Banning smart phones.

[user1234]

[video]https://goo.gl/images/x8s0Iz[/video]

 

[MoreCoffee]

Shall I get a hard plastic cover for my phone or shall I get a soft clear plastic cover for it?

 

[Rens]

Shall I get a hard plastic cover for my phone or shall I get a soft clear plastic cover for it?

hard

 

[MoreCoffee]

hard

They were cheap so I decided to buy both

 

[hotrhymez]

Can we ban stupid people instead..

 

[MoreCoffee]

Can we ban stupid people instead..

That's been tried and it didn't work.

 

[Lamb]

Can we ban stupid people instead..

Where do you want to ban them to?

 

[psalms 91]

How about Australia

 

[MoreCoffee]

How about Australia

I reckon Arizona would be good

 

[user1234]

How about Australia

I reckon Arizona would be good

:=D: :=D:
Man! I saw this coming a mile away, and,
I bit my tongue, I bit my tongue, I bit my tongue!
If I'd have said it, I would've been banned,
Or at least 'reported' and then ignored. Again!
LOLOLOLOL !!! :=D: :=D:
Great posts, RepPoints for both!

 

[tango]

Do you think that smart phones ought to be banned because texting and playing games like pokemon while driving leads to many deaths on the roads and no amount of warnings and laws stops people texting while driving.

Maybe a "stupid phone" could be used as a substitute and a second device for apps like pokemon could be created. The second device could be engineered so that it turned off when inside a car. The stupid phone could be bluetooth tethered in the car and only work in hands-free mode. Maybe something like that would save lives.

The trouble with this line of reasoning is that it takes us to all sorts of silly places.

Maybe we should ban small children because they can be very distracting, especially to a tired driver. Perhaps we should ban drinking (liquids, not specifically alcohol) because it's hard to concentrate on the road when you're crossing your legs desperately needing the bathroom.

The problem isn't phones, the problem is that our vehicles have become little more than mobile entertainment centers and we've allowed people to get comfortable with the idea that driving is merely a period of mostly dead time that can be usefully filled with activities other than looking at the road and guiding the car such that it doesn't hit things.

Smartphones may appear to be a problem but the problem with trying to use an automated solution is that it typically comes with all sorts of side-effects. It's a bad thing for a driver to be playing pokemon while in the car but there's no reason why a passenger should not. There's no reason why you shouldn't be posting on Faceache while travelling on a train or bus, or indeed while sitting in the passenger seat of a moving car.

If someone can come up with a way that a smartphone can know that it is moving and also that the person attempting to operate it is driving a motor vehicle then by all means use something to disable certain functionality. It wouldn't work to merely disable everything because a lot of people use their phone for navigation, and it's hard to see anything wrong with having a phone, in a moving car mounted on the air vents, checked periodically by the driver of the car, when all it's doing is saying "take exit 43 and then stay in the left lane".

When the whole "if it saves one life it's worth it" reasoning comes into play it would make more sense to ban motor vehicles completely because that would save far more lives than worrying about cellphones.

 

[tango]

Maybe the people that make phone's should come up with something on the phone that knows when your in a car and turns the thing off so you cant text or play games now that would be a brilliant idea don't you think. anyone that clever could make a fortune any takes on it..

It's not difficult to determine, using location services, how fast the phone is moving. It's just that there's no way of knowing whether you're going 50mph because you're driving the car, riding in someone else's car, or riding on a bus, train, tram, whatever.

Another problem with fully automated solutions is that they typically don't have an override function for times when there is a good reason to use them. For example, a woman driving alone late at night through a sparsely populated area who thinks she is being followed might make an informed decision to break a local law to call for help. To require her to stop the car before the phone will let the outgoing call connect would expose her to unnecessary danger.

A while back I saw a video in which a driving instructor (I think in Belgium, but can't be sure) told his students that part of their driving test would involve driving around a marked course while sending a text message, and that they wouldn't pass their test unless they could negotiate the course of cones while texting without hitting anything. Of course they wanted to practice and rapidly concluded that it couldn't be done. There was no such requirement in the test, but there's probably no better way to get the message across to learner drivers that driving and texting don't mix.

 

[user1234]

Can we ban stupid people instead..

Lol, hotrhymez ...I just realized our new friend mcaughman5 hit 'pray' on this post. :=D:
Now... I'm not sure if he was suggesting to pray for the stupid ppl, or pray for you, hotrhymez , for the idea of banning stupid ppl, ... or if he was praying that the banning of stoopids would go into effect asap, ... But I'm opting to believe the latter and say, Amen!!! :lol:

 

[Josiah]

Do you think that smart phones ought to be banned because texting and playing games like pokemon while driving leads to many deaths on the roads and no amount of warnings and laws stops people texting while driving.

Yes. They are in California. And I think many other states of the USA, as well.



.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Yes. They are in California. And I think many other states of the USA, as well.

I am not sure of your intended meaning. Are you saying that smart phones are banned in California or are you affirming that California law bans the use of phones for texting and playing games while driving?

 

[Josiah]

I am not sure of your intended meaning. Are you saying that smart phones are banned in California or are you affirming that California law bans the use of phones for texting and playing games while driving?

It is (and has been for some years) illegal to use a hand held phone or device while driving - whether to text or talk or whatever. Some cars have a hands free interface for phone calls, and that's legal.

I made no judgment as to whether the law is good or appropriate, only that what is, is.

 

[tango]

My understanding of the law in PA is that it's legal to use a hand-held phone to talk but not to text. Presumably because you can talk while looking at the road, while texting requires the user to look at the phone rather than the road.

I drove past a marked police patrol car while using the phone (to talk) and didn't get pulled over, so I can only assume it's legal to do that.

In the UK there has been talk of making it illegal even to use a hands-free kit. Given the UK can't enforce the existing law against driving while talking I don't really see much point.

 

[Rens]

My understanding of the law in PA is that it's legal to use a hand-held phone to talk but not to text. Presumably because you can talk while looking at the road, while texting requires the user to look at the phone rather than the road.

I drove past a marked police patrol car while using the phone (to talk) and didn't get pulled over, so I can only assume it's legal to do that.

In the UK there has been talk of making it illegal even to use a hands-free kit. Given the UK can't enforce the existing law against driving while talking I don't really see much point.

No that's weird. They want to do that here too, but the thing is super handy to find the way. It tells you where to take a turn. I always use it on the bike. Never get lost anymore.

 

[psalms 91]

Yes, it is legal to talk in Pa but I wish they would not only make it illegal but puull people over for it, it is so dangerous

 

[tango]

Yes, it is legal to talk in Pa but I wish they would not only make it illegal but puull people over for it, it is so dangerous

The thing is that it clearly isn't dangerous, as evidenced by the numerous people seen on their phones who are driving perfectly safely.

When talking on the phone you are still looking at the road and it's hard to see how talking on the phone is any more distracting than talking to a passenger. My main concern with talking while holding the phone is that if a situation develops where both hands are needed you're not ideally placed to handle it, but then the roads I'm most familiar with in PA are the kind of roads where you can usually see a situation developing long before it actually happens. Driving on lightly used roads in PA I have no problem with hand-holding a phone, although I wouldn't care to do it (legal or not) in a busier area.

Bluetooth headsets and visor mounts are pretty cheap these days, so if you're the kind of person who is likely to want to talk while driving on a regular basis it's not a big expense to buy one. It's hard to see how using that sort of thing could be outlawed, simply because it's impossible to tell from outside the vehicle whether someone is talking on a phone via an unseen Bluetooth doodad or singing along to their stereo.