Text or chat while driving? You go to jail.

lets look at other distractions
children should not be allowed in cars
my sister in law has had mutiple accidents when her children drove her to lose control of the car

maybe require all parents with children in the car to take parenting classes, my sister in law push to the head of the line

Talking on a cell phone makes you more prone to auto accidents than drinking and driving, so if you are allowed to talk on a cell phone while driving, why are you not allowed to drive drunk? Both are voluntary actions that put others at risk.

http://www.1800duilaws.com/article/s..._cellphone.asp

I can't get your link working to read the specifics of this.

Jail time certainly does sound excessive for a first offense. But to whatever degree distracted driving is as dangerous and drunk driving, it makes sense for the punishments to match.

Texting while driving is insane. That's an order of magnitude more distracting than taking or making a phone call. During the time you're actively involved in texting, you're probably even more dangerous than a lot of drunk drivers are. On the other hand, being drunk is an ongoing condition for many minutes, if not an hour or more, and can't be shaken off immediately, unlike texting which might be a very brief distraction, and which can be set aside quickly if you're at least paying enough attention to notice changing driving conditions.

What % of text messages are so important that it can't wait for you to pull over? Zero? Negative 100?

Though I think the penalty is harsh, there should be a law for this. When you are operating a vehicle, that is the only thing you should be concerned with operating the vehicle. Not operating cell phones, "adjust sat-navs, tinker with MP3 music players such as iPods or send text messages".

Guess what, I would have to recommend one who eats and drives to plan your trip ahead of time (or restructure your commuting time) so that you can at least eat something before you drive or pull over and finish your meal. I think that is common sense. I'd add drinking too, but that may be a little too far since there are cup holders for most vehicles. But eating? Too many variables.

As far as the rest of this paragraph. Get your underwear out of that bunch. The evil overlords aren't going to take your right of free speech in the automobile. This is nothing compared to Homeland Security or torture.

You sound more paranoid than we are...


I'm on the fence with this (random checkpoints) because I'm a former drunk and was busted many times, plus having a 16 year old nephew struck and killed by a drunk driver....

MADD. Though I believe their cause in the beginning was just, it may have gone too far. But when you give more leeway for police you get more harassment and unjustified actions.


Does three years fit the punishment for a drunk driver killing another? I might say no there. For this? If the incident involves a serious accident or death, yes. For a minor pull-over by a cop, no. But you know cops these days.

This is not a case of freedoms being infringed though (in comparison to what this administration has done with our Constitution).

BBC4's Today program dealt with this story today, and one of the things they pointed out is that this is only an issue if you are in an accident while texting.

I'm generally opposed to anti-cell-phone laws because they just plain don't make any sense (why is talking, hands-free, any different than talking to the passenger next to me?).

But texting...that's different. Wasn't there a girl in London killed a few months ago by someone texting while driving?

It's the UK - what do you expect? I was attacked by an army thug in a Horseguards uniform when I was there last weekend. Literally.

Most of them will blame Europe, Muslims or immigrants anyway...I say jail 'em. Who cares? Little Napoleons grow to be big Napoleons and it isn't as if all the sane Brits haven't jumped ship anyway years ago - so why not turn the whole island into a prison camp? Kind of a cordon sanitaire where the US can send people to be tortured by warm beer, snooker and the Daily Mail. That should do something.

Btw - soon, under new legislation pending, non-EU visitors will have to pay a bond of about 2000 USD each (near enough I think) just to get in. Just so they don't stay. Personally I paid far more than that to leave and would have gone far higher....

Well, when it comes to new laws that take away peoples' freedoms, or allow increased government intrusion into people's lives, your usual type of response infers "if you obey the law, then you've nothing to get worried about".....

Not that I agree with these measures, but why the 180º shift?

Hookers should not be allowed to service men that are driving. It can have serious consequences.

Well as you note the premise here is pretty frightening because of what it puts into law as a legal solution. You become a criminal not because you have done something wrong or harmed someone, but basically because you are... suboptimal.

Perhaps soon they will examine us for defect and kill us when don't pass inspection just to get the whole business over with faster.


A couple points, first it appears that relates to hand held and not hands free cell use. Secondly it appears to be generated to support the law and not the reverse. Finally before you restrict the ability of people to move about, you should have multiple sources and insure that the marketplace matches the laws.


How many billboards are so important they need to be read at all? If causing a driver or as a driver allowing yourself to be sub-optimally driving due to distraction is a crime, then all those billboards ought to be gone. Radios ought to be removed from vehicles. Drive-throughs ought to be closed at every restaurant. Etc.

The most dangerous thing about the thinking associated with this law and many other legal decisions within our country is that they do not punish someone for harm or hurting but for merely not matching up to an idealized state that has been set into the law.

Kelo makes it appropriate for the government to take your property if someone will generate more taxes than you.

Family courts are allowed to impose profoundly ridiculous punishments not because a child is hungry or neglected but because the courts determine X dollars ought to have been given completely unrelated to honest care.

Now we see this happening with driving and clearly in the future with diet. The crime isn't harm but being less than what the government declares to be perfect.

The odd thing is that this is clearly about control because any host of factors can be pointed out that cause the same suboptimal conditions that the government ignores. I don't mean this as a boast but I've always been a bit terrified with regard to what the government allows on the road related to vision. I've always tested better than average with regard to vision though as I now head toward 40 I suspect that will change soon enough. I've gone through life wondering how the hell most people operate PERIOD let alone vehicles because in my view, they are pretty much blind.

Should I be allowed to legislate my views into law and put them in jail on top of it? What if they are required to wear corrective lenses and are found not wearing them? Should it be two years in jail for them?

Soon it appears we will be jailed if we don't earn enough, don't pay enough taxes, need to be "impaired" by life in any fashion, weigh too much, have pre-existing conditions, or don't meet some set of norms.

Nick

The NHTSA did at a time require not just seatbelts but ignition interlocks for seatbelts.

Mandatory Ignition interlocks for alcohol content strikes me as an excellent idea if we're really concerned about safety.

It sounds like we need a department of pre-crime.

About bloody time. There's been too many pedestrians and cyclists killed by idiots driving whilst on their phones.

Previously what would happen is the driver would get off with the lesser crime of using the phone introduced in 2003 or at best, driving without due care and attention. Now it looks like drivers will be made to suffer the full consequences of their stupid behaviour rather than getting off on a technicality.

And don't tell me it's the same as being distracted by external influences like billboards. The driver has chosen to operate their phone instead of their steering wheel.

IMHO we still don't go far enough in the UK. The balance is still way in favour of the car driver instead of their victims. If I was knocked off my bike by a car I'd have to prove the car driver was negligent. In many countries in Europe it's assumed that the car driver has a greater responsibility, which is only fair since they weigh a tonne and do 70+ miles an hour, to ensure they're driving correctly and so the burden of proof is the opposite.

Texting or hand-held cell phone use while driving is wrong because it puts others at greater risk than without that behavior. The law does consider that behavior to be "wrong."


Are those examples on the same risk plane as driving while texting or talking on a cell phone?

I am guessing they are not.


Perfection?

The law tries to reduce an unnecessary, identifiable, and substantial risk that these drivers pose to others on the road.


So campaign to raise the standards for driving without glasses being required.

That does not change the existence of *this* risk that the legislature or whoever it is in England (Parliament?) decided to regulate.


The maximum jail term is a bit excessive.

I'm unconvinced of the deterrent value of many laws.*

*The sentencing part at least.


Um.

No.

It is to MADD, they are the ones lowering the BAC. As I said, they've gone too far. Even to the point that a doctor will inform the DOT of a patient who claimed he drank 6-10 beers at home and then suspend his license.

A Sixpack A Day Keeps The License Away


Still think eating is wrong while driving IMO though...\

This is a cultural thang.

In South Africa and Portugal, for example? —Drink and drive. Don't feel too bad, it's not social anathema like it is in the UK and the US.

In the UK, texting while you drive is really frowned on, probably because it's really, really dangerous and it gets bad press. Clearly things are different in the US.

I'm a cyclist and I can promise you: people talking on the phone is bad enough. But texting?

It is impossible to concentrate, text and simultaneously operate a vehicle designed to be operated with two hands. You can't do it. It's dangerous. You're putting peoples' lives at risk when you do it. You're not giving up any rights if you're punished when you're caught other than the right to act like a selfish, irresponsible dickface.

Not according to the Supreme Court, and conservative icon Rehnquist:


Government spying on American citizens is also unconstitutional. But for some odd reasons, you seem to support that.

Drunken morons behind the wheel represent a far greater everyday threat to Americans (25,000 killed each year, and 500,000 injured) than the fictitous specter of "Mohammed X with a package of dynamite", which the powers-that-be have been using as a pointed stick to scare the people into accepting unAmerican principles of intrusive big-brother style of government. Your priorities are topsy turvy....


Have you ever lost a loved one because some drunken klutz was too anesthetized from his common sense to abstain from driving for the evening?

At .08 BAC, a driver is 11 times more likely than the non-drinking driver to be involved in a crash.

Two more beers? Up to a six-pack now? The likelihood of having an accident is now 48 times higher than the abstainer and the driver has just now passed the 0.10 BAC level.

Two more? Hey, you've already had a six pack, two more couldn't hurt, right? Except two more beers could put your BAC close to 0.15 at which point you are 380 times more likely to have an accident.

People who get behind the wheel incapacitated by lush and kill someone (25,000 per year in the US) deserve harsh sentences, in my book anyway.

It takes the actions of selfish idiots who have to have their own way, then mess up, which screws everything up for the rest of us.

Anyway, people who are under the (weird) impression that they have to "consume alcohol to have fun" have a real psychological problem.

SDW, I think you're a bit off base on the .08 thing. I had a friend with a good breathalyzer in college that we would screw around with. I definitely wouldn't want to be driving at .08. It seems like a reasonable rule to me.

The literature indicates no increased risk as BAC up to .05, and around, as sammi jo said, 10x at .08, and the literature I quickly scanned indicated and odds ratio of 40 at BAC above 0.15

There's also literature indicating an interactive effect between alcohol and sleep deprivation (awake 18-21 hours).

The most recent literature on this topic comes from Germany.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/en...ubmed_RVDocSum

Well, the epidemiology on the subject consistently says that you are incorrect. Just because you don't want it to be true doesn't mean that it isn't. The epidemiology on the subject also does not claim a BAC of .03 affects your risk of an accident.

An interesting bit from the discussion section of the article I linked to the abstract of:

Yes, yes it does. You picked out the right bit too.

Here are the most pertinent figures.





I think the policy and the science mesh quite well, and the DUI limit is eminently appropriate.

I'm convinced that the low-quality of the cellular voice signal has a lot to do with the way it impairs concentration -- more so than the act of putting it to your ear. You'd be surprised: your brain threads together a lot of the poor voice quality to the point where you don't consciously notice it, but it's clearly taking some brain power. I would be interested to see a study that measures the clarity of a voice audio stream with the amount of driving impairment.

One of the problems is society's failure to recognize that alcohol is a psychoactive drug ... a highly addictive, incapacitating and toxic substance, and rather than treating it with respect and moderation, the act of getting intoxicated (to the point of incapability) is widely regarded in society as something that is laudable, or something we must all do in order to be "sociable" or use in order to have fun at parties. A glass of wine or whatever... I have no problems with that, but what's this big deal about getting drunk.... to the extent that 10s of millions do it regularly? Once you've done it once, it doesn't get any better that that... so why are people repeating the same, sad state? I don't know of anyone who enjoys blinding headaches, the sensation of the room spinning round, the thunderous roar of the cat slinking across the carpet, or vomiting, etc. etc. Alcohol abuse is also the most effective way (I've ever seen) of transforming perfectly normal, well adjusted, decent human beings into complete assholes. Furthermore, I am sure that most people here who have had the experience of some boorish drunken sot lurching over and slurringly attempting to make "conversation" while engulfing one in alcohol fumes find the encounter at the very least annoying..... and his state of drunkenness "pathetic".

By rights, society's incessant paranoia about recreational drugs in general should have rendered alcohol (and tobacco) abuse as one of the nations most severe drug-related problems... but because of tradition, denial and other factors, it's more comfortable to sweep it all under the carpet and pretend that everything's OK.

Sounds familiar huh.

Is driving with hands-free kit dangerous?


Maybe splinemodel is right...either that or people just can't walk and chew gum at the same time anymore.

I wonder what the difference is in accident rates compared to other countries? Unless there are offsetting cultural differences -- oh, like everyone tends to drive at 15 mph* on big, largely traffic-free streets -- I think South Africa and Portugal have some wising up to do in this particular area.

*24 kph, if you prefer.

I believe I was replying to a response where the person was saying that the person was reading the text message, not punching it into the phone. I would agree that punching a text message into a phone while driving in not right. However I don't claim it is right because it requires X% of attention, but requires your hand leave the wheel for extended periods.


Reading a text message and reading a billboard clearly both require your eyes leaving the road. While my view is not one of an expert on this(nor is yours), I would bet that if a study were done on reading a text message, reading a billboard, adjusting or manipulating radio controls, or eating while driving would all increase risk from not doing these activities at a minimum, and would likely increase the risk to a similar degree.


There are times however when the ability to mitigate this risk is not possible due to life being life instead of an idealized state. These laws do not appear to take norms into consideration and instead legislate an idealized state. Is the average person likely to have some sort of distraction involved when driving, be it a radio, children, other adult passengers, etc. Yes they are and as such to call such a state impaired is a misnomer.


There is risk inherent with the activity. The law should attempt to mitigate additional risk that falls outside of norms which would then be considered excessive.

About eyesight..

Only about 35 percent of all adults have 20/20 vision without glasses, contact lenses or corrective surgery. With corrective measures, approximately 75 percent of adults have this degree of visual acuity while the other 25 percent of the population just doesn't see very well, Dr. Johnson says.

If I made a law that attempted to limit driving to only those with naturally occurring 20/20 vision, it might mitigate more risk, but would harm the population in general since it was so restrictive. As a nation we had a similar debate about speed limits. There are times where we should simply be allowed to shoulder the additional risk instead of hoping for a perfect result.


Lost me there.


Um yes. We see this in a number of areas.

Nick

Reading a billboard has you looking out of your car with your eyes focused at a distance. Reading a text message has you looking down (typically, unless you hold the phone up high, directly in front of your face), eyes focussed for near vision, reading smaller, often more involved text.

I remember trying to use Google Maps on my old phone with a display which was not much more than half the size of the display on my iPhone. I pulled off before trying to bring up the map in the first place, but I soon gave up on even trying to follow the map while driving, and pulled over (not easy to do in downtown Boston) for nearly every check of the map I had to make.

Besides, you don't send messages back to billboards. That's the biggest part of the problem of someone texting while driving -- composing messages, not just reading them. That's WAY more distracting than reading a billboard or picking a radio station. I'd be willing to be that during the time a person is composing a text message while driving he's a good bit more dangerous than someone with a 0.08 BAC.

I never could understand the cigar thing. I have smoked them myself and most times I get a 10 to 15 foot radius of loneliness around me. They stink. At least from other people (smokers too). You can't inhale them and the only place you can enjoy them is in a cigar bar or outside.

Now weed...personally I have been through the mill with experimenting drugs. Never did heroin or heavy stuff. But the heaviest "substance" was and always will be alcohol. By far the worst hang-over of any recreational substance. And I have seen the destruction it makes of people inside and outside. I agree with some of Sammi jo's observations on it as far as how society has made it "safer" and more accessible than others.

But weed is harmless if you just follow the rules of behavior. Don't let it or any substance take over your life. Smoking, eating or snorting (not the best way at all to enjoy THC, but it can be done), marijuana should be legalized and the people who enjoy it should. Just as drinkers have been to "take the edge off".

By the way, here's an unofficial driver's test with the driver under the influence of weed. Interesting...

Anybody that drives and texts at the same time is a moron and deserves to go to jail.
Anyone that drives that doesn't devote there full attention to driving needs to go back and read the Rules of the Road. There are probably more accidents caused by people not paying attention while driving than any other cause. I don't think I even need provide a link to prove that. Just common sense.
Oh and one other thing driving is not a right it is a privilege that you have to earn

You should not drive when you are tired either. I have heard that people that drive while tired or sleepy cause as many, or more fatal accidents than drunk drivers.
Sometimes though, we have all driven while tired.

[QUOTE=SDW2001;1186588]You know, I think you sound awfully judgmental for liberal!

Why do people drink? Lots of reasons. It's not just to get drunk, but having several drinks does take the edge off. It lowers inhibitions, which people feel they need sometimes as well. I personally like the taste of beer, wine, etc.

So do I, a glass or 2 of wine with a meal, or a real beer (not the massmarketed chemical crap masquerading as beer) is most enjoyable... and as I said in my post that you decried as "judgmental", I have nothing against drinking in moderation. There is even medical evidence that a small regular intake of alcohol can be beneficial and even extend life expectancy. But there is a fine line between what is good for you, and what can screw one up royally.. and it seems that many folk are unable to distinguish that.... just like there is a fine line re. the amount of alcohol people consume that makes them either behave socially, or like complete jerks. Alcohol is a real Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde substance.. and kids (who regard themselves as immortal anyway) think its safe it because its legal, advertised, and manufactured by big household name companies which sponsor sports and whatever.


OK, here's my judgemental 2 cents: Cigars (and cigarettes etc.) smoking is a disgusting habit, antisocial, pollutes the air that other around them have to breathe with a noxious potpourri of poisonous gases and suspended particles, the odor gets everywhere, it is a fire hazard (how many instances has smoking been the cause of people being killed by house or forest fires caused by some short-sighted idiot flicking ash of out his car window, or smoking in bed? Having said that, I don't think for a minute that it should be banned, because we all know that making something illegal will only encourage its use amongst kids who think its "cool" to break the law, while simultaneously creating a whole new area of trade for organized criminal gangs.....

I don't smoke anything... (something to do with having a sense of self -preservation)... but what is it about a cigar that is better than weed? If that is really the case, why aren't cigars illegal?


Give me a boring teetotaler any day that some lush-head who can't string a sentence together, and then resorts to fists to get his point across, before puking up his last meal.


Nobody needs any chemical prop to have a "good time".


I think anyone in a state of sobriety who witnesses typical drunken behavior will make scornful or derogatory comments. It is hard not to be judgmental in such circumstances.. after all, drunken loutishness is pretty dreary at best.


Neither do I. People should be aware that it is dangerous, and they are being assholes for putting the lives of other road-users lives in danger....

But that's a whole different conversation. As far as the policy goes, you (and me, and anyone else), the individual, are irrelevant. It's simply not feasible to assess what BAC is appropriate for every individual driver in this country. We must go with what makes sense from objective, population level data, and that's .08. Thems the rules, and we all know what they are, and have a corresponding obligation to heed them or risk the potential consequences.

As far as random stops without any actual reason to stop somebody, well I tend to agree with you.

Speed limits are an interesting auto safety subject too.

We know with mathematical precision the additional number of people that will die or get into accidents from raising the speed limit a certain amount. Yet states have raised them anyway because of other interests.