Ban Hand Held Devices In Cars?

[JulesMaximus]

And when circumstances dictate that you fade away from the conversation and devote more attention to changing traffic conditions, your passengers tend to slow down the conversation as well. Not so with people on the other end of the phone conversation.

Are you trying to tell me that passengers in the car with you are always paying attention to what's going on around them?

It really isn't that difficult to tune out someone on the other end of a phone conversation for a few seconds. I'm not engaging in deep conversations when I'm commuting anyway. Usually just chatting with my mom or my sister or my wife. It's about as distracting as listening to the radio.

 

[cbrunny]

Who voted not to ban phones at all? Those are joke votes, right?

 

[destrekor]

hand-free is a pointless designation.

Holding an object in one of your hands is not the problem--trying to have a phone conversation is the problem. Any and all phone activity should be banned for drivers.

Are we to ban passengers as well? They raise the odds of having a conversation while driving, so clearly all vehicles should be single occupant or face a year in jail, at minimum.

Having something in your hand IS the problem, because you are trying to juggle that instead of having a second hand immediately available in an emergency. And by propping up something to your face, you are also restricting your vision and tend to force yourself to basically stare in front of you.

Having bluetooth is no more distracting or dangerous than having a passenger. Dr Pizza argued that someone on the other end won't slow down their conversation like a passenger would, but are we to say that the other person dictates our response 100%?

I've set up interviews and appointments while driving, and if the situation has dictated I focus 100% on my surroundings, and I miss something in the conversation, I politely explain that, sorry, I'm driving and I had to put all of my focus on that task. Otherwise, just like a passenger conversation, I pay attention to the road but can still talk, albeit not nearly as well as when I am a passenger.

 

[MongGrel]

hand-free is a pointless designation.

Holding an object in one of your hands is not the problem--trying to have a phone conversation is the problem. Any and all phone activity should be banned for drivers.

+1

The fact you're not thinking about driving while having a phone conversation period is distracting.

 

[KlokWyze]

Hands free or just mounted devices still in view of the windshield.

The amount of people I see swerving around, in multiple lanes, braking in the middle of traffic for no reason, etc. while obviously texting is staggering.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I agret ban all cellpones whiule driving. It is a baad habit to get enter.

 

[darkswordsman17]

hand-free is a pointless designation.

Holding an object in one of your hands is not the problem--trying to have a phone conversation is the problem. Any and all phone activity should be banned for drivers.

I disagree that it is pointless. I'm not disagreeing that distracted with conversation can't be an issue as well, but having your hands tied up either by phone/drink/whatever seriously compromises your ability to control a vehicle, so both having that and being distracted by conversation is a double whammy.

 

[uclaLabrat]

No way in hell you're taking my google nav away from me.

 

[DCal430]

The hands held phone ban is stupid. There is no reason why someone typing in an address on the phone and looking at their phone is any safer than someone typing and reading a text. California allows people to look hold their phones in their hands and type and look at the screen while driving if their a map on the phone.

The problem is in California their is no ban on the use of a phone their is a a specific ban on sending a text communication and talking on the phone without a hand free device. All other use of the phone are permitted.

 

[zinfamous]

Are we to ban passengers as well? They raise the odds of having a conversation while driving, so clearly all vehicles should be single occupant or face a year in jail, at minimum.

Having something in your hand IS the problem, because you are trying to juggle that instead of having a second hand immediately available in an emergency. And by propping up something to your face, you are also restricting your vision and tend to force yourself to basically stare in front of you.

Having bluetooth is no more distracting or dangerous than having a passenger. Dr Pizza argued that someone on the other end won't slow down their conversation like a passenger would, but are we to say that the other person dictates our response 100%?

I've set up interviews and appointments while driving, and if the situation has dictated I focus 100% on my surroundings, and I miss something in the conversation, I politely explain that, sorry, I'm driving and I had to put all of my focus on that task. Otherwise, just like a passenger conversation, I pay attention to the road but can still talk, albeit not nearly as well as when I am a passenger.

No, that is not the same comparison. But, yes-conversing with passengers int eh car is very distracting. Don't tell me that you haven't missed exits or forgotten where you are going because you were engaged in conversation with your passenger(s). I know that I have, multiple times. That is absolutely distracting, but I digress...

The data clearly shows that some object in your hand, when controlled for other objects, is no more an indicator of any other object, individually. We haven't banned french fries or the freaking gear shift, have we?

No, we haven't. It is a pointless designation because is it lost in data.

conversing with a passenger is not the same as conversing with someone on the phone.

Why? Let's get down to the history of communication and human evolution. Won't this be fun!

Do you honestly believe that conversation between 2 people is purely an issue of voice? Do you think meaning is derived explicitly from aural signals? If you do, then I imagine the entire country of Italy would love to have a conversation with you.

Why is photography important? Why was film silent, and yet entirely effective at conveying meaning for the first 4 decades of its existence? Why do we even give a shit about portraiture or any type of art that is not directly speaking to us? Do we just blindly stare at it, assuming it says nothing? How do we speak with humans that speak another language? I've traveled quite a bit in my life, and I manage quite well, even when I don't know they language. How can this be?

What about animal models? You know...our cousins. How do they communicate with such a limited spoken vocabulary? More interestingly, how do we manage to communicate with various animal species so effectively?

...and on and on.

Point is, speaking is merely a rather small percent of human conversation. it is a well-documented fact that phone conversation requires far, far, far more attention of the individual, than does a comparative conversation in person. Our brain has to fill in these gaps of the vast chasm of missing information that we have long evolved to interpret as legitimate information.

Bullshit! you say. sorry, it's the truth. Distracted driving is, first and foremost, an issue of our caveman brain working behind the curtain to fill in the gaps of information that you are denying it. Unwittingly, sure; but denying that this effect isn't real is a hubristic (I invented a word!) behavior that does nothing but cost real lives, the more we choose to accept this status quo.

Here's ~ 30 studies, with the data, that explain this.

http://www.nsc.org/learn/NSC-Initiatives/Pages/distracted-driving-research-studies.aspx

Too bad Rudeguy isn't here to repeatedly demand that I show him the data, again and again, after refusing to look at the data that I showed him, again and again. :\

But I suspect the rest of you are smarter than Rudeguy. Sup, Rudeguy!

 

[zinfamous]

I disagree that it is pointless. I'm not disagreeing that distracted with conversation can't be an issue as well, but having your hands tied up either by phone/drink/whatever seriously compromises your ability to control a vehicle, so both having that and being distracted by conversation is a double whammy.

having something in your hand is an issue--but that is an issue of having something in your hand and is just as equal to the issue of having...anything else in your hand. It has nothing to do with the relatively new problem of cell phones.

All these years of driving around with burgers in our hands...never banned. Oh! now it's the cell phone! suddenly people are dying! Uh...let's stop allowing them from holding it in their hands! Yes! that must be what is killing people!

The problem here is that regulations like this are not made because of safety--they are made for economic reasons. Can you imagine the epic shitstorm from the lobbyists of the business and product world if phones were completely banned while driving? lol--safety be damned! We must think of the GDP...and the pension of a handful of jerkoffs in the boardroom at Apple!

 

[destrekor]

No, that is not the same comparison. But, yes-conversing with passengers int eh car is very distracting. Don't tell me that you haven't missed exits or forgotten where you are going because you were engaged in conversation with your passenger(s). I know that I have, multiple times. That is absolutely distracting, but I digress...

The data clearly shows that some object in your hand, when controlled for other objects, is no more an indicator of any other object, individually. We haven't banned french fries or the freaking gear shift, have we?

No, we haven't. It is a pointless designation because is it lost in data.

conversing with a passenger is not the same as conversing with someone on the phone.

Why? Let's get down to the history of communication and human evolution. Won't this be fun!

Do you honestly believe that conversation between 2 people is purely an issue of voice? Do you think meaning is derived explicitly from aural signals? If you do, then I imagine the entire country of Italy would love to have a conversation with you.

Why is photography important? Why was film silent, and yet entirely effective at conveying meaning for the first 4 decades of its existence? Why do we even give a shit about portraiture or any type of art that is not directly speaking to us? Do we just blindly stare at it, assuming it says nothing? How do we speak with humans that speak another language? I've traveled quite a bit in my life, and I manage quite well, even when I don't know they language. How can this be?

What about animal models? You know...our cousins. How do they communicate with such a limited spoken vocabulary? More interestingly, how do we manage to communicate with various animal species so effectively?

...and on and on.

Point is, speaking is merely a rather small percent of human conversation. it is a well-documented fact that phone conversation requires far, far, far more attention of the individual, than does a comparative conversation in person. Our brain has to fill in these gaps of the vast chasm of missing information that we have long evolved to interpret as legitimate information.

Bullshit! you say. sorry, it's the truth. Distracted driving is, first and foremost, an issue of our caveman brain working behind the curtain to fill in the gaps of information that you are denying it. Unwittingly, sure; but denying that this effect isn't real is a hubristic (I invented a word!) behavior that does nothing but cost real lives, the more we choose to accept this status quo.

Here's ~ 30 studies, with the data, that explain this.

http://www.nsc.org/learn/NSC-Initiatives/Pages/distracted-driving-research-studies.aspx

Too bad Rudeguy isn't here to repeatedly demand that I show him the data, again and again, after refusing to look at the data that I showed him, again and again. :\

But I suspect the rest of you are smarter than Rudeguy. Sup, Rudeguy!

I agree that there is a cognitive impact. However, I am not so sure I accept that there is a difference between a phone conversation in the car and a conversation with a passenger. Are you constantly LOOKING at the passenger while talking? You just made it that much worse.

I rarely look at people while I drive and talk. And yes, I have missed things while talking to people in the car. But honestly, I don't believe I have missed things while on the phone. Perhaps small clues here and there, but I have never even come close to an accident, and have avoided idiots, while on the phone... at least I think. :hmm: All my time in the car is sort of melded together.

I actually don't pay any more attention on a phone conversation than a normal conversation. That is why I don't talk on the phone that often in the car, and when I do I tend to not really process the conversation nearly as well.

This is surely why some states, specifically Ohio, restrict the number of non-adult passengers in a car with a driver under the age of 18. That may have changed in some way, but the potential for distracting conversations is very high as a young driver (I remember, very well).

Perhaps my brain is better at prioritizing what needs to be a priority while driving and talking on the phone? Are there people who are terrible at that? Yep. Honestly, they are probably the same people who are also terrible drivers in the first place and would likely miss important things even if they were supposedly entirely focused on driving.

 

[DCal430]

I find it funny how most people here seem to think texting while driving is a big no no, but holding your phone in your hand, looking at the screen and typing information in a map App is just fine.

If you look at the thread about the California driver who had his ticket thrown out for NOT looking at the road and typing on his phone map app, while holding phone, like 90% of the people here defended him.

The reason his ticket was thrown out shows these laws are not about safety. It was thrown out because California doesn't have a ban on all handheld phone use. California like most of those 14 states, has only a ban on two way text communication and two way voice communication while holding your phone.