What Do You Think?

[jerrys1960]

I have known some people that are bloody dangerous when driving. Talking, taking notes, typing text responses, looking up information out of their breif case, basically paying attention to everything except driving and what is going on around them. (I rode with that person one time.)
Like the person I was discribing there are people that will abuse everything. But you know what even a total ban would not stop them they would still find a way. The only people a ban would really effect are those of us that use the phones with a little common scence. for instance those of us that mostly used them to get directions when going some place new (especially when in areas nothing or very little is marked).


But even if we ban phones, what about radios, cd players, mp3 players, etc.

Are they not just as much of a distraction?

Shouldn't they get baned also?

If the logic behind the total ban is that the person on the phone, the driver is talking to, does not know when to stop talking, how does the person on the radio?

It would be nice if people could just be responsible with the use of the phones. So that there would not need to be any laws about it to begin with.

But it seems seems personnal responsibility is much to complex of a concept for most people to grasp.



copied from:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9422803-scientists-endorse-driver-cellphone-proposal


Scientists endorse driver cell phone proposal

By M. Alex Johnson
msnbc.com

2011/12/13

Medical scientists strongly endorsed the National Transportation Safety Board's recommendation Tuesday to ban nearly all use of cell phones and other portable electronics by drivers, saying the gizmos are just too distracting for the limited multitasking power of the human brain.

"I wholeheartedly support a ban on personal electronic devices, which provide an unprecedented degree of distraction that's very dangerous," said Dr. Lisandro Irizarry, chairman of the emergency department at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York.

"Everyone from teenagers to senior citizens is texting," he said in an email to msnbc.com. "It's very easy to get distracted, especially when driving, and end up in the ER."

The NTSB's recommendation specifically said so-called hands-free devices, like Bluetooth headsets, don't solve the problem and should be part of the ban.

That sounds great to Dr. Marcel Just, director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, a neuroscientist who has studied how using cell phones impairs driving ability.

"Use of cell phones while driving — handheld or not — is really a hazard, a threat to public safety," Just told msnbc.com. "It costs lives."

The problem is that people think they're better drivers than they really are, and so they believe they can multi-task behind the wheel.

"When you're driving, it feels kind of automatic, so it feels like you're not doing anything, but it's not true," Just said. "Various parts of your brain are working on scanning the road ahead, maintaining your speed, maintaining your lane — all of those things are being done even when it feels like it's not.

Obviously, we can do two things at the same time," he said. "But the critical point is we can't do them as well at the same time."

Processing a conversation with another person consumes 37 percent of the energy that's normally allocated to driving, Just's research indicates. That's "a very, very large percentage that has serious consequences for safety," he said.

[jerrys1960]

copied from:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9418504-us-calls-for-ban-on-in-car-phone-use-even-with-bluetooth


US calls for ban on in-car phone use ... even with Bluetooth

By M. Alex Johnson
msnbc.com
2011/12/13

The government's transportation safety experts recommended Tuesday to ban all American drivers from using portable electronic devices — including cellphones, even if you use a hands-free device.

The recommendation, which isn't binding but which is likely to influence the decisions of Congress and state legislatures in writing new safety laws, makes only two exceptions: You could still use GPS navigation devices, and you could use your cellphone in an emergency.

"No call, no text, no update, is worth a human life," Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference in Washington.

Besides calling for government action, the NTSB also urged consumer electronics manufacturers to figure out a way to "disable the functions of portable electronic devices within reach of the driver when a vehicle is in motion" while at the same time being able to turn themselves back on in an emergency.


Jason Oxman, a senior vice president of the Consumer Electronics Association, said that as far as he knew, "nothing that would meet all of those parameters would exist today."

In general, Oxman told msnbc.com, the focus should be on drivers' choices, not on "specific devices." He endorsed the NTSB's recommendations to the extent that they would regulate activities that take the driver's eyes off the road — “manual texting while driving, for example, you shouldn't be allowed to do it," he said. But he criticized the safety board's suggestion to disallow hands-free devices like Bluetooth earpieces.

"It may be that NTSB, in searching for a solution, is not aware of all of the technologies that exist today, and that is one reason we look forward to the opportunity to work with them," he said.

Safety advocates have long called for such a ban like the one the NTSB proposed Tuesday to reduce the phenomenon of distracted driving, which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says killed 3,092 people in 2010.

The NHTSA reported last week that about 20 percent of all drivers and 50 percent of drivers 21 to 24 years old admit to having texted while driving. Overall, more than three-quarters of drivers say they are willing to answer calls on all, most or some trips.

"People continue to make bad decisions about driving distracted — but what's clear from all of the information we have is that driver distraction continues to be a major problem," NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said last week in reporting the numbers.

But similar studies linking cellphone use to poor driving have been challenged, most recently by researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit, who concluded last month that some earlier studies were seriously flawed.

The report, published in the journal Epidemiology, examined to earlier studies that examined crashes in which cellphone records showed that the driver had used a cellphone. Those studies "likely overestimated the relative risk for cellphone conversations," the researchers said, because they improperly assumed that the drivers were actually in motion when they were on the phone — in other words, they didn't factor in such so-called part-time driving.

Only 10 states ban handheld devices right now, and 35 ban texting while driving.

The recommendation comes following the NTSB's investigation of an August 2010 accident in Gray Summit, Mo., involving a pickup truck, two school buses and several other vehicles.

The accident was blamed on the 19-year-old driver of the pickup, who sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes before the pileup, which killed two people and injured 38 others.

"That finding raises a red flag to all of us on the highways," Hersman said.

The NTSB recommendation wouldn't cover GPS devices, but — if it eventually becomes law — it would ban using your phone for any reason, even with a Bluetooth headset or speakers. The only exception would be to call 911 in an emergency.