I would never even consider doing that. How can you possibly read, type, and drive at the same time?

Simple enough to hold it up in the line of vision, so I can still see the road and the phone simultaneously. Your peripheral vision is doing most of the work while driving anyway.

I also don't need to see the phone at all to type out a reply. Everyone's different. Some people are capable, some aren't. My new phone has good text to voice and vice versa functionality too.

Distracted driving can certainly be a problem. Saying it's an 'increasing factor' doesn't really tell me anything. Last person that hit me was fucking with her radio when it happened. Before that, rear ended me while talking on the phone. Guy before that wandered into my lane while eating a burger. All kinds of distracted bullshit happens on the road, all the time.

Seriously?

Put the phone down and drive.

Shit, you couldn't put your average American in my car and have them drive it at ALL. It's got that mysterious wand of power, and an extra pedal.

Thanks for the laff.

Lets see, I've been driving for 20 years. Zero accidents caused by me. Zero close calls related to the phone...


All this shit is irrelevant anyway, because technology is going to make it obsolete to look at your phone at all to send or receive a text. Voice to Text is becoming ubiquitous on new phones. It'll soon be no more 'distracted' than having a conversation with the passenger in your car.

(Which also impinges on the 'distracted driving' issue for some people.)

... you have an extra set of eyes and someone to say "You might want to watch the road, and hit the brakes".

It makes a difference.

I don't bother with texting, but I will dial a number while driving. But I slow way down, to 10 below the speed limit. That way, the other drivers know I'm working with a phone, and they appreciate it.

even ONCE, wandering in my lane, or getting too close to the car ahead of me, or too close to a bicyclist, etc, just ONCE, I would completely stop doing it in the car.

I have had the misfortune of being in a carpool where the driver was speaking animatedly with a passenger (we would debate interesting issues) and hit a car ahead of him before the passengers, myself included, could convey a warning to him. Anecdotal, of course, but the example looms large in my memory.

One thing about 'sort of defending' the practice worries me; it could be taken as encouragement to others to do so as well, and they may utterly lack the capacity to divide or properly prioritize attention. I have literally dropped my phone on the floor, without a moment's hesitation, because road conditions had changed, and I needed full attention on the vehicle controls. Not even a close call, dropped a five hundred dollar phone, without hesitation. Other people might come to, upside down on the side of the road with the phone still in their hand, so capacity levels vary, and I cannot speak to or predict other people's capacity.

But I have certain hard thresholds beyond which, If I ever find myself doing it, I will cease the practice. Lane position and maintaining escape routes is of paramount importance to me, and if I ever find I am unable to maintain either while on the phone, I will cease immediately, and forever. I imagine, at some point in my life, as I age, I will have to give it up. Likely not before technology makes it utterly irrelevant, but you never know.

(there is a reason I NEVER eat food, or drink hot fluids while driving. No coffee, no tea. Failure to maintain the container might cause me to lose control of the vehicle.)

... is that I don't text, period, never learned how, even though my prehistoric flip-phone is fully capable.

I do believe there are other factors that affect attention. A manual gearbox demands more attention, so just having the stick and the extra pedal forces more focus on driving.

After much cajoling, I caved in and got bluetooth for my motorcycle helmet, so I can answer the phone. The thing can apparently also do voice-activated dialing, though I can't see a purpose for it yet. I think the sound of the motor is music enough.

Now I'm being pressured to get a "smart phone", so I can do email when I'm not at my computer. I am resisting, though the resistance may indeed be futile. I can feel the twenty-first century coming after me.

I may yet learn to text&drive. Dog help the other drivers.



btw, it's Friday night, I'm drinking&posting, and my car is safely parked. I'm not driving in this condition.

"Thanks, but I know what the fuck I'm doing..."

I'd imagine most people who text and drive believe that very thing also...

never crash doing it.

Do you not consider those things safety issues?

I'm not attempting to make a hard rule here. In fact, this study shows the bans aren't working at all, and worse, since people now hide the cell phone from the cops, by holding it down by their legs, people are truly taking their eyes OFF the road to do this, which is probably a lot less safe.

Unintended consequences and all that.

Better solution; focus on distracted driving. Wandering in your lane? swerving? Unannounced lane changes? Following too closely? Ticket that stuff. Technology will soon eliminate this issue with non-text solutions, that look a lot like current ease of access features.

Not causing a crash and avoiding someone elses mistake are not the same thing. Takes much more attention to avoid ot5hers mistakes than to just not make any mistakes yourself.

but the extra pedal sure gets in the way.

Walking(driving?) stereotype.

1 in 3 folks.

And I mean that.

I remember in my youth hearing about how great people could drive when they had a few.... some friend's never lived until graduation.

Edit to add:

I am not being snarky in this post. I truly hope you never have to deal with hurting someone else because you were distracted/negligent. I think it would be a pretty bad feeling.

Just like I am careful about performing a number of attention-dividing tasks in a vehicle. Simply talking to the passenger of the car can be distracting enough to negatively impact driving performance, all by itself.

One interesting thing I have noted, that I would like to see further study on: attention decay. In a car, I feel incredibly bored, compared to a motorcycle. On a motorcycle, there is a lot more to 'do', keeping my attention focused and at max capacity. Orienting the bike, micromanaging lane position relative to the ruts and whatnot, etc. In a car, much less to do. I find that I have considerable 'extra' or unused capacity to do other things that, even with a VERY expensive hands free Bluetooth helmet, I would never attempt on the bike. Not for a second. I don't even use the helmet to listen to music. Too distracting. I regret the purchase, because in real world application, I can't use it.

Worse still when I have the misfortune of using a car with an automatic transmission. Vehicles with automatic transmissions, I cannot drive for long distances without starting to get sleepy from boredom. There's practically nothing to do. Put me on a motorcycle, I can go a thousand miles in a day, without issue. In an auto-trans car, I get in trouble at about 250 miles, and need to nap or get out of the car, or read or do something for a bit. Give me a passenger I can talk engagingly with, and I do better.

"In a car, I feel incredibly bored, compared to a motorcycle."

You sound like an adrenaline junkie or an addict. Maybe not to drugs but certainly to the mistaken belief that you must always be stimulated.

I have heard the same kinds of rationalizations day in and day out in my office, at clinics, etc. You think that your logic is sound yet it isn't. As they say, past performance is no guarantee of future success. Just because you have not had an accident in the 20 years you have been driving does not mean that you can't have one in the future. And texting while driving, does increase the odds that you will do so.

You are 36 you say. Well, give it another ten years. I have never had an accident either, and I pay even more attention and focus to my driving now in my late 40's than in my 20's or 30's. Reaction times do slow. Reading glasses are a common need.

I set my climate controls prior to leaving a driveway as well as any music. If I need to change a CD, I can wait till I arrive at my destination if it is a short journey or ask a passenger to assist if it is a long one. Silence won't kill me for awhile if I know it will be a distraction. I don't own an iDevice yet even if I did, no text is worth more than a person's life with the distraction. The other person on the line can wait.

All it takes is one text that distracts you long enough at a crucial moment when driving for an accident of tragic proportions to occur. Sure, you are free to be arrogant and risk your own life. But what gives you the right to risk others while driving? It is a privilege to drive. Don't abuse it for others who rely on you to be as safe as you rely on them while driving.

That in and of itself, is risky to yourself, and to others. You can't guarantee on a sunny, clear day, with total attention and focus, you can't cause an accident that harms someone else, either through mechanical failure of your vehicle, or through some sort of mistake on your part. You accept that risk to get from one place to another, faster.

I accept, on my terms, and within what I judge my own capability, a risk to communicate with people outside of my car. Yes, I will grant it is a risk.

But your argument is predicated upon a danger (and diminishing capacity over time as you age) that applies to driving a car AT ALL.

Someday my license will have to be surrendered or taken away, because my capacity will diminish too much for me to be an acceptable risk for society to allow me to drive on public roads.

Your entire argument is simply a second dimension of risk, that is identical to driving AT ALL. You simply approach it from the position of someone who doesn't text, and rates the risk of texting while driving, very high. Look at your decision to drive for the expediency of travel, from the perspective of someone who doesn't drive, and considers driving a risky thing.

It's just a slightly different position for the risk goalposts. That's all.

Even if I accept the veracity that any and all driving is inherently dangerous from the start, then risk management demands that you do actions that minimize that risk even further NOT adding actions that maximize that risk even more.

So, yes, fighting with a spouse, texting, eating a sloppy joe, and putting on panty-hose are all actions that increase risk and have been statistically proven to increase the likelihood of a vehicular accident occurring.

Therefore, avoiding all of those above stated actions plus adding other smart defensive driving techniques like maintaining safe car distances, adjusting brake times according to weather conditions, waiting until you are safely stopped to change a CD, etc. decrease the risks and increase safety.

Your assumption that texting while driving, which has been proven thus far to be an unsafe action to do while driving a car is simply unskillful risk management. You are adding risk to an inherently risky endeavor and guessing, because really that is all you are doing ultimately, that because you have been able to do it up till now without an accident, that you will be able to continue to do so in the future.

You are a risk taker, and I stand by my initial assessment given your communication here. Furthermore, you are one of those individuals who is increasing risk for others not just yourself while driving because you erroneously have faith in your own superiority take risky actions (in your case texting) while driving.

We'll need values for things like, how risky it is to pull out of, and into traffic for those that pull over to make a call or receive a text.
We'll also need to weigh the risks of banning it, which encourages bad behaviors like holding the phone down out of line of sight.

How about night time driving versus day time driving? Driving at night doubles your chances of being involved in a crash. Should we enact a night time curfew? I would think that a factor that DOUBLES the number of crashes might be bigger than ONE of several elements of distracted driving (a category responsible for the most crashes).

"You are a risk taker, and I stand by my initial assessment given your communication here. Furthermore, you are one of those individuals who is increasing risk for others not just yourself while driving because you erroneously have faith in your own superiority take risky actions (in your case texting) while driving."

Do you drive after dark? If so, I similarly judge you a 'risk taker'.

You just don't recognize it like I do. I don't consider myself infallible. If you read this thread, you'd note that I keep the receipt/send of texts to a minimum, and take steps to do it as safely as possible. If you are going to take the position that NO text is safe to send/receive while driving, then I can fairly take a similar position on something like driving after dark, or driving at all.

with a true believer.

Your example is a very poor one. Why? Because, we as a society have already assessed and recognize the added risks of night time driving. How do I know this? Easy. Headlight and taillights are always required to be in proper working condition. If they are not, then you will be ticketed. If you have eye problems that require no night driving, that is assessed and added to your driver's licence. Night time driving also increases the risks of drinking and driving. Therefore, DUI check points are set up at night more so than during the day. As to setting up night time curfews, please do your research before making such a ludicrous argument. Why? Because every state does have night time driving restrictions, curfews are regularly put in place on night time driving particularly with junior drivers, and graduated drivers licenses exist which limit further still the hours of the day when driving is permitted.

But you know all of this. You are simply wrong on this point. Texting is a risking behavior while driving. Enough so that enough people have been killed that states are now creating legislation to deal with it. As a society, we have assessed the added risk to driving and deemed it strong enough to apply restrictions and constraints on the behavior while driving.

You are indeed a major risk taker and from the sounds of it further, you seem quite a bit anti-social. You are taking a bigger risk texting while driving rather than just driving itself. You consider it calculated and under control. The weight of the evidence against you is that you may not have screwed up until now, but there is a greater likelihood that if you continue this behavior that you will in the future. You value your independence of individual action over your interdependence with a society that deems you actions dangerous enough to control. That text, if it is only one that you make in a single day of 8 hours of driving, you consider to be more important than the risk of the tragedy if you were to wreck while doing said action. No one can predict the future. However, we can make sound, reasonable, and skillful plans for one.

Finally, seriously, you might as well not reply. I won't waste my time further replying to your flawed logic and arrogance. Your freedom to risk texting while driving is not equal to my or others safety on the road. You will never convince me otherwise.

Good day.

We have, just like laws that require functioning lights of certain height and visibility at a certain distance, so too do we have laws about distracted driving, wherein actual bad driving is produced (lane wandering, failure to yield, following too closely, etc, all of which can be interdicted without requiring an associated property damage, personal injury, or fatality crash).

I see people who forget to turn their lights on all the time. Same for people who drive like drunken assholes with their phone in their hand. Both exist.

Yesterday I happened to observe a woman in the lane to my left, texting with both hands at a stoplight, waiting to turn left. (Intersection has two lanes that turn left, she was in the left, I was in the right). When the light changed, she put one hand back on the wheel, and started exactly when she was supposed to, executed the left perfectly, and then stopped perfectly at the next light, while continuing to text with one hand. (I was genuinely interested because, being in the right lane on that curve, if she screwed it up, I was the most likely vehicle that would be sharing paint with her.) She did nothing wrong. I did not consider her behavior threatening to me. No moreso than any other vehicle to my left at that intersection, a driver of which could munge my car for a broad variety of reasons, inclusive of texting or calling.

You remember to turn on your lights at night, if you car doesn't do it for you. Something you get a ticket for if you don't.
That woman in the car next to me drove responsibly while texting, at least while I was observing it. Something she'd get a ticket for if she didn't.

I would say your claim of 'major risk taker' is highly spurious, on artificial, personal, subjective inflation of risk. Lowest risk would probably be for me to hop on a bus and let a professional do the driving. You draw the line at something you judge 'more dangerous'. That's all. I've read the studies. I see the fraction of a second reduction in response time. I also see the automatic increase in following distance, which is a POSITIVE thing under those conditions. All people compensate to a degree here. Success might be tied into how good they are at compensating. Some increased the following distance by more than others.

"but there is a greater likelihood that if you continue this behavior that you will in the future."

The same is true of driving AT ALL, so this is an utterly meaningless statement, and applies to both the driving roulette wheel, as well as the smaller risk roulette wheel of texting. Both require skill. Both incur risk. Both are OPTIONAL, or ELECTIVE.

One of us is most certainly employing flawed logic.

"Your freedom to risk texting while driving is not equal to my or others safety on the road. You will never convince me otherwise. "

Spoken like a 'true believer', with a touch of 'arrogance'.

Would you agree that using a gun is a inherently risky behavior? Yes, of course, you do. Do you or don't you reason that minimizing risk when you use a gun is important? Of course. Proper gun training is important in that regards. Always leaving on the safety is important in that regards. Never pointing a gun loaded or not at someone you do not intend to shoot is important.

Playing with a gun while you are drinking is riskier behavior with a gun. Playing at 'shooting' your friend by pointing a gun loaded or not at them is riskier behavior with a gun. Cleaning and maintaining a gun while children are in the room is riskier behavior.

Driving a car using your logic is no different. Driving a car is inherently dangerous. That is your single argument in this entire thread. Therefore, since you do a riskier behavior, texting, 'safely' right now and have not caused any accidents yet, then it is ok for you to continue to do so. Studies continue to show that it is a major distraction and therefore an increasingly riskier behavior in the already risky act of driving.

Your continued attempts to argue for your ability to text while driving are no different than you attempting to argue that well you have always cleaned your gun around your children and no one has gotten hurt. Well, you have had a glass or two of wine before and then gone to the gun range and everything has turned out fine thus far. That behavior would be rightly considered dangerous and an increased risk to an already risky endeavor. At a shooting range, they will kick your ass out if you are drinking and increasing the risk of danger to others. Maybe no one in your family will say stop cleaning the gun around your children, but if you were cleaning your gun in public around kids, then what do you think the consequences would be? You are demanding the right to do what you want to do. Fine if you lived in a vacuum. You do not. Driving on the public roads is just that - public. We, the public, have been shown strong arguments and enough proof that driving while texting increases distraction levels and leads to more accidents many of them quite deadly.

So again, your freedom to risk texting while driving is not equal to my or others safety on a public freeway. No you can not convince me with rhetoric which is all that you are offering. You can pretend that I am arrogant or a 'true believer' but no, I am just an adult that recognizes that my independent freedom is always a compromising and delicate balance between my will and desires and the world of others that I exist in.

Your analogy is an outsized ridiculous over-statement of risk that assumes all users are inherently and equally bad at 'playing' with a gun.

If I try and be generous, I'd suggest a CLOSER analogy would be the difference in carrying a 1911 design pistol with a round in the chamber, cocked, safety on (condition 1) versus carrying with a round in the chamber and the hammer down (uncocked). (Condition 2)

Some police departments shun the use of condition 1 for reasons you might well imagine. (Interesting parallel here, some police departments acknowledge the distracted driving issues of using a trunked radio, cell phone, and computer while driving, and are working to simplify matters, others do not)

Carrying condition 1 is estimated by some police departments to be an acceptable risk. (I use a different pistol design called DAO, that allows me to carry condition 0, round in the chamber, cocked, no manual safety, which I can explain the inherent safety of, if you wish, due to it not being a 1911, and rather being more like the modern glock DA-SA hybrid design.)


Curious if you will find that analogy acceptable, or if you want to use a level of risk that actually implies a felony threat when you employ it against another human (brandishing a firearm).

"Studies continue to show that it is a major distraction and therefore an increasingly riskier behavior in the already risky act of driving." I referenced the Ohio University study earlier. I disagree with your characterization of it being 'major'. Again, for study-related reasons I outlined at the time. I will agree it is a RISK, but we clearly disagree on the degree to which it is, and the universality of that degree.

"Well, you have had a glass or two of wine before and then gone to the gun range and everything has turned out fine thus far."

I don't mix alcohol and firearms for the precise reason that it directly diminishes capacity, and restraint. Using a cell phone while driving consumes capacity, but you may not have been using all of it anyway, and there are ways to compensate, again, as demonstrated in the OU study that showed increased following distance.

"We, the public, have been shown strong arguments and enough proof that driving while texting increases distraction levels and leads to more accidents many of them quite deadly."

We the public have also been shown that people ignore such laws at an ENORMOUS rate, and like the Freakonomics folks often show counter-intuitive fallout from various actions, banning it may lead to RISKIER behavior, wherein people hide the phone while using it, completely ignoring the road. Your efforts here in favor of an absolute ban might in the end be RISKIER than something more like a public education campaign to get people to voluntarily curtail it to 'high value communication', brief acknowledgements rather than dissertations, how to hold the phone so your peripheral vision can still be engaged in the task of driving, how to shorten the duration of your glance to the phone, how to transition to VOICE ACTIVATION which is becoming ubiquitous on most phones produced today, etc.

I don't accept that your perception of risk is accurate, that it has led to good public policy, or that it makes us safer.

"No you can not convince me with rhetoric which is all that you are offering."

I have offered to discuss, and have also brought up more than one study. I am waiting.

"You can pretend that I am arrogant or a 'true believer' but no, I am just an adult that recognizes that my independent freedom is always a compromising and delicate balance between my will and desires and the world of others that I exist in."

I think your perception of risk is overblown, is leading to bad public policy, and is reactionary and damaging in the same way that the right wing's perception of public drug use is overblown and leading to bad public policy, and that seemingly counter-intuitive fixes like decriminalization would lead to similar improvements in outcomes. That's all.

the bottom line is that you alone have concluded that your use of a cellphone to text while driving, no matter how minimally you do so, is an acceptable risk to take. You simply will not be convinced otherwise. Studies presented are not good enough. Empirical evidence that diminished focus caused by texting has already led to an increase in accidents is not good enough. The truth that the human really doesn't have the capacity to multitask like a computer is not good enough either.

You use what intelligence you have to rationalize, justify, and defend your risky behavior from a libertarian perspective. You believe that my perception of the risk is overblown. I think your perception of the risk is understated. Considering that you have no intention to change this behavior, I am done with the discussion.

The only way it appears that you will accept it is risky enough to stop is after something tragic occurs. I genuinely hope you do not harm yourself in order to learn that truth. More importantly though, I definitely hope you do not harm another in order to finally get it.

I can text on a phone while driving on an unoccupied road. No one but myself at risk. Your analogy requires I point a gun at another human being (a felony, loaded or unloaded, not to mention justification of deadly force in response to my action, if the person I am pointing it at reasonably apprehends a grave risk to their safety) and cannot be applied to a situation where I am alone.

I think the carrying Condition 1/2 analogy, while not perfect, is much closer, in that if a negligent discharge does occur, property damage or something like that can still occur when alone. I offered it in good faith, because there are strong parallels to potential negligence while driving due to distractions, rather than felonious behavior (brandishing).

"the bottom line is that you alone have concluded that your use of a cellphone to text while driving, no matter how minimally you do so, is an acceptable risk to take."

Under some conditions, yes. This is accurate. I have outlined several conditions under which I will not.

" You simply will not be convinced otherwise. Studies presented are not good enough."

One of the studies that purported to show the risks actually showed a mixed bag of good and bad. Reduced reaction time (bad), and increased following distance (good). I'm willing to discuss that. So far you have not responded to the UO study data, or really any other study.

"The only way it appears that you will accept it is risky enough to stop is after something tragic occurs."

Again, your arguments apply to the very simple act of driving a car at all. So this is not terribly meaningful rhetoric even before we get to the subject of texting.

if you were reading a text?

Again, peripheral vision is your friend. Focused vision is only about a 3 degree cone. I haven't hit an animal since I was a teenager. And that had nothing to do with distraction, my option was hit it or risk swerving into the other lane. Not really much of a choice.

October 6th 2011
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20116742-10391704.html

"Our findings suggest that response times are even slower than what we originally thought,"
said Christine Yager, the researcher who managed the Texas Transportation Institute study.
"Texting while driving basically doubles a driver's reaction time and makes the driver less
able to respond to sudden roadway dangers, if a vehicle were to make a sudden stop in front
of them or if a child was to run across the road."

Reaction times slowed from one to two seconds in the absence of texting to three to four
seconds while texting. To put the findings in context, Yager said drivers going 30 mph
travel 220 feet in five seconds. At 60 mph, a driver covers 440 feet in five seconds, she
said.

The study also found texting impaired the ability of drivers to maintain proper lane
position and a constant speed. "If you're on a freeway where the speed limit is 60 in rush hour and a vehicle suddenly stops in front of you, that's not enough time to react if your eyes are glanced down at your phone," Yager said.

Is it safer to read a text than to compose one? The study found little difference in
response times between the activities.

####

It is totally baffling to me that anyone has the arrogance to do these activities. And what in the world is so crucially important that you have to be indulging your addiction while driving? Of course, many people get away with doing these activities until the moment comes along when they don't:

Train engineer sent out over a dozen text messages the day he caused the crash that killed 25 people

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3521534

I am sure this fellow had your same attitude. He was quite skilled at multi-tasking, until one moment when he overplayed that particular ability.

you do realize that every person who is involved in a wreck due to texting thinks they can "GLANCE"? Your arrogance in thinking your texting is more important than the safety of people who share the roads with you is absolutely DISGUSTING.

Every single fucking time you get in a car, you are making tradeoffs between safety and convenience, even if you NEVER text, and NEVER take your eyes off the road and remain 100% focused, and are 100% confident. So don't give me that bullshit.

You rate risk slightly differently than I do for one particular action. Frankly, I don't give a shit what rating you give it, because *I* am responsible for my actions, not you.

If YOU don't think you can do it, by all means, don't. But if you EVER drive a car, don't pretend you have a lock on safety versus expedience. You COULD fucking walk. Or take a train, or leave the driving to a professional. How about that shit, huh?

I guarantee there are people out there that never drive, that use bicycles and public transit that feel the same about 'cagers' that drive, just you feel about people like me who choose to text while driving.

you're a lost cause

Nice of you to even consider the point that you are simply using a different assessment of risk.

I take it you do drive, yes?

Too hard for you to walk or ride a bike? What happens when you get in a wreck because you chose to drive and you kill someone? I certainly know people who have done so, without any factors like texting in play. Worth it to get to work a little faster? Or to get to the grocery store faster?

Lovely little double standard.

I avoid wrecks because I'm always paying attention to what everyone around me is doing.

And what do you do when you stop at a crosswalk with people in it, and the car behind you doesn't stop? Tell me what magical observation powers would have saved you there. (I wasn't texting when any of those happened.)

This is expected of commercial drivers. The safety cushion gives an increased margin of safety, so that if your vehicle is rear-ended, it is less likely to be shoved into the crosswalk, on top of the pedestrians, or worse yet, shoved into the intersection to now be broad-sided, as well as rear-ended.

Being distracted while driving means the driver has less time and attention to pay to safe driving techniques.

My vehicle was hit so hard the doors wouldn't open anymore. Shoved us forward at least ten feet with the wheels locked up. Still came up short of the crosswalk with people in it.

BUT, the example doesn't actually work in my favor either, in that I wasn't texting when I chose how far to stop from the corner.

If you had been paying attention, those accidents could have been avoided.

At least the "wandered in to my lane" accident could probably be avoided if you drive defensively. Maybe the "fucking with her radio" too.

I can't phase into another dimension, no matter how hard I pay attention. I was REAR ENDED. There were human beings standing in the crosswalk ahead of me. How the fuck does driving defensively get you out of that one?

I WAS driving defensively. That's why there was enough room for my vehicle to be shoved forward by the impact, and not squish the people in the crosswalk.

I wouldn't even WANT to get out of the way. If somehow I had, that car might have plowed straight into the crosswalk. My car had crumple zones. Humans don't.

Even more skill involved.

type a "3-2-1" before the "I have super-powers and can drive using only the power of my mind" folks showed up.

Too late, apparently.

and drive at the same time...

a bit much to me. I would be surprised if 1 out of 3 Americans even text. I can't text and drive, different glasses.

that would allow you to text using voice? My phone is off while driving but seems like there would be some text app that would be voice friendly. Also, voice playback of text messages?

Mostly in the 'smartphone' class.

it says I have messages but doesn't read them

that would still count as texting while driving, and the phone records would show it in court.

Attempting to use devices still is distracting enough to cause an accident.

The second someone tries to use these things, their brain is engaged in seeing that the device is working, rather than paying attention. Maybe 99.5% of the time, it's okay a driver is distracted. But that .5% means that some little doggie or even a kid may be chasing a ball out in front of your car, and the difference between avoiding that obstacle and creaming that obstacle is whether the road has your undivided attention.

such as climate controls, or speaking to a passenger in the vehicle.

Unfortunately the nature of the world makes it impossible to round every sharp corner, and pad every surface.

Who pay attention to them, that the nature of our brains is that they "hook into" the need to see if the computer device is responding, and that this brain activity of ours occurs on a much deeper level than when our brains hook into another person talking. Perhaps the only exception to this is a mom or dad who has the kids with them. There are studies that show that the mom who has young kids with her is much more likely to be distracted by some plea from them than any other distraction, and this results in car accidents too.

But there is a huge difference to someone talking in a car where a person is driving, and the driver using a device. Different neural pathways are involved etc.

Particularly the Utah University inattention blindness study, that eliminated the initiation and termination phases of the call, and focused solely on the mental effect of the conversation with a hands free phone.

A glaring weakness of the study, they did not compare or control for the same effect in a conversation with a side seat or rear seat passenger, compared to the phone. An odd omission.

Single and dual task simulations increased the time to activation of the brake from 2-3 tenths of a second, but it also had the effect of causing the participants to increase following distance 2.5-3.5 meters. (Increased following distance being a good thing, the way most people drive these days REGARDLESS)

Increase of following distance coupled with that delay suggests to me that humans are quite capable of adapting to these circumstances, inherently. That was an encouraging result. If the time to activate the brake had increased AND the following distance remained static, or worse, got smaller due to inattention, that would be incredibly concerning.

Since the heavy traffic volume version of the experiment produced 3 wrecks while talking on the phone, I would immediately survey the participants for actual driving record performance, to see if there is perhaps something wrong with the experiment. Especially since almost all of the participants admitted to using phones while driving.

then using the climate controls. Cell phones were originally meant to be used in a vehicle during emergencies only (the classic stuck on a dark, remote country road at three in the morning scenario). The original manufacturers never meant for them to be used while the vehicle was being driven.

As far as messing with the climate controls, or talking to a passenger, I learned long ago to use good judgement while doing these things. It is preferable to have the vehicle safely stopped while doing distracting stuff, than it is to end up being in a collision of any kind, let alone a fatal one, because you thought those precious few seconds or split seconds spent doing the distracting activity were more important than getting to your destination alive, and without damage of any kind.

So leave it on the dash, press the mic button, speak, press send, and it's legal.

Also hands free talking is ok...so speaker phone it is.

Our laws not so comprehensive, unfortunately.

“Use or using” means holding a mobile electronic device while operating a motor vehicle.”

That sort of handsfree will make this issue obsolete over time.

I actually have a mount in my car that puts my cellphone next to my speedometer. Glancing down at a text is no more distracting than glancing at the speedo, or at my radio station.

If I want to reply, I just tap the screen and start talking. It converts my voice to text for me.

No extra software is required for this. It's a standard part of Android, from ICS on (Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, and the upcoming Key Lime Pie). Just tap the Microphone icon next to the spacebar on the keyboard and you can use your voice in nearly any app.

I know people who literally should not walk and chew gum at the same time. I also know people who are perfectly capable of simultaneously handling multiple tasks.

Depends on the person.

And attend to anything other than safe operation of the vehicle.

Because that is already here.

Tell me, what's the practical difference between holding your phone up in line of sight so you can see the road AND read a text simultaneously, versus some informational stupid 'welcome to bumfuck nowhere population 2' sign on the side of the road that is purely trivial information, and isn't safety-related (like a right turn only sign)

"practical difference between holding your phone up in line of sight so you can see the road AND read a text simultaneously..."

Visual cues affect depth perception and focus perception. The contraction and relaxation of the eye's cilliary muscles (resulting in either far- or near-focus respectively) cannot happen at simultaneously. Hence, reading a phone text 9-18 inches from the eyes prevents the eyes from focusing on longer-distance objects, in addition to objects moving relative to the individual.

The text on the signs on the side of the road is larger, to enable the same focal depth. If I hold my phone up at arms length, in line of sight with a stop sign so the sign text and the phone text are the same relative size, both are in focus. Your eyes have a very very narrow cone of focus anyway. Something like 3 degrees.

So tell me, which is worse, someone holding their phone up in line of sight to read it, keeping their peripheral vision where it's supposed to be, or by passing a law that causes people to hide their phones, holding them down out of sight to text while driving? Because the law doesn't seem to have stopped people from texting and driving. It may have only modified their behavior to hold the phone were they CANNOT also see the road.

Of these devices.

I had my purse knocked out of my arms while walking, off to the side of the road, here in Rural Northern calif. The lady who did this to me was not even aware that she had done this!

What she was doing was trying to figure out where to go, by analyzing her GPS unit. At the bottom of the hill from where she had knocked my purse away from me, she was sitting and trying to figure out the device's directions. And she rolled down her window and then asked me to give her verbal directions. I explained that she had let her car hit me while she was driving - she didn't know she had done that.

Then I think of all the times I have had to swerve my car out of the way of some driver who is talking on their phone or texting. I am betting a lot of people here who think they' re so cool and are handling this all so well have no idea of the near accidents they barely escape on account of the over attention of other drivers.

The shift in focus causes the person to be unable to really see anything for a fraction of a second.

Distracted drivers kill. There are people who I knew personally who are now DEAD because someone couldn't wait a few minutes to take a phone call.

And I know a shitload of people that talk on the phone and text while driving (statistically, a LOT of people if the numbers in the article above are accurate) that have never killed or seriously injured anyone doing it.

vOv

The logic you just employed could be applied to other perennial issues. For instance, 'because someone HAD to have a high-cap magazine', etc. Please be consistent.

But people feel most comfortable texting or phoning while driving in pleasant residential neighborhoods, where there aren't road signs. But in those neighborhoods, there may well be kids running out in front of you.

In any effect, a road sign is off to the side. It doesn't engage your brain in the direct way that PDA and iPhones do. The way our brains are wired, they take in these devices as though they were a command path inside the brain.

The act is that while you text and drive, you are duplicating the impairment that a driver faces under the influence of alcohol.

As some one who had their purse knocked out of their arms, by a driver speeding by me, while she used the GPS system, i offer first hand experience. Not only did she hit my purse, she remained giddily unaware of the fact her car did that. At the stop sign at the bottom of the hill from where she hit me, she asked me for directions, and she pointed to her GPS - telling me it wasn't working ad3equately and apologizing for needing my help with directions. I was like, "Lady you should be apologizing for knocking my purse out of my arms. You shouldnt' use that device while driving."

Here are links:
http://www.distraction.gov/content/get-the-facts/faq.html

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20130220_16_A9_CUTLIN53600

texting/calling or other things like eating, talking, makeup, playing with the radio when totally the 'distracted driving' crashes. Bullet point 2 in the left column is ok, but 1 and 4 do not differentiate the cause of the distracted driving.

On the right column, bullet two does not differentiate between talking on the cell hands free, and talking to a passenger in the same vehicle.

Not super awesome useful without that data.

In our cars. Most people can't afford the calories. I no longer do it - it is dangerous to do it.

But even if someone does eat something, ten minutes later they are done. Someone who is an addict to cell phones and texting does that all day long - 95% of the time they are in their vehicle!

So, while I do it, it's pretty rare and usually high value communication.

Familiarity does breed contempt, so I imagine there might be a measurable threshold where, if I tried doing it all day, at some point my driving performance would measurably degrade.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't do it on the motorcycle, not even over handsfree/Bluetooth. There's just too much to do, too much to keep track of. There are things you have to do on a motorcycle, that you don't have to do in a car. All of that takes processing power.

It's a delusion. Remarkably, those who think they can multitask do worse at it.

Reported by Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast episode #215.

Here: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=215

Whether we can truly process more than one action simultaneously or not, there are those who are much better at switching between tasks very quickly.

It's semantics.

For instance, I can hold a conversation (including eye contact) with one person while typing on a computer keyboard, entering a totally unrelated stream of text.

There is marginal degradation of the typed output, I slow down, and typos will start to appear, but I can do it.

Does speaking with one person while typing something else about an unrelated topic count as multi-tasking?

And the research indicates that even if you think you can do it, you cannot. The brain just isn't a multithreaded computer. If you are doing what your example suggests, you must either pay less attention to the conversation, or your typing. Worse, you are very likely paying less attention to both.

Consider that the next time you consider people texting while driving, or something similar.

Listen to the linked podcast in my post above. It's interesting stuff. BTW, the host is an academic neurologist at Yale, so this is kind of his field of expertise. on edit: it's the first story on the podcast which has a great interview with Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame.

Thank you for your reply.

I haven't noted a problem keeping up with the conversation, because I am willing to sacrifice the typing output to maintain the conversation.

(Also sometimes I do it to be a dick and make the person I am talking to go away)

For texting while driving, on the occasions when I do it, I don't type out huge manifestos in response. Usually just one character acknowledgments. It's the consumption of the incoming data that is likely riskiest. That is not made better by banning it, because people still do it. In reaction to the ban, they hold the phones down, where they can't be seen from outside the vehicle. This means they are taking their eyes totally off the road. Peripheral vision too.

That's a very bad formula.

The DA can subpoena phone records where the circumstance suggest it. You text while driving? You pay huge fine or go to jail.

It is a monumentally idiotic thing to do.

I have little sympathy for people who cause mayhem on the highway by doing such things.

The science backs me up on that.

They must all be in some big city that doesn't have mass transportation.

Did they include the people in NYC that walk and text, cab and text, or sub and text?

She thought our lane of traffic's light had turned green because the left-turn lane was moving. Our light was red. My rear bumper and rear door were damaged, and the impact was great enough to herniate a disc in my back. Took 3 months to be able to walk without pain.

Now I get embarrassingly angry when I see people looking down to check their phones at red lights. Most of the time they don't know when the light turns green so are delaying traffic. Inconsiderate a-holes. Their smart phones are smarter than they are.

So upset by the gun issue. But a person is something like 660 times more likely to be injured or killed on account of our new fetish for cell phoning and driving, GPS-ing and driving, and texting while driving, than by a gun. (Sixty percent of all gun deaths are suicides -so the "murder" rate of the gun is a bit exagerrated.)

I guess people think it hurts less to be killed in an auto accident. As someone who survived a crash where a truck driver doing 60 slammed into my family's car, I can tell you it is devastating to be involved in a car accident. My mom ended up paralyzed, and it took her eighteen months, countless hours of physical therapy, to get her legs working.

and you'd probably have to supply a link to the evidence regarding the 660x more likely to be injured or killed by the new fetish. And it might have something to do with the idea that guns were designed to be able to kill, whereas our electro devices weren't designed to have that ability. Plus the car is the object that's doing the damage, so that could be clouding the idea of what is responsible.

Get bashed.

I'm the asshole who will totally wear google Glass, or whatever cheap knockoff becomes available. But not while I'm driving. Put the phone down and pay attention. It takes a second of in attention to ruin your or someone else's life. I don't get people think they're so wonderful at driving that they should be allowed to endanger the rest of us.

Like closing distance to the object ahead of you, or a 'nod-off' alert that you are getting tired?

Take a picture of an accident in progress, rather than fumbling for your phone? Or call 911? Following a drunk driver? You could potentially take a picture of their plate with those glasses, and send it to a cop without ever taking a finger off the wheel.

I'd hope people would adopt it. Particularly if there was a feature that shut down all other features while driving. I mostly mentioned glass because it was catching heat here from people who hate tech.

However, the issue here is using a phone to text while driving. That's willfully ignorant of the danger the driver puts others in.

Does posting on DU at 70mph count as 'texting?'

Our concentration and multi tasking abilities might be the issue here .I chose to pay attention to people who are speaking to me its a cultural thing ,manners and tradition. I live in a family of 4 me being the non texter.Is undivided attention a bad thing ? an unevolved throw back to cave dwellers ? beats me because I love and appreciate many texter/phone freaks and they live with my foibles too.
Atheist Crusader is right because I concentrate so much when I drive that I zone out sometimes being overly defensive and driving way under the vehicle's capabilities .....Hopefully we will all live in the Jetsons someday .

Since they clearly can track you as you move from one location to another as you move from cell tower to cell tower why cant they make it so if its detected that you moving at a high rate of speed that your ability to send messages is limited if not totally cut off?

As seventy. I have friends who would never text and drive or phone and drive while on a freeway, but start in on those activities the second their car is going through the pleasant residential neighborhood where they live. And that is the place where the danger of hitting a kid who darts out in front of you to get the ball, etc is more likely to occur.

Who wants to kill a kid over the need to text a friend? Who wants to kill a kid to order a pizza a few minutes earlier than if they waited till they were home.

When I learned how to drive (And granted, this was back shortly after the Civil War) we were taught that driving requires a person's undivided attention. And that is still the situation today.

it requires even more attention now. Be fruitful and multiply, and all that...traffic is getting thicker, and more hectic all the time. People, both drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists are getting more frustrated due to the crowding, and as a consequence, they pull some incredibly stupid stunts in traffic.

I too learned to drive ages ago. What we learned back then was correct. The human eye and brain processing capacity were evolved to work at a walking pace...5 mph, not 60!

I am so old...I can remember when drive-up windows were considered controversial, and it was because doing anything other than driving, back then, was illegal, and could earn you a citation from the police.

I am with you, truedelphi. It is NOT worth it to risk killing another living being (human or animal) because people are too impatient to pull over and make or answer that soooooooo important call or text message. Even the property damage for colliding with something, not to mention the time that will have to be spent exchanging information with the other driver or property owner, calling your insurance agent to file a claim, filling out police reports (if needed), and so on an so forth, is NOT WORTH IT!

It enrages me that some people just don't get it. Driving is a privilege, which our states can revoke if you rack up too many infractions. People who insist on being distracted by a non-essential task like talking on cell phones or text messaging endanger ALL of us.

Hugs to you It sounds like you learned some of the same safety practices that I did, way back in ancient history, when I first learned to drive.

Plus how will passengers text on long bus rides? I take one that's an hour and a half, and I would go insane without my phone.

There are a couple methods. Time of Arrival, Angle of Arrival, Time Difference of Arrival, Enhanced-Observed Time Difference. Etc.

passenger on a city bus?

just as clearly the laws banning texting while driving arent working and seeing as people survived for decades before texting on cellphones was possible adding this kind of tech to reduce the ability of people to send messages while movement is detected shouldnt create to much of a hardship.

What was the percentage of people in the study that ignored the law? One presumes they are voters as well...

Shouldnt be to hard for the cell companies to add software to monitor the movement of a phone and if its sending texts through the cellphone service since they already have the ability to supply gps like features on alot of phones, the tricky part though is if it involves a third party service other than the cellphone company that they may use to send messages.

The number of people doing this would preclude such legislation. Otherwise, said legislators will be unemployed.

...published everywhere.

and DRIVE, damn it!
I have to deal with this all the time. They text while driving, or even at red lights. Then when the light turns green, I have to wait for the inconsiderate fool to finish their sexting.
I have bluetooth built into the GPS in my car, so when my phone rings, I hit the button ON THE STEERING WHEEL, and talk to the person. It even tells me who calls on the GPS screen. I even hate to use this myself.

I'll keep saying that cellular tech is the tobacco of the 21st. century and that pisses off a lot of people .

Sitting in traffic is not driving.

Seriously, I'm amazed at the number of people I see doing something other than driving and they all seem to be getting down the road just fine.

Just earlier this week, at close to 80, the guy next to me is eating a bowl of cereal.

I would say it is not so bad if a person is in stopped traffic.

I couldn't be bothered, though. What's wrong with the phone. Get a bluetooth. People are absurd sometimes.

They are no better than drunk drivers, so I imagine they are the same place! I have seen people drive their cars off the hill and roll them, all because they were too distracted and texting.... I saw an 70+ yr old man trying to read his I-pad with his bifocals almost roll his car down the the top of Parley's Canyon here in UT 2 days ago.. very, very scary!!!!

the area of HWY 29, St Helena "Abyss" in Northern Calif., where it becomes all curves and mountain passes.

The straightaway gave way to the first curve, and that beautiful car went sailing over that first ridge, down an embankment of at least several hundred feet. I sure hope whatever message they were texting was an important one!