US may disable all in-car mobile phones [Telecom]

I disagree with a lot of this "Nanny State" stuff, but Mr. LaHood is onto a valid concept with this one. I am sick and tired of this inane addiction to wireless communications, verbal or text, causing a huge safety issue. I would vote for all wireless devices in a moving automobile (or truck) to be disabled while in motion. It seemed to work just fine for very many years to pull over and park at a pay phone if the need to communicate became that pressing.

California has prohibited wireless phone by drivers for two years, or more, and it is wantonly disregarded by the "me first" set (which is a large percentage of California's population.)

Their rights end at my easily destroyed nose.

While I don't like the intrusiveness of this proposal, and I fear it may have unintended negative consequences, unfortunately it is needed.

As a motorist and pedestrian, I see countless examples of driver errors caused by their distraction of a cell phone conversation. Drivers suddenly make a turn from the wrong lane. Slow down too much in the wrong place. Miss a stop sign or traffic light. Tailgate*.

It's not holding the cellphone, but the conversastion itself. Thus, hands-free phones are not the answer.

I don't think the problem would be so bad if motorists had short quick conversations, "Hi, I'll be home in 45 minutes." But they have extended detailed conversations, "What do you want me to pick up at the store? The Acme or A&P? Is that the eight ounce or tweleve ounce bottle? Regular or diet?"

Then of course is the problem of teens texting while driving, which obviously is very distracting and dangerous.

(I don't understand how a group of teens walking down the street ignore each other and focus instead on their cell phones, but that's another issue. But how do middle and high schools prevent teens from texting during class?)

• While visiting Chicago, I was almost rear ended by a phone company employee talking on a 'brick' unit in the early days of cell phones. She was completely oblivious to her surroundings.

.......... It's not really a "Nanny State" issue, it's a "Bubble" issue.

People get into their own little bubbles disregarding the effect they may have on the rest of the world, and being distracted while in control of a potentially lethal moving mass of metal is one of those bubbles.

It just boils down to a level of selfishness, if people need to have something to enforce the requirement for them not to be that selfish in a public domain (on the roads) where they may directly endanger others (by being distracted using technology) then so be it.

That isn't impeding on anybody's "rights" apart from them being selfish, and in previous times such selfish behaviour that threatened the rest of the tribe may well have been resolved by a spear through the gut - people should be thankful that such things have changed! ;-)

-- 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 *****

FWIW, the best data regarding the dangers of cellphone use by drivers came from Australia, which has a very good accident-investigation program where they check if a driver was using a cellphone before a crash.

Bill Horne Moderator

.........

There have been numerous cases of traffic deaths caused by people using phones highlighted in the media here, so the awareness seems pretty high and there is a bit of social stigma about using a phone while driving.

Now there are also TV road safety campaigns specifically targeting mobile use while driving - in the past there have been good results with similar campaigns highlighting drink-driving (and now driving while under the influence of drugs) so hopefully the phone campaign will be as effective.

I almost got clobbered last year by some tool talking on his phone as he drove straight through a red light while I was on a pedestrian crossing, so I have a personal bias on this issue......

I still think anyone caught using a phone while driving should have the device smashed to bits before their eyes, but for some reason this punishment seems a little excessive to some (can't understand why, I'd let them have the SIM card first). ;-)

-- 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.

Some U.S. states which banned texting while driving have found that the accident rate caused by texting has increased.

(From the article)

The reason for the increase is thought to be the tendency of texting drivers to hide their phone while texting. This creates an even bigger distraction than was the case when the phone was in plain view, typically held on top of the steering wheel. By holding their phones in their laps while typing messages, the distracted motorist must take their eyes completely off the road.

The cell phone is innocent. Crush the car.

What do you do when you are ran over with a shopping card in a market, I smashed the phone, it was hit and keep om waking as they had no idea they knocked me over..

i suspect there are other unintended consequences.

what makes anyone think that any suppression of the signal will confine itself to the car?

trains only stop cell phone leakage from outside to inside if the windows have gold film or other Faraday cage type construction.

most cars are transparent to radio - otherwise cell phones wouldnt work inside and this would not be an issue

so any suppression is going to "leak" as well.

this could make cellphones unuseable alongside a major road, in a car park, from someone in a broken down car on a motorway or near a traffic accident

What does that do for public safety?

If this is true (rather than shades of gray) then it isnt the cellphone that is the problem, but the distraction.

time to ban talking in cars, kids in the back seat and all the other distractions that have caused accidents.........

-- Regards

stephen snipped-for-privacy@xyzworld.com - replace xyz with ntl

The car is innocent also. Crush the person. Or at least put them in jail for a long time.

Stephen

It needn't be the kind of blocking you seem to be imagining. Since the FCC already requires providers to be able to locate an individual phone, it is possible to tell how fast that phone is moving. Any phone moving faster than a walking pace could be denied service except for

911. If you're broken down you would no longer be moving so your call would not be blocked.

-- Tom Horne

Hmmn. Could you explain exactly why I can't use my phone when I'm on the train?

R's, John

Or if I am a passenger in the back seat of an automobile, or better yet in the back of a taxicab or a motor home which is moving?

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

OK, guys, we get it.

Bill Horne Moderator

It's the classic tale of 10% of the population ruining it for the remaining 90%. For a decade we've heard time and again that we shouldn't talk or text while driving. Instead of seeing the wisdom in that we see it as an assault on our rights and this is the end result. Congratulations America!

John

If you're referring to the 10% of the people who dangerously talk on the phone while driving, I would agree.

If you think that "moving at more than 20 mph" is synonymous with "driving a car", I have to conclude that you've never been to New York or any other large city with useful transit, or ridden in a carpool.

It's possible there is some technical hack to recognize a phone that is being used by the operator of a moving vehicle, but this isn't it.

R's, John

Gentlemen,

I agree that a blanket prohibition won't work if it's based on only one test. (Sorry, Tom).

But -

What can we do that _will_ work and _will_ be accepted by drivers?

Let's face it: banning risky behavior cuts right to the heart of what Democratic governments stand for, and it is justified only when the majority of citizens agree that the ban does more good than harm.

It may, for example, be a PITA to have to buckle up all the time we're driving, but the inconvenience is small compared to the costs (human, societal, and commercial) of not doing it. A majority of people agree that the good outweighs the bad.

It may be, for example, an offense to some religious beliefs when children are vaccinated against common diseases. Again, the majority of people agree that the rights of the children to walk erect and hear properly and have full possession of their faculties outweigh those of their parents to worship as they choose.

Cellphones have all the wrong attributes from a public-safety point of view: they're small, hard to see, complicated, and useful. Moreover, the cellphone market has grown with extraordinary speed (pun intended), to the point where cellular-service providers have Billions of dollars in cash flow every year, and thus the power to influence public opinion and legislative actions.

This is turning into an elephant fight, and we need to be careful that grass-roots debate and consensus doesn't get trampled by the giant companies arrayed on both sides of the issue: HMO's and common carriers.

Insurance underwriters are on one side, allied with government actuaries, both keeping track of the ever-increasing expense of accidents: medical care, time lost from work, and diminished capacities when survivors must return to normal life. These direct costs are just the tip of the iceberg: every highway accident during rush hour causes "ripple" expenses because hundreds or thousands of other motorists are late for work, unable to shop on the way home, etc.: costs that policy makers must consider even if motorists are unaware of them.

In opposition: the _incredibly_ profitable cellular industry, drunk on the nectar pouring out of the holy grails of deregulation, de-unionization, and per-minute pricing. Make no mistake: this technology has, in one generation, accomplished what the Bureaucrats who ran the telephone networks in Ma Bell's Golden (again, pun intended) age could never achieve.

1. Cellular carriers have few of the expenses that burden wire-line incumbents -

A. No infrastructure in or over the streets. B. No pension plans worth mentioning. C. Little or no requirement to serve unprofitable areas.

1. The expensive unionized workforce of the wire-line telephone industry has been replaced by a travelling circus of contractors, non-union limited-task workers, and avaricious owners who care for nothing but profit and whose notion of "Public Service" is largely limited to a sincere desire to be rich and gone when problems arise.
2. Per-minute pricing is now the accepted norm.

So, as you see, the cell carriers have incentives to fight _any_ restrictions on cell use, and most people have a "It's their business" attitude that takes no account of the price we must all pay for cell use by drivers.

Someone is going to lose. My bet is on the public: either the insurance industry will find a way to deny claims that involve cell use by drivers, or we'll all get used to paying more taxes for spinal-injury care. After all, when elephants fight, it's the grass that gets trampled.

before you get too far on this particular justification - is it true?

In the UK road safety is getting better not worse (measured by deaths)

if this trend is replicated wherever you are, then that sort of rips away the underlying main justification.......

what it doesnt do if is prove 1 way of the other whether some of those deaths are caused by mobile use and that the stats would be even better if phones got turned off when getting in a car - but i think it is going to be much harder to justify draconian changes on the back of it.

[Moderator snip]

deaths)

I wouldn't care one bit if traffic deaths were plummeting. If cell phone use is causing even one death of a person who had no control over the cell phone users actions then I want that use banned. The entire purpose of the exorcise of the police power of the state is to protect people from the negligent or criminal actions of others. As long as the state allows these needless deaths to continue it is failing the dead and everyone who cares about them in the most profound way. I know that the money will win in the end of course but I don't have to like it!

-- Tom Horne, speaking only for himself.

If using a cell phone to call 911 to report erratic drivers and other highway dangers is causing even one death to be averted, then I want that use made mandatory.

There are clearly some kinds of phone use that are dangerous, e.g., the woman at the light in front of me with two kids in the back seat who didn't move when the light turned green because she was too busy texting. (I know this because I saw her do the same thing when I was next to her at the next light.) But there are other uses that are benign, e.g., passengers texting.

We don't use seatbelt interlocks, because there are too many ways they don't work. I don't see any reason to expect that cell phone interlocks would work any better, but I do expect that combinations of fines and public education can get most people to stop using their phones while driving, just as they've gotten most people to buckle their seatbelts.

R's, John

I agree. Education and fines is the proper way to fix the problem.

It is not possible to make you 100% safe by passing laws. Whenever government tries to fix one problem by passing a law, they usually end up creating a worse problem due to unforseen consequences.

For example, in 1920 the USA banned alcoholic beverages to combat alcoholism. Organized crime stepped in to fill the demand for alcohol, and as a consequence organized crime got a lot bigger and richer. In 1933, Prohibition was repealed because it was obvious that the cure was worse than the disease.

In the 1970's, the USA decreed that autos could not start until the seat belt was fastened. Many people defeated that simply by pulling out the belt and tying it in a knot so that it would not retract. My mother hated belts, so she did that on her car; as a consequence, whenever I drove her car, I could not use the belts. And I *wanted* to use a seatbelt.

Dick