Cellphones and driving [Telecom]

My car has a built-in hands-free link that has an answer button on the steering wheel. My wireless service also has voice mail, which I let the call go to if we are in a difficult driving situation.

I think it should be a moving violation to use a cellphone while you're driving.

I don't want to encourage Big Brother to watch us any more closely than he does already, but it seems like it should be technically feasible to 1) detect where a cellphone is, 2) over time, which tells you if it's moving, and 3) if a conversation is in progress while that happens. Voila, like a speed camera, instant automated tickets!

Won't be long before that idea occurs to the city fathers. It's to save the children, don't'ya'know.

Dave

***** Moderator's Note *****

You forgot the part where you detect _which_ of the car's occupants is using the phone. Usually, it's for the children. ;-)

Pretty easy to implement with Bluetooth connectivity. If the car senses a cell phone just have it jam the cell phone band or send an instruction to turn the cell phone off when the car is in motion.

***** Moderator's Note *****

This is like debating what the most effective oral contraceptive is: if you think about it, it's the word "No".

The solution is to tell people to stop, and fine them if they don't.

You guys on this forum are on the back side of the power curve (aviation speak ;-) The states that have (wisely) outlawed the driver using a hand-held have determine in their legislative wisdom that a properly configured hands-free system is capable of being used responsibly.

Better would be to disable the driver's ringer (assuming this can be done).

There's a BIG downside to having a phone OFF when there's a need to call 911 ASAP. My present cellphone takes about a minute or so to boot from poweroff.

The things I've seen while driving along I-280 from the South Bay to points south of San Francisco daily for 15+ years are legion: hay bales in the lanes, 30-foot tree limbs straddling two lanes, sofas on the roadway, gardening gear (rakes, lawnmowers, wheelbarrows, etc.) falling off gardener trucks, Porta Pottys falling off their transports onto the road, cougars and deer acting as if they own the road, airplanes landing (twice), cars scribing DNA helixes on the roadbed before flipping and burning, even people running/walking across the lanes, etc. These are all true events -- I could write a book. :-)

I've called 911 at least 50+ times over the years to report such incidences, and that usage is still permitted (in Calif.) for drivers with a cellphone.

Shutting off the ringer while driving is a simple thing to do, and incoming calls go to voice mail which I can handle later.

Fur the curious and for those local who may want to be wary, there are three "hot spots" I've noted along I-280 by the number of incidences: I-280 and Hwy 85, +/- 2 miles N/S of Page Mill (in Palo Alto), and California's "Mystery Spot" between Edgewood Rd and Hwy 92 (esp. given the roadway is curved and banked incorrectly). I even had my front license plate "stolen" while driving in the "Mystery Spot" -- it was ripped off by a bouncing plastic bucket (I was flanked by cars and couldn't avoid it and, fortunately, no damage to my car); that was yet another 911 call twice: once to report the items on the freeway, then again as a followup upon arriving at my office and noticing no damage, just the missing plate for which the (later mailed) CHP report is still in my glovebox.

Stuff happens, and I believe calling 911 when it does has helped prevent loss of life and property.

The problem is that people will flout laws when they know they can't be easily enforced.

Some people will always flout laws, the issue is that making bad/reckless behaviour illegal rather than relying on an individual's judgement will reduce the problem even if it doesn't totally stop it.

Too many people reject attempts to reduce any problem if the proposed solution isn't somehow "perfect" in obtaining a 100% solution to the issue.

I rather have 70% (or whatever the compliance rate actually is) less people using phones while driving because that reduces that particular risk to everyone else by that amount, if 30% continue to indulge in that sort of risky behaviour then it is still far better than the original situation.

The vast majority of drivers are still phoning while driving (not a scientific survey, just my personal observation).

If we want drivers to obey this law, then let's increase the penalty and/or create more enforcement mechanisms (for instance, have the red light camera operators look for people phoning). Otherwise, repeal it.

The reason a law that usually goes unenforced is a problem is that it has the effect of letting police punish whomever they want to punish: in other words, it abolishes the rule of law. Completely unrestrained police are a worse problem than no police at all.

California enforces it and the fines add up, but more people are violating it now then when it first passed, some claim they did not know it was the law, others from out of state say the same; even though there are ads on TV, Radio and billboards. I agree, let the red light cameras catch them, since a lot of red light runners did it because the were on the phone; hit them with both violations and make it a requirement they go to court and take traffic school for 5 nights.

Locally (Silicon Valley) there's a column in the San Jose Mercury News (SJMN) named "Road Show" (though we often joke it's "Road Kill" :-). I'm in frequent email contact with the columnist, Gary Richards, and feed him a lot of behind-the-scenes info (including what we discuss here), such as the NY Times articles, especially the one about the suppressed cellphone driving info.

The SJMN requires one to signup (free) to view their pages (and I must reenter my password once a month or so when cookies expire). A story in today's column is almost unbelievable.

If you have/want access to the online SJMN, the article is here:

Following is a formatted copy'n'paste of the specific story:

Q: The other morning, I was driving to work on Interstate 880, and my little car was nearly sideswiped by a giant SUV that drifted into my lane as if I weren't there. Furious at nearly being squashed, I drove up next to the SUV, but before I could sternly shake my fist at it, I spotted a young woman behind the wheel holding a phone in one hand and punching in a text message with the other. I rode alongside her for about 10 seconds, and I never saw her look up at the road once. She was completely engrossed in what was going on in her lap.

Bruce Newman Los Gatos

A: Bruce is a Mercury News reporter whose desk is near mine. He's a very calm fellow, so when I heard him talking about this incident, I asked him to tell me more.

Q: Gary, I make it a practice to stay away from these texting fools when I can, so I fell back several car lengths, still fuming about what she had nearly done to me and the menace she presented to others. Over the next couple of miles, she nearly sideswiped a pickup and repeatedly drifted onto the left shoulder. I fell behind an eighteen-wheeler and lost sight of her for a while.

Bruce Newman

A: Unfortunately, it was not good riddance.

Q: Then as I approached the San Jose airport I saw her again, sitting in the middle lane of the freeway, going about 20 mph while cars and trucks whizzed by on either side. Traffic had slowed, and when it picked up again, she was so consumed with texting that she had no idea what was going on around her. As I passed by, I saw her furiously pecking away at that infernal thing.

Here's my question. I see those signs that say "Report drunk drivers, call 911," and I really wanted to call and report her. She clearly presented as great a hazard as any drunken driver. But I figured if the CHP caught up to her and discovered she wasn't drunk, they'd come after me for filing a false police report. So I did nothing. Except fume. What should I have done?

Bruce Newman

A: This deserved a 911 call. When I asked the Highway Patrol if a 911 call was appropriate, here is how Cristina-the-CHP-Lady responded:

"Absolutely. Sounds like a reckless driver to me. Call 911 and provide the license plate, location, description of the driver and the details of her recklessness. A log will be kept against her plate and if she gets caught all the details will be on the log, which will be attached to the citation."

To the woman driving the champagne-colored BMW X5, the CHP now has your license plate number.

The Press-Enterprise had a writer like him. He used to report on the roads and freeways around Riverside County. He had a thing for the 91 Freeway, which is the only roadway between Riverside and Orange County. I have been using it since moving out here in 1977 and it was bad then, but they have made it larger added carpool and toll roads and it is still bad. He use to talk about traffic slowing down for no reason, then going normal again, he used to say it was aliens scooping up the cars. What it really caused it was people slowing down because a section of the road was torn up and stayed that way for ten years and thousands of dollars in damage claims.

Hey, I reckon that any driver caught illegally using a phone should have the phone immediately confiscated and smashed to bits before their eyes.

Give that sort of enforcement a few months of use and then see the compliance rate soar...... :-)

Doesn't take much to slow down traffic. On a recent road trip to North Carolina I noted traffic jams most often occured near toll booths. About

4 miles out you'd come to a complete standstill and then inch your way to the tolls.

They have to do something about that.

A law would have to be passed, several states have those types of traffic laws on the books, one southern state takes the car also.

The U.S. Constitution forbids 'takings' without 'just compensation', in general. Things that are present in a place where they are forbidden to be can be confiscated -- *temporarily* -- to remove them from the forbidden locale. But they must be returned to the 'lawful' owner thereof, later, when request/demand is made, *OR* the owner must be reimbursed the fair value thereof.

This is precisely _why_ the TSA handles detected 'forbidden' objects the way they do -- you can either _keep_ your object, and make other arrangements for your (or -its-) travel, or you can 'donate' it to the government, and proceed with your scheduled travel. They do _NOT_ "confiscate" anything.

Civil forfeiture items are often sold and the money is used for law enforcement or the general fund. I consider that to be "for public use".

Civil forfeiture also turns "innocent until proven guilty" on its head, and does not require that the government prove that the item was used in a crime or is the proceeds of a crime. The owner must prove that it wasn't. Also, the item is often owned by someone unrelated to any hypothetical crime.

Telcom related tidbit: If pot plants are found growing outside a central office, the police might confiscate the central office, with no proof that the telco or even any employee of the telco was responsible for the pot plants.

.........

Having a confiscated phone demolished before the eyes of the offender may well be public entertainment. but probably not "public use".

Perhaps they just need a portable microwave oven to zap the offending phone into scrap and then just hand it back?

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

***** Moderator's Note *****

The problem with proposing such draconian methods is that they make us seem powerless and frustrated. I propose a more modest solution: the phone could be confiscated and held at a local police station until the offender picks it up: that's a measured response which discourages further abuse.

By the way, does anyone have data on the percentage of cell phone use done by automobile drivers vs. passengers vs. those not in cars?

I don't have any real data other than personal observation, but on the drivers vs. passengers issue, I'd say that it was drivers over passengers 20:1. First, because most cars have only a driver, no passengers. Second, because it's much less common to see a cell phone in use when there are multiple people in the car.

Dave

Why not pass a law requiring all people caught using the cell phone in violation of the law; drive on the same road with other violators, they will all crash into each other; problem solved.