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Driving, speed limits, and new tech
Posts
That doesn't mean that the emotional attachment is in any way intelligent. Cars are probably the most inefficient and wasteful things on the planet. Besides that, loving something doesn't mean you have to push it as far as possible, and to the point of endangering everyone else on the road. You don't see me trying to find out how far I can push my grandfather.
You're still oversimplifying.
You say: Less speed = less dead folks
In some cases, like mine, which I gave you statistics to prove: Less speed != less dead folks
Therefore, the first statement is faulty. Something like the following is more appropriate:
Less speed = less dead folks, assuming driver fatigue and attention remains constant
I hope this clears the confusion.
Oooh, didn't see that, thanks. Ummm... interesting stats, but they don't seem to actually conflict with my argument that phone stuff is more dangerous than talking to someone next to you. Excepting that I'd have to adjust it to no longer being ok with handsfree devices, I'm not really seeing the big deal. And in the end, booking people for phoning/shaving/eating a pie is technically feasible, while booking someone for pointing out a funny billboard to the person next to them really isn't.
thank you then, since that was my whole point originally. That the talking on the phone was the dangerous part, and is a lot more dangerous than a passenger conversation. Therefore, hands free laws don't really do anything other than be a feel-good law whose only really impact will be a slight uptick in sales for bluetooth headsets.
wouldn't a bluetooth be as bad as a handsfree thingy though and also necessitate a ban along with a ban on doing things with your hands aside from steering etc?
I mean, if I'm reading it right, the danger level goes performing-an-appendectomy-on-yourself>texting>holding the phone and talking>handsfreeing>chatting with a real live passenger>singing along to Journey>shutting the hell up.
Bear in mind that its after midnight here and I really should be asleep
I agree with that line of distraction, except for the "holding the phone and talking>handsfreeing" part, which are around the same level of distraction. Its not a big deal if one hand is being used to calmly hold a phone to your ear instead of having it on the wheel. Obviously when trying to do stuff like eat/put on makeup, etc your hand is not only off the wheel, but engaged in a separate complex task from driving. Hold a phone is not a complex task.
If having your hand off the wheel to hold a phone is bad, then i posit that having a hand off the wheel for gear shifting is also bad.
edit: Its the talking thats bad, not the holding of the phone, heres a webcomic that sort of illustrates my point:
Limited the speed isn't going to matter.
Oh hey here's a fun sheet:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s1072.pdf
And another!
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s1069.pdf
I don't think it would matter. I'm more of a fan of the idea in the lower section of this page:
http://www.citypages.com/2010-06-09/news/do-dwi-laws-work/3
Interesting article all around btw.
Scalfin I'm coming back to reply. You seem to be incredibly 'anti-vehicle' hippy between the lines in this thread... any reason for that or am I seeing something that's not there?
I do like the restrictions that are currently in place on teen drivers in many areas. Night restrictions, restrictions on number of passengers, etc.
My high school superintendent was actually arrested 4 times and charged with a DUI.
If you don't think police wouldn't sit outside of restaurants and just hawk people who had a single drink, you don't know much about police, at least in America. You might as well just ban alcohol at dinner establishments, the effect would be about the same.
Apparently, according to my local gas station, you cannot talk on a cell phone while pumping gas but you can talk all you want while actually driving.
What the hell?
Though, I thought mythbusters proved pretty much all of the gas myths false in that episode, except like a flame in direct contact with the gas going in the tank.
Why? Why should a perfectly capable of driving person have to take a cab? That's why 0.08% BAC laws exist, because there is science behind it. 0.08% is around the time the average person starts to show any signs of impairment. And it's not many signs at that either, 0.08% is actually super low scientifically, but I see where it's coming from.
Those really horrible drunk accidents you see? We aren't talking 0.08% here, we're talking 0.8%, and upwards of 1.0%. We're talking so drunk you can't stand, not had a glass of wine at dinner.
Though, I don't think it'd do anything to outlaw it, the accidents will still happen.
Idiots are idiots, and 0% BAC laws won't change that. I see where you're coming from, but to me a 0% BAC law is a feel good law. It won't change the number of drunk fatalities, it will just put a lot of people in jail that probably shouldn't be there (the glass of wine at dinner crowd), and won't actually put a dent in the real problem.
To fix drunk driving is a social thing, not a legal thing (not to say we don't need laws around it, we do). We have to continue to put social pressure on our friends and peers not to drink and drive. I know if I catch wind of a good friend doing it, I give them no small amount of shit about it, to keep that social pressure on that it's not cool, or smart.
Speaking anecdotally, as a self-employed individual, a good percentage of the calls I take are situations where either I take the call or lose the business.
Actually, there are a lot of roads where I live either with very dangerous shoulders, or no shoulder at all due to constant construction on the roads. I get your point, but I also see his.
Though, my question would be: What did people do before cell phones? We had independent contracts then too, and they seemed to do all right.
Well, it depends on the situation, of course. If I'm on the highway driving in a straight line at a steady pace, I'd feel much less safe about slowing down and stopping on the shoulder, then starting up again and merging into traffic, than I would about taking a 60 second phone call.
But obviously the risk factor of the phone conversation is going to vary with the circumstances. My point is that phone conversations can indeed be very important, and different people in different circumstances are going to have different risk of accident : importance of phone call ratios.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I do understand what could possibly be so important that it can't wait until they're either at their destination.
EDIT: Though this is admittedly not the case in the vast majority of cases. I have a friend who calls me up from his car for chitchat. I hate that.
It's not?
I do this all the time if someone is driving poorly and I see them on a cell phone. Some bitch on Sunday was doing like 20mph in a 40mph zone because she was on her phone. I blasted my horn until she sped up.
Sorry, I'd thought I'd made it clear I was talking about my experiences as someone who grew up on a NZ farm. I'm not British, I just happen to live in Britain at the present time. To all - assume substitute UK for NZ!
Anyway, so your observations about people you know are a statement of fact and my observations are some other class? Why is that? Is it because I happened to then add a personal opinion?
Regarding my comment about your use of the term city slicker - I didn't mean to be obtuse, nor do I think I was being so. I just don't think I've ever heard anyone outside of a movie use that term and I certainly wouldn't use it myself. I don't think it is a particularly bad term compared to other similar labels, I just take it as mildly disparaging and so wouldn't use it (I see it as similar to 'hick'). Obviously if I know the person or they are clearly not trying to be offensive, then it is a different story. However I don't know you and this is the Internet.
It maybe that I'm too sensitive about this kind of thing, but as someone who has made the move from farm to city (and country to country - although that hasn't really been an issue) and experienced a lot of mockery just for that reason (not bullying though, just young adults being dicks or joking about) I just don't find that kind of "colourful" expression particularly funny. YMMV
In that case, yes. In most cases where the person just isn't paying attention, you can get yourself pulled over where I live for being a nuisance on the road.
This sort of bothers me (in a socially acceptable sort of way) because as a third unrelated party on the road I would have no idea why you're honking most of the time.
just playing the devils advocate here:
5 beers for one of my uncles, 6'8" tall and around 350lbs, is not the same as 5 beers for my wife, 5'2" tall, 110lbs.
Saying "5 beers..." really isn't saying anything from a BAC standpoint.
A lot of people will be driving 20 miles for dinner, a cab that far would cost more than dinner. Banning alcohol in restaurants would effectively be closing all restaurants other than those in resorts or McDonalds or whatever. Heck, even if the people showed up to eat the margins wouldn't be worth staying in business.
1 drink with dinner does not impair you in any way. Heck, if you will arrest at that level you should arrest anyone you see stopping by for dinner after 9 pm, since they will be too tired to drive safely by the end of it.
God damnit, I knew someone was going to do this.
I said "legal street racing" for a reason. Because if they're doing it on public streets it's not legal. The friends I know who do it still call it street racing even though they do it at an airstrip with emergency services present.
The speed limit is 75. 77-78 is where my cruise control happened to snag when I turned it on.
But way to miss the point. Of course it's his fault. I passed him because I didn't want someone who drives like that in front of me since if they cause an accident it would be coming at me and placing me in danger. So the solution was to put the danger behind me and resume normal cruising speed, which is what I did.