i'm having a hard time distinguishing between someone flying into a guard rail at 75mph and 85mph. There has to be someway to just make this particular individual not hit another object with his automobile regardless of speed.
Reducing speed is one of the best ways to avoid hitting the guardrail.
Not being a fuckwit remains the best of the lot though. As for you quoting me, you really stretched that as far as you could didn't you?
The fact is cars are the biggest investment someone can make besides a home and possibly surgery and medicine. Their emotional attachment can sometimes rival the former, but you'll never find someone who values it over the latter when a loved one is in charge.
Cars can be like a religion to some, and like religion, the attachment just can't be conveyed
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.
Bah. I'm trying to find stats for the speed reduction around Gympie (100 to 90 in an area that's killed a lot of people, but where the road honestly is pretty good). I mentioned this area earlier in the thread as one where the accident rate was so bad that the region was losing emergency medical staff due to stress, and anecdotally the reports of horrible accidents there have fallen massively since the speed reduction was applied. But the stats are lumped in with a fairly large region of the state with a diverse range of road conditions, and the reduction was applied at the same time as a number of other measures in the region, including more unmarked cop cars and hidden speed cameras. So I'll concede for now that it may be harder to find good numbers on this than one might think.
You're the one making a claim that flies in the face of common sense and basic physics. Go log on to the ABS and dig something up. They're very good at counting things, it shouldn't be that difficult.
No, I'm not. I'm saying that there's more to road safety than high school physics. Like fatigue. And I proved my point by highlighting a situation where the point is made abundantly clear. In NT, speed wasn't the killer everybody thought it was, since they eliminated speed and nothing changed.
Any fool can see that reducing speed reduces impact energy and therefore, work done on the vehicle and occupants in question. However, you made the claim that speed limiting people's cars will reduce the road toll. That's a very different statement. With what do you back up that claim?
What? those last sentences are in no way unrelated, and I fail to see how you can possibly deny that. Less speed = less dead folks. Especially since it isolates the highest and therefore most likely to be lethal events. You don't actually need to shave a great amount off the top end of the car's possible speed to do it. No more than 10 or 20 over the local limit should be fine.
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
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.
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.
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
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:
They'll need to ban eating in your car as well. I think there have been statistics that've shown eating is just as likely to cause accidents as talking on your cell phone. Drinking as well, but I'm not sure if the eating statistics includes taking a sip of soda in with it or not.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
You know what reduces accidents? Not having drunk people on the road. Hey distractions are bad too! Oh but guess what's fun, drunk people only make up 1/3 of perpetrators (which is still a good percentage, mind you).
I can agree with that. Why the heck our law says that you have to have a 0% BAC while on your L or N license, and then that gets bumped up to .08% BAC once they get their real license... I never ever got that. Ever.
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?
Particularly after the Toyota situation, I'm in favor of taking the computer out of the loop and putting physical throttle cables back in cars. Needless to say, I don't like the idea of speed restriction. I suspect it would be a huge investment with uncertain return. Has it ever been tried?
I do like the restrictions that are currently in place on teen drivers in many areas. Night restrictions, restrictions on number of passengers, etc.
I actually find myself in a rage every time I hear a commercial for DUI lawyers.
My high school superintendent was actually arrested 4 times and charged with a DUI.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
0
Options
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
The problem with absolute 0% BAC laws is that you end up taking a lot of perfectly capable of driving 30-somethings to jail after they had a glass of wine at dinner, but are not even remotely impaired.
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.
Well we did outlaw smoking there. Though, that is quite a bit different than a glass of wine at dinner. However, a cab should make do in that situation.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
That probably has to do with "OMG ELECTRICITY + GAS = FIRE!" that some crazy people think of.
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.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
0
Options
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Well we did outlaw smoking there. Though, that is quite a bit different than a glass of wine at dinner. However, a cab should make do in that situation.
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.
Outlawing alcohol won't make a difference. It's already illegal to drive while impaired. According to these papers from the US government it's pretty correct to say that having a BAC below 0.08% isn't going to make much difference in the likelyhood of crashing. Above that and there's a fairly big jump.
Yes, but those are the same people who think that after 5 beers, they're still good to go, half the time.
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.
I think cell phone driving is a feel good law to be honest. I wish it were socially acceptable to lay on my horn while I'm behind someone talking on their cell phone. I guess cell phone is the likely culprit because, unlike eating or giving yourself some alone time, people are always talking on the phone for work and personal time. Hm, though, people on cell phones are the slowest god damned drivers in the world.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
0
Options
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
I actually don't like talking on my phone when I'm driving. Like, it's actually a pain in the ass to me. I drive a manual, so that's part of it, but the other part is that I am such a focused driver, it actually annoys the shit out of me to have someone talking in my ear, even with my blue tooth head set. I generally only answer calls from my wife while driving, and even then it's usually a "Hey, uh huh, okay I'm driving, talk to you later" sort of conversation.
I don't understand what could possibly be so important that it can't wait until they're either at their destination, or, they can't pull over and take the call really quick. Doctors aside.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I don't understand what could possibly be so important that it can't wait until they're either at their destination, or, they can't pull over and take the call really quick. Doctors aside.
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.
Do you typically drive without access to a shoulder? I mean, I can see where it'd be beneficial to not lose the business, but I can't see how talking negotiations while driving is good for anyone, really.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
0
Options
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Do you typically drive without access to a shoulder? I mean, I can see where it'd be beneficial to not lose the business, but I can't see how talking negotiations while driving is good for anyone, really.
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.
Do you typically drive without access to a shoulder? I mean, I can see where it'd be beneficial to not lose the business, but I can't see how talking negotiations while driving is good for anyone, really.
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.
I think cell phone driving is a feel good law to be honest. I wish it were socially acceptable to lay on my horn while I'm behind someone talking on their cell phone. I guess cell phone is the likely culprit because, unlike eating or giving yourself some alone time, people are always talking on the phone for work and personal time. Hm, though, people on cell phones are the slowest god damned drivers in the world.
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.
I made a general observation about my urban friends vs myself, rather than specific anecdotes about particular events or friends, in a manner alike to your own. Maybe my conclusions are wrong, but how am I going to ever test that? Besides, you are the one who started off by observing your rural/small town friends as having poor general driving skills, so I don't see that I have "cherry picked" anything, at least in comparison to your own comments to which I responded. So perhaps you can point out exactly how I've done that in comparison to your own personal testimony. You also use terminology like "city slicker", which sounds mildly disparaging and I for one have never heard anyone say that in real life (iirc we used to say "townies" if we wanted to be dicks about it). Perhaps this is a Queensland thing?
Wasn't running them down, it was a statement of fact. And they're mostly not from Queensland. So, is it a UK thing to take mildly amusing colourful rhetoric entirely literally and far too personally, or is that just you being deliberately obtuse?
To go to your substantive comments, yes, it is certainly possible that on balance the risk at letting a youth drive on a farm is greater than the net benefits to their later driving skills. It is also quite possible that the actual techniques they learn could be quickly picked up by a mature adult learner in a far less risky manner. I'm not so sure about your comments about youth vs say general farm related accidents but I do concede the later are usually rather high (so far as I've seen in NZ, Australia's figures are unknown to me) and it could well be that the former are too. It really scares the crap out of me sometimes to think of the risks that a farmer and his helpers put themselves to sometimes, but I don't really see how a lot of that can be mitigated, but that is a question for a different thread.
However, the fact is that a lot of farmers need the help their children can give, whether it be rather light work (say driving a motorbike to a particular paddock to open the gates), or heavier, more involved work (say more than paddock driving - heavy trucks, tractors etc). Most farms that I knew growing up tended to be run by single adults, with assistance from their partners who usually work elsewhere full time and by their children and seasonal workers. So long as that is the economic model there is going to be a huge amount of health and safety risk to all parties involved. Further, farmer's children need to get to school, after school activities and to socialise generally, which can be rather difficult given the added distance and given their parents are usually very busy (just like any other parents I guess).
To tie that back into driving - most farming family children are going to have a basic need to drive very early on, whether it is safe or not, so they are going to develop basic driving skills. Whether these driving skills are just driving on a paddock or not will depend on the individual circumstance. For you to assume that these skills are at best barely useful is a generalisation on your part, based on your own personal experience. From my personal experience I can only recall country friends being injured by drunk driving, rather than say accidents due to carelessness. The former of which is a very serious but unrelated to your OP problem.
Yeah, this is all stuff I don't really have a problem with, although I maintain that farm driving isn't all that. And I have driven on farms. I recognise that sometimes taking risks is necessary due to circumstances, and rural life will never be all that safe. So I'm not arguing that farm kids shouldn't be able to drive, but I am arguing that its a) not the best of all possible situations and b) doesn't confer much of an advantage vis a vis street driving. I think we're roughly on the same page, here.
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
I think cell phone driving is a feel good law to be honest. I wish it were socially acceptable to lay on my horn while I'm behind someone talking on their cell phone. I guess cell phone is the likely culprit because, unlike eating or giving yourself some alone time, people are always talking on the phone for work and personal time. Hm, though, people on cell phones are the slowest god damned drivers in the world.
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.
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.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I think cell phone driving is a feel good law to be honest. I wish it were socially acceptable to lay on my horn while I'm behind someone talking on their cell phone. I guess cell phone is the likely culprit because, unlike eating or giving yourself some alone time, people are always talking on the phone for work and personal time. Hm, though, people on cell phones are the slowest god damned drivers in the world.
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.
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.
Well we did outlaw smoking there. Though, that is quite a bit different than a glass of wine at dinner. However, a cab should make do in that situation.
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.
I don't understand why cars should be able to go faster than 5mph above the highest possible speed limit(75mph in the US, lower in most states). There is no legitimate reason to ever be going faster than 80, all it does is enable dumb kids to go on joyrides.
That's because you haven't thought it through very hard.
To add to programjunkie, people also do legitimate street/drag racing. But the second reason he listed is probably the most important from a "helpful to society" standpoint. I was driving back to town this morning and was behind a guy who passed 2 cars going just barely faster than them. After watching him pass two cars, a process that invovled him driving side by side with another vehicle for minutes at a time at 77mph, he then did the same thing with a semi.
That's incredibly dangerous.
So as I got past the semi I accelerated up to about 85 to get around him quickly and then went back to cruising speed.
lol, street racing? Really?
It's his fault for passing them when they were going plenty fast enough. You shouldn't have passed them either.
Yeah. Some people like to race their cars.
Mind blowing, I know.
And they're assholes if they're doing it on public streets. Take it to the track.
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.
It's his fault for passing them when they were going plenty fast enough. You shouldn't have passed them either.
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.
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?
PSN - sumowot
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.