NTSB wants to ban cell phones for drivers

[k-289]

Yellow brick road pretty well sums up the scenario---Kay NC is right on

[k-289]

The reality is  ""drunk driving "" hasn't ended---lack of sensibility maybe---

[Kay/NC]

And you cannot legislate common sense. Our family had a lose encounter of the sad kind a couple of weeks back. The Saturday after his little son was born, our SIL went put on a VFD call to his pager. He was gone for hours, even though the incident he responded to was almost in sight of the farm. When he got home, our daughter said he picked up the baby, and just sat and held him for a long time. Not surprising, since he had walked up on a scene with white sheets, chopper ambulances staging everywhere, and two of the victims, one of them the only fatality to date, were children. Neither child had been properly restrained, as required by state law; so, among the laundry list of charges the 26- year- old drunk woman who hit the other driver head- on is facing are some for improper restraint of her child. The mother of the dead child is the one who remains in a coma more than two weeks later, so most likely doesn't know he is gone. Then again, I haven't asked our SIL what they talked about as he helped cut her out of the car, and he was the one who had to try to keep her from giving up. As long as volunteers and Good Samaritans have to face this kind of carnage, and carry it around as a scar on their soul for the rest of their lives, I think we need to get tough on distracted drivers. Multitasking isn't all it's cracked up to be...some people have a hard time just driving and nothing more. I will not touch ,y phone while driving...it could be in the trunk and I would be able to do whatever I do with it and Bluetooth now. Maybe that's the way this could be enacted....phones in the trunk, or at least the rear seat.

[k-289]

Rawhide---can you imagine a Mexican trucker having to pay  $2750. dollar fine---

[Nebrfarmr]

On the other hand I know of instances, where an accident occured, and help was called only because there was a cell phone handy. A friend of ours got T-boned and had her leg pinned in her van. Other driver was unconscious. She could reach her phone and call for help. This was on a backroad where you never know how long shed have sat there.

[DrRexDexter]

Ending texting WAS an excellent move, people HAVE literally died because of it. However I either don't answer or limit cell usage when I drive, a choice I make voluntarily, as I DON'T look forward to my Tax dollars supporting another "we're going to protect you from yourself" Law. 

Would a Law like this save some lives? Likely...but it would penalize the majority, who use their wireless devices sparingly and carefully, as I do, for the sake of the few who refuse to grow up.

Enforce it? What DOES "High-profile Enforcement" entail? To ACTUALLY enforceit with any real success would require dollars and man-power, or draconian measures like making it a citation to HAVE a wireless device in the car...which THEN raises the question: What is defined by this law? Simple cell phones, tablets, Androids, Laptops, or what?

It's a can of worms...worms no one has, as of yet, even accurately described.

So, now, the fun begins...stay tuned.

[GoredHusker]

A law against talking on a cell phone while driving won't end people talking on cell phones while driving either.  The point is that it is illegal to drive drunk while there are not laws making it illegal to talk on cell phones while driving.  Talking on cell phones while driving is just as hazardous if not more hazardous than driving while impaired.  As far as I'm concerned, doing either one of them is a lack of sensibility.  The big difference is that one is legal while the other is illegal and carries consequences. 

[Kay/NC]

True.  By chance, my Bluetooth earpiece broke when I went to put it on as I was leaving for town today.  Phone stayed in my purse in the foot on the other side, so I was not tempted. 

Verizon store here is just a sales contract operation now...so I had to crive and extra hour, or call the Customer Service, and ask for a warranty replacement.  They were very nice, and it should be here Monday via FedEx. 

I was nearly run over in the parkgin lot in town by a woman who was weaving through rows, cut through the one next to where I was getting  a cart from the rack, and nearly ran me over.  She got out after parking another couple of rows away, and I would say was too feeble to be driving. 

[Kay/NC]

My whole idea is that enforcement is going to be a real nightmare. 

The speech recognition and text-to-speech functions are developing so well now, I think keyboarding will be unnecessary soon anyway.   My Bluetooth and one app are all I need to text and receive audible texts, without ever hitting a key. 

[verbatime]

I was sitting in my car at the grocery store several years ago waiting for my wife and kids to get our groceries when an older couple pulled into the lot.   The old man was about 85 or so and driving an old black sedan.  It was an older car with straight through sight (like a Plymouth Fury III) and clear glass.  The old man had a bald head and no hat and appeared to be kind of skinny and his wife was sitting next to him in the passenger seat.  So anyway he pulled around in front of the store and headed down the wrong way to park... as the parking lot was clearing mark for the stalls to be entered from the opposite direction that he was going.

Now this was a fairly busy store with folks coming in and out all the time.  So the old man finds this empty stall right close to the door... it was the closest stall to the front door of the store and tries to hit it from wrong direction.  I see his wife motioning and talking to him. On his first attempt he misses the stall pretty bad so he backed out and tried again and again I could see his wife motioning and talking to him and he missed the stall further yet.  So he backed out and tried again and again each time missing further and each time going a little faster.   The last time he backed in and out so violently it was scary and I could see his wife yelling at him and hitting him with her hand bag. At last they took off out of the parking lot going (and this is not exaggerated) about 50 MPH squealing the tires.

No one was hurt and he didn't even hit another car.  Also every one at the store that day was either lucky they didn't get ran over or they were aware of him and didn't come out the door of the store until he was gone.  Also he didn't hit another car so he was either lucky or a very very good driver.

BTW our store now has a very large area between the store and the parking lot and lots handy cap parking... plus the ones close to the store are parallel parking so it doesn't matter if you enter the wrong way.

Is the answer bigger roads?

I think driver training needs to address the cell phone issue.  But let's face it some folks don't catch on very fast and anyone who would walk around in broad daylight texting is sort of **bleep**ed up in the first place.  I've had them walk right into me at the mall or at least had to get out of their way.