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thewayneObviously driving while texting can be lethal, now 35 states ban this practice with varying levels of enforcement. The incident that caused this review and recommendation was when "The board said the initial collision in the accident near Gray Summit, Mo., was caused by the inattention of a 19 year-old-pickup driver who sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the crash.
The pickup, traveling at 55 mph, collided into the back of a tractor truck that had slowed for highway construction. The pickup was rear-ended by a school bus that overrode the smaller vehicle. A second school bus rammed into the back of the first bus.
The pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on one of the school buses were killed. Thirty-eight other people were injured in the Aug. 5, 2010, accident near Gray Summit, Mo."
While the concept of banning cell phone use, INCLUDING HANDS-FREE, I don't see any way they could get this enabled into legislation, it's just too pervasive in our culture. I admit to talking on my phone while driving in very specific circumstances (well-known roads, good weather, never in heavy traffic and usually on speakerphone) and never in violation of local law, but I don't text message so that's not an issue and my phone only retrieves email when I tell it to. But it does contribute to distracted driving. One of the first texting while driving fatalities was in Arizona on Carefree Highway when a girl crossed the center line and slammed into a car head-on, I believe there were four fatalities on that one.
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/13/143648659/ntsb-recommends-ban-on-cell-phone-use-while-driving
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/12/13/1845259/ntsb-recommends-cell-phone-ban-for-drivers
The pickup, traveling at 55 mph, collided into the back of a tractor truck that had slowed for highway construction. The pickup was rear-ended by a school bus that overrode the smaller vehicle. A second school bus rammed into the back of the first bus.
The pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on one of the school buses were killed. Thirty-eight other people were injured in the Aug. 5, 2010, accident near Gray Summit, Mo."
While the concept of banning cell phone use, INCLUDING HANDS-FREE, I don't see any way they could get this enabled into legislation, it's just too pervasive in our culture. I admit to talking on my phone while driving in very specific circumstances (well-known roads, good weather, never in heavy traffic and usually on speakerphone) and never in violation of local law, but I don't text message so that's not an issue and my phone only retrieves email when I tell it to. But it does contribute to distracted driving. One of the first texting while driving fatalities was in Arizona on Carefree Highway when a girl crossed the center line and slammed into a car head-on, I believe there were four fatalities on that one.
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/13/143648659/ntsb-recommends-ban-on-cell-phone-use-while-driving
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/12/13/1845259/ntsb-recommends-cell-phone-ban-for-drivers
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-14 12:33 pm (UTC)Thing is, you'd need Godlike Powers to make such a ban stick. I drive to work in this small, rather un-trendy town where I live and every third person is an idiot with a cell phone laminated to their ear yammering away. You can ban that behavior all you want but they're not going to stop. I think if they stopped shouting into their cell phones they might have to experience life or something and their heads would explode.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-15 06:18 am (UTC)...but then again, we have cars that have the tech to call people built in. I don't think the NTSB is going to get much on that one.