you, Nano. I'll admit, talking on the phone, even with a headset, can be a minor distraction, but certainly no worse than a radio, another person in the car, children, videos, navigation, glare from the sun, reading street signs, eating, putting on makeup, etc. etc.

Sure, they tell you not to do lots of these things, but none of 'em are illegal. It's a question of frequency: you find more people talk on the phone than, say, eat in their cars, when both are equally dangerous. They either need to bar all activity in cars, or ban none of it.

Sure, I can see your point. But as a parent, my children are not a distraction and I refuse to use my cell in the car because it is. I find it hard not to have both hands free. And I am not a simple minded person, just don't think my attention is in the "zone" when I am talking on a cell phone and driving at the same time.

When I am dealing with my kids, the person next to me, the radio, I am dealing with things in the environment. They maybe distractions, but they are right there. A person on the cell phone is kinda remote. And I don't know about you or anyone else, but something I have always felt was relaxed when I was on a phone. Cell or not. And that in a car might not be a good thing at all times. Your reaction time decreases.

As for a smart remark, children outlawed in cars?? Give me a break! No school busses? No field trips? "sorry brownies, we cannot go to the nursing home to passout the kleenex box covers you made because it would be illegal for me to take you in the car." That would never fly. Can tell you are single and childless and will be for a while.

[attgig]

prolly would help if I had a link...
but there was a study done about cell phone use, and how even when u use a headset, you still get distracted a lot....

I'll try to figure out where i saw it...
and obviously, this is only one study...

[dbax791]

In general, when I'm driving, the radio is a passive thing. If my eyes are on the road and I need to pay attention its real easy to focus on driving and ignore the radio.

Cellphones, whether they are headset or not, require active attention to the conversation, a much greater distraction than driving IMO.

That said, I confess to occasional use of the cell phone in the car, but try to limit it.

What gets me is cellphoneloser who just stops in the middle of a residential street and gabs away - and waves you to go around when they are blocking you :boxing:

[MusashiM]

Well, cell-phones aren't the most stupid thing a person could do while driving, but they are close. I mean, I've even seen people reading novels while they were driving, but they were just idiots...

The point is, anything that requires as much concentration as a phonecall should not be done while driving. I really could care less if a person killed themselves because they decided not to pull over to take a call rather than continuing to drive, but I do care if someone just trying to make it through gets hurt because someone thinks that their phonecall is, potentially, more important than someone else's life...

[Nanotech9]

interesting what everyone came up with... and pretty much all of them valid points...

so maybe the solution is for everyone do drive at their own skill lever...

example: if your a person that can keep his concentration on the road, and also maintain a conversation over the headset, then ok. But if a person has trouble maintaing concentration on teh road if they're doing something else (be it a cell phone or food or whatever) then they should stop doing the thing that is distracting to them.

Heck, I've been turning a corner, talking on the phone, starting from a redlight (actualy a green arrow), shifting into second, and eating, all at the same time. Yes, dangerous, but maybe not as dangerous as for some... you see, i've put about 2000 - 2500mi. on my knee. What i mean by that is i've made two very long trips driving mostly with my knee. I kinda turned it into a skill of mine, espceially the turning corners part. BUT, to put everyone's mind at ease, i hardly ever do it anymore (the knee driving, or the multitasking-corner-turning tricks).

On a side note... a friend of mine once told me he saw a guy, on a harly, riding down the highway, with his feet up on the handle bars, reading a book. (cycles do have cruise controls). I must admin - he's a lot bolder/stupider than I ever will be :D

[BrewMaster]

I can't argue what's worse or anything like that, but I live in LA where people have cell phones surgically attached to their ears I think. All I know is that I've had SOOOOO many people almost hit me or someone else because they're talking on the cell while changing lanes or turning or whatever. I can't say that other things aren't distracting, but cell phones are what I've seen causing problems. Of course my best friend crashed our other friends car last year b/c he was changing radio stations and rear-ended someone. I'm not saying radios aren't distracting, but I know my car and my radio and I could use it without it being a distraction. I don't have cell phone b/c I don't need it (neither do most people IMHO) but if I did it would distract me. They distracts lots of people in LA. Just watch the 405 during traffic (which is all day) and you'll see.

[Jeffbx]

Yeah - I hear all the arguments about talking to other people in the car or playing with the radio in the car, but my real world experience tells me that if there is some idiot doing something stupid on the road - going slow in the passing lane, wandering over the lines, turning without signaling, etc. - 95% of the time they are yakking on the phone.

Keep an eye out for it next time you're driving. You'll see what I mean.

[johnnymk]

It would really be neat if they had a device that could jam the cellphone within,let's say, a hundred feet of your car. Or even a device that you could relay over their cellphone some nasty comment about their stupid behavior.

[pennypinch]

Originally posted by chrissy
As for a smart remark, children outlawed in cars?? Give me a break! No school busses? No field trips? "sorry brownies, we cannot go to the nursing home to passout the kleenex box covers you made because it would be illegal for me to take you in the car." That would never fly. Can tell you are single and childless and will be for a while.

Zing!

Clearly, I was trying to illustrating a point (one you may have missed :rolleyes:). Children (or infantile friends) are a distraction in the car; denying that is a dangerous activity in and of itself. But we have, as a society, deemed it a socially acceptable activity to transport children in our cars. OBVIOUSLY, outlawing that would be patently moronic.

I make the same arguement for cell phones. Sure, they're distracting. But the delineation is that children are cute and accessible to all, while cell phones are for corporate fat cats driving M-B's and Lexi. It's a hell of a lot easier to draw lines in the sand between "us and them". Cell phone users (outside of SoCal) are so much more detestable because their cell phones represent something more than just a device for communication, but a status symbol. I guarantee you if food was for only certain, privileged socio-economic cohorts of the population, there would be a big movement to ban that in the car too.

Nevertheless, we target phones because they're highly visible and an obvious distraction. To get all Bushian up in this ass, make no mistake, there are LOTS of things just as distracting that you see people doing in cars all the time. Shaving? Makeup? Food? And yes, kids? We have yet to take a stand against any of these, and so we shouldn't against cell phone usage.

[BigJon]

I don't get thuis either. Howw is talkinbg on a cewll phone whileq you arrre drivving effecct anyuthing?> I am typingh right now whilee tsalking on my ceell phone and notr havingf a single rproblem . . . ohhe crudd!! aso dshsdod bhbos aww mann! I just spilleed my coffeee onmy pants1!

[johnnymk]

bigjon: That is too funny!! ROFL:heh:

[leemaj]

i was talkin and trying to turn, and when i rezlised i needed 2 hands, i just dropped phone in my lap like it was nothing and turned, then picked it up again.