The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Science & Nature => Topic started by: Asherdan on November 19, 2010, 06:50:03 pm
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(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--k5m636Zb--/m5dvkzj95cd6xl0k4nnx.gif)
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I have to somewhat reluctantly approve of this idea. When people just talked on the phone while driving it was bad enough, but now that I know there are people stupid enough to think they can text and drive at the same time, something has to be done.
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this is probably a good idea.
I guess I'd have to pull out the ol' ipod so I could listen to music.
...also, I guess it would piss me off to not be able to look up directions on my iphone.
Yeah, that would piss me off a whole ton.
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I guess I'm in favor of it for texting, but not voice, at least if you're talking hands-free. I mean, if you can hold a conversation with a passenger actually in the vehicle, why should a hands-free conversation be any different.
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When I was a Psychology major we read studies that said that it is really different holding a conversation on the phone than it is talking to a passenger. There were different theories about why, but for some reason when you are on the phone you go into "phone-mode" or something. Another theory was that a passenger in the car will pay attention to what is going on and stop talking if you're, like, about to skid off the road. (whoever did this study has never driven with small children.)
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Hands free phones are NOT safer. It is NOT the same as holding a conversation with a passenger.
6 Are hands-free cellphones safer?
No, at least not after the conversation begins. Both studies of crashes using cellphone billing records to verify phone use found about a fourfold increase in crash risk with conversing on both hands-free and hand-held phones.
http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/cellphones.aspx (http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/cellphones.aspx)
Lots more information here.
http://www.cartalk.com/ddc/info/resources-facts.php (http://www.cartalk.com/ddc/info/resources-facts.php)
HANG UP AND DRIVE.
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what if theres an emergency and you have to call 911, or call someone else for help?
they have a smartphone app that can detect when the phone is moving at at least 15 mph and can send an automatic, 'im driving, so give me a fuckin break' text or autoreply to phone calls with a recorded message.
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I'm more for legislation making it illegal to talk/text and drive than for scrambling devices. We have this law locally, and I agree with it, although I wish it also included hands free devices, which it doesn't.
The phenomenon inev is talking about is called Inattentional Blindness. Here's a fun article related to it from the NY Times. (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/what-clown-on-a-unicycle-studying-cell-phone-distraction/)
As for scrambling devices, I'm opposed, as there are enough emergency scenarios where a phone is a valuable tool to use while driving. Plus, what about passengers who want to use phones? I've had plenty of experiences where a teenager is quietly texting or talking on a cell in a back seat unnoticed by me to know that such activity actually makes driving easier.
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I guess I'm in favor of it for texting, but not voice, at least if you're talking hands-free. I mean, if you can hold a conversation with a passenger actually in the vehicle, why should a hands-free conversation be any different.
In addition to the point made about how hands-free is not like conversing with a passenger who is in the vehicle, many people turn to look at their passengers while they talk to them, which is not such a bang-up idea.
Of course, with the amount of people who drive aging pieces of shit, this is going to take quite a while to affect a majority of the population, I'd think.
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It seems logical that many states have enacted traffic regulations against texting while driving, but they are fruitless.
These laws are hard to enforce, much like the prohibition
People who continue to text and drive often avoid detection by looking down into their laps in order to read text messages. Since their devices aren’t at eye level, their eyes and attention are off the road and other motorists for longer periods of time. The laws don’t take these practices into consideration.
“Texting bans haven’t reduced crashes at all, “says Adrian Lund, President of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
It has been sad that someone who is driving and texting at the same time has a reaction time similar to one who is driving while intoxicated. “Lon Anderson, mid-Atlantic spokesman for AAA, said it would take time for public opinion to get behind the distracted driving campaign
‘It took a couple of decades before people recognized the problem of drunk driving,’ he said. ‘We need to have a sea change on the part of drivers on this issue.’”
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just another reason to keep buying used cars. regardless, an aftermarket disabling device will show up on ebay for under three hundred bucks.
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I think what it comes down to is...
There are people who shouldn't be driving with any distractions and there are people who are probably safe drivers with a moderate amount of distractions and...
There is almost no way of sifting those people out from each other effectively.
So we almost kinda have to play down to the distractable by default.
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"There are people who are probably safe drivers with distractions" is actually the most dangerous assumption, because EVERYONE thinks that they are the exception.
The reason doing other things while driving is dangerous has to do with fundamental properties of how the brain works. For example, the brain can't pay full attention to both visual and auditory information:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/jhu-myc062105.php (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/jhu-myc062105.php)
If there are people who are better at doing two things at once, the number is so small as to be irrelevant. For example, one study found that one in forty people are better than normal at multitasking (not neccessarily while driving):
http://chronicle.com/blogs/tweed/you-probably-think-this-studys-about-you/22125 (http://chronicle.com/blogs/tweed/you-probably-think-this-studys-about-you/22125)
Yet the roads are like Lake Woboegon: EVERYONE thinks that they are an above average driver. People convince themselves that it's OK if they do it, even if other people shouldn't.
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We shouldn't have a thread like this without noting that science, which we need more of, says that driving and cell-phoning is at least as dangerous as driving drunk, if not moreso.
Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
Using a cell phone use while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah
http://distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/index.html (http://distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/index.html)
When controlling for driving conditions and time on task, cell-phone drivers exhibited greater impairment than intoxicated drivers.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=570222 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=570222)
And don't forget, again:
The available research indicates that whether it is a hands-free or hand-held device, the cognitive distraction is significant enough to degrade a driver’s performance. The driver is more likely to miss key visual and audio cues needed to avoid a crash.
http://distraction.gov/faq/#04 (http://distraction.gov/faq/#04)
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We shouldn't have a thread like this without noting that science, which we need more of, says that driving and cell-phoning is at least as dangerous as driving drunk, if not moreso.
http://distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/index.html (http://distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/index.html)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=570222 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=570222)
And don't forget, again:http://distraction.gov/faq/#04 (http://distraction.gov/faq/#04)
Education.
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Major props to Wombles for bringing the science.
I'd still be against it as there are enough times when I've been in a car as a passenger and needed to make a call or vice versa. I think the only way this changes is the way people's view of drink driving changed, you make it illegal but more importantly you educate people on how stupid it is and wait for social stigma to do the rest.
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I don't text while driving because I realize I am not an exception. I do talk on the phone while driving, but I try not to dial while driving.
I think the problem of phone mode can be addressed by evolving the way we speak on the phone while driving. I find that I often mention what's going on on the road to the person I am speaking with. It keeps me present in my driving moment and it also makes them aware that I am in a driving situation and there might be driving related interruptions in my attention on the phone conversation. It's kinda like talking on the phone to someone with kids. Everyone understands that there are going to be interruptions and they accept that. But most people haven't gotten that yet with the phone and driving.
No to cell phone jammers. Legislation and stigma are the way to go.
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My husband and I were rear-ended by a guy who was on his cell who hit us going full speed although we were stopped at a red light, behind two other vehicles, in ideal driving conditions, during stop-start type traffic at rush hour. Anyone at all focused on their surroundings would not have been going that fast. I spent the last year in physiotherapy, including a few months where I was afraid my life was ruined, and the first few weeks were I was afraid I would have to take my own life due to the amount of pain if it didn't ease up. If the pain hadn't decreased, it was more than I could bare, and I knew I would be unable to function. Thankfully after a lot of work to heal my back, hips and shoulder over an entire year, with the help of a an excellent physical therapist I am more or less recovered, but I do often think about the dude that hit us. It was such a minimal, insignificant choice he made, yet it impacted me negatively for over a year. He has no idea of the damage he caused. I mean he new he totaled the vehicle he was driving (and that he totaled another vehicle the week before as he told me), but he never knew the significance of my injuries, or even the amount of damage he did to our SUV. The frame was bent. As one of the many witnesses told him "that shit is going to be illegal in a couple of months" but he hit us before the laws came into place.
The thing is, yes it's hard to catch someone on their cell while driving, but when it comes to an actual accident, like the one we were in, there were several witnesses who all saw him on his phone. He would have been fined, the cost for him to renew his license would have been affected for years to come, and it would be forever on his driver's abstract that he'd broken this law. I'm not saying such things would guarantee he would have "learned his lesson," but at least he'd have record due to the driving offense. I work along side a lady who hires drivers to take foster kids to appointments, and I can say without a doubt that this stuff matters. Being defined as an unsafe driver matters.
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A driver in Portland, talking on a cell phone, drove clean off the middle of the Morrison bridge (http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/53961/519156.aspx) (sorry for the kinda crappy link).
I was just looking for details about this incident and found another where a driver in Portland, ME (http://www.pressherald.com/news/Accident-shuts-Portland-bound-lanes-on-Casco-Bay-Bridge.html), slammed into the back of a cop (lights flashing) whilst talking on a cell phone - and as I tried to narrow my search, I just found more and more. Seriously, can't manage to keep the car on the bridge? Probably shouldn't be chatting on the phone. I've read some of the same studies and stuff that Wombles has, and from what I've seen nobody is really good at using the phone and driving.
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Paul, I am afraid you are part of the problem. You believe you can come up with strategies to circumvent the fundamental biology of your brain. It's not going to work.
Hang up and drive. We want you to be around for a long time, you know?
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Normally for anything that intrusive I'm all fuck that shit. I think people should basically be able to do whatever they want. Except for when driving cars is involved. Cars should be treated very much like dangerous weapons. You can't set the bar for having access to cars too high because they are very useful, as you can for the most dangerous weapons, but I allow a much longer leash for government to restrict activity than I do generally. Like, it blows my mind that in-dash video players are available legally. (Are they? I'm in the market for a new car stereo and they seem to be, which, yeah, blows my mind.)
Even with all of that said this idea still kind of freaks me out.
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yeah, cell phones suck ass.
HOW ABOUT WE MAKE THESE MORONIC, MOUTH BREATHING ASSHOLES OCCASIONALLY USE A GOD DAMNED TURN SIGNAL, THOUGH??
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I talk on the phone while driving. I do it often. I know this is a terrible habit. The thing is, I don't have many other opportunities to make uninterrupted phone calls, but when the kids are strapped in watching a video, I can actually call my doctor's office to make an appointment and not have to hang up before they take me off "hold" because one of my children is sitting on the other one's head.
I have totaled two cars in my life -- once versus another car who decided to stop dead in the middle of the road just around a curve, and the other was a losing fight with a deer -- and I didn't even own a cell phone during either incident. I have never had even a minor fender-bender (nor a citation for any reason, even a red-light camera ticket) while talking on the phone. (Though I've had several red-light-cam tickets, all at the same intersection, I was un-distracted for all of them. Eventually, they lengthened the yellow light, which I think means I should get my fines refunded because obviously the yellow was *way* too short, but of course that will happen about the time they have a blizzard in Hell.)
All this being said, I am fully aware that I should not talk on the phone while driving. It is a terrible, awful vice of mine and it is irresponsible and dangerous, and it's even worse that I do it when my kids are in the car. And yet...I continue to do it anyway, because I always think "It won't hurt anything THIS time, I'll be extra careful, yadda yadda." And the more often I do it with no negative results, the harder it is to imagine anything bad happening at all. How do we combat the kind of mentality Paul and I have? We are otherwise reasonable people; will cultivating a social stigma be enough?
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JL has given me the courage to admit that I am one of these people too.
even though I know that I am an incredibly distractible person.
if it helps, today I consciously decided not to do this because of this thread.
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JL, did you read my links about how cell phone driving is as dangerous as driving drunk? Would you drink and drive with your kids in the car?
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JL, did you read my links about how cell phone driving is as dangerous as driving drunk? Would you drink and drive with your kids in the car?
Of course not.
And the answer to "Well, then, would you talk and drive?" SHOULD be "of course not," as well. But it doesn't feel as wrong. That's what I'm trying to get at -- why doesn't it feel wrong, even when we all read these studies that say it is? Why do we, as a society, think everyone else should "hang up and drive" but that we all get a free pass? Is legislation enough?
For drinking and driving, I think the legislation came first, and that set the stage for the PSAs we all remember, and the social stigma that grew up around the ad campaigns. I'm sure there was talk of having a brethalyzer in every car, somewhere, at some time, but now we only do that for repeat DUI offenders, because to put in in every car would be just over the line in terms of what people are willing to accept from our government, I think.
Maybe that's what we should do with this scrambler -- make it illegal to talk while driving, and if you get cited for it 3 times, you get a court-mandated scrambler installed. That seems to walk the line between individual rights and personal responsibility in a way that we've sort of agreed is OK in this country, right?
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I have no response to the first part of your post because for me, the fact that there is clear evidence that it's dangerous IS enough, and I have no idea why it's not enough for everyone else.
But I would say that the problem with your last idea is that it's much harder to catch someone talking and driving - you can't test for it after you've pulled them over. So I think the likelihood of anyone getting ticketed for it multiple times is so low as to make your idea useless.
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My in-laws volunteer with the local police as translators for sobriety checkpoints. They also have periodic seatbelt checkpoints in some localities. Why not monitor for cell phone use in the same way?
I would think it would be harder to lie about being on a cell phone than whether or not you were wearing your seatbelt -- you can just make it legal for officers to check the "recent call" log if he has reasonable suspicion that the individual was using the phone. Sort of a digital sobriety test, if you will. Take away the "nobody's looking" mindset and replace it with "but somebody might..."
That would work on me. I might not believe that I am going to cause an accident (because subconsciously I think I'm smarter/better at multitasking/luckier than everyone else), but I will definitely change my behavior if I think I might get caught breaking the law and have to go to court or pay a heavy fine and have my insurance rates jacked up for a moving violation.
Irrational, for sure, but if behavior modification is the goal, you've got to go with what works, and financial disincentives are very effective.
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August would know this better than me but don't you need to subpeona the phone company to legally check someone's phone use? Which gives them access to who you called, not just that you were on the phone.
In any case, your suggestion seems like a bigger invasion of privacy than a device to disable the phone when I am driving. I don't have a problem with it being illegal to use my phone in the car. I definitely do have a problem with giving the police the right to say "hand over your phone so I can check what you were just doing."
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The police do pull people over here, as it's illegal, and they have police out on the road all the time specifically looking for driving infractions of all sorts. They give out hefty tickets for cell use- all the heftier if there are other infractions. For someone like me who has been hit by a cell user, and who likes to do all the things necessary to avoid ticketing, this is all it takes.
A thing to do is - if you are in fact in agreement that you don't want to use your phone while driving, then make the decision to start physically turning your phone off when entering a vehicle you will drive, and physically turning it on when you exit the vehicle or pull over (or some other routine that your comfortable with, like putting it out of reach). This is what I had to do, as it is basically a reflex for me to pull out my phone and answer it when it rings. Once you start doing it, it becomes routine over time. Even though I committed to not answering the phone while driving, when I first got it, before I made this safety plan, I did pull it out an check the call display a couple times when it rang, and taking my eyes off the road that long felt pretty icky after having adjusted to not doing it. On the one occasion where I was expecting an important call, I left it on, and pulled over when it was safe to check. I actually missed the call, but called the person right back - no harm, no foul. There's a lot of poor drivers and tricky driving conditions where I live and I've definitely experienced situations where I've been really glad to have both hands on the wheel since doing this.
On top of everything, now that I work for child protective services, it's not only the law, but company policy to not use a cell when driving. It's just another drop in the bucket after my injury, but it adds to my sense of responsibility that an agency responsible for child safety also opposes phone use in vehicles.
Remember: Oprah wants your car to be a no phone zone (http://www.oprah.com/packages/no-phone-zone.html).
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dear wombat,
i appreciate the research you did for this thread. i used some of the sources you cited that i had not already come across for a paper.
sincerely,
this dude
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Alright already, I'll stop using my cell phone while I drive.
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WIN!!!
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You're welcome, gk, and thank you, Paul.
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The police do pull people over here, as it's illegal, and they have police out on the road all the time specifically looking for driving infractions of all sorts. They give out hefty tickets for cell use- all the heftier if there are other infractions.
During a panel on the legalization of medical marijuana, the representative from the law enforcement community said 'We're not out on the street looking for people who have a joint, thats not what we do. We have better things to do with our limited resources - like protect from and solve real crimes.
My question is as follows: Is your local community so utopian that every real crime has been prevented and solved and every real criminal has been captured and brought to justice? If so, please enlighten the rest of the world as to how you arrived at that situation. If no, then stop looking for cell phones and get back to looking for the rapists, murderers, and thieves.
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Alright already, I'll stop using my cell phone while I drive.
Does this promise include dialing internet friends from your butt while you drive?
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If no, then stop looking for cell phones and get back to looking for the rapists, murderers, and thieves.
Which they could do if people would just hang up and drive, instead of believing that they could circumvent the principles of their basic neural circuitry by "trying hard to be careful" and "being smarter than everyone else."
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Alright already, I'll stop using my cell phone while I drive.
I will too. I might have to tape a photo of Wombat giving me a stern look to my dashboard, though.
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Perhaps, though, she'd prefer we use a Guilt Pug instead?
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I'll have to think about what I could come up with for those possibilities. Or you could just buy an Oprah sticker:
(http://ostorestatic.oprah.com/images/PRODUCT/medium/npz_bumper_sticker_rectangle.jpg)
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(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yu-22ZXfW0E/S92TsO0Uf7I/AAAAAAAAAYc/MW_ynt37gso/s1600/2010-05-02-0002.JPG)
Lilly says, Is that a PHONE in your hand?
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PUG IN A BUG? OH MY GUG!
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Yeah, Oprah posters and whatever thats great, I believe in the mission of getting people to shut up and drive. Where we differ is in the police action.
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oh god, now I'm imagining the future, when teenagers have conversations where they get self-righteous about friends who talk on a phone in/near a car.
"TALKING AND DRIVING KILLS. YOU'RE AN IDIOT."
"wait, guys, have you ever driven a car? do you know anything about this? I... I'm not talking and driving. I am not even close to doing that."
"MY MOM SAID I SHOULD TAKE YOUR KEYS AWAY."
ok this parallel is not working out as well as it does in my head.
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"THE PUG BUG TOLD ME IT IS BAD. THAT MAKES YOU BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD!"
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My question is as follows: Is your local community so utopian that every real crime has been prevented and solved and every real criminal has been captured and brought to justice? If so, please enlighten the rest of the world as to how you arrived at that situation. If no, then stop looking for cell phones and get back to looking for the rapists, murderers, and thieves.
You could make the argument that if the number of deaths from motor vehicle crashes exceeds the number of murders that you should indeed me putting more money into enforcing petty little rules like this. I don't know if that's the actual case or not though.
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You could make the argument that if the number of deaths from motor vehicle crashes exceeds the number of murders that you should indeed me putting more money into enforcing petty little rules like this. I don't know if that's the actual case or not though.
Yeah I guess. But when a family in CT gets their home invaded and mother and daughter are raped and murdered while the father is chained in the basement where he listens to it all happen, that gets in the news. I want my police officers spending more time making sure that doesn't happen and less time bugging me about talking on the cell phone.
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To be fair, I don't know that anything other than a complete police state could make sure that doesn't happen.
That's the sort of thing that the cops can investigate and intercede in once they know it is going on but...
Yeah.
It is also incredibly rare, that kinda thing. So awful that it seems like things such as that happen more often than they do but they're actually really rare.
A dude or a lady getting in a car wreck that really messes some people happens all the time.
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Wait, I'm a little confused over this zero-sum game we're playing. Does this mean we should only enforce the laws against the worst crime, and then when we've cleared it up move to the next one? I dfon't think that's the way it works.
Also, people talking on cell phones in the car kill people. They just do. So that's murder, or at least manslaughter, and ought to be dealt with accordingly.
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The zero-sum game is that by law enforcement's own admissions they have limited resources. There are X amount of dollars to pay Y amount of officers for Z amount of time. How those officers spend their time must be managed to achieve the ultimate goal of public safety. What is a greater danger to public safety; the person talking on their cellphone or the guy planning to invade a home? What is the most effective way to stop the greater danger? Is it spending time busting criminals who may move on to the home invasion echelon or is it spending time standing on a street corner writing tickets to every person who happens to be on their cellphone while driving? I don't claim to have the answer, but I personally feel like those limited resources should be spent finding and prosecuting the criminals.
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I'd be interested in learning more about the stats related to the likelyhood of someone getting murdered vs getting injured in a cell related car accident. I'm willing to bet that more people are injured seriously in traffic related offenses than by murderers. For my own selgiraffe reasons, I'd like the police to work on preventing the harm that is most likely to happen to me.
There are plenty of cops in the high crime area where I live, and some of them are traffic cops, some are beat cops, some homicide cops. I believe each serves their purpose. For me, living in an area where shootings happen every week, in spite of plenty of beat cops patrolling the area, the whole "more cops as the solution to serious crime" rings hollow. What we need more of in my area is prevention and engaged, participatory community members.
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oh god, now I'm imagining the future, when teenagers have conversations where they get self-righteous about friends who talk on a phone in/near a car.
"TALKING AND DRIVING KILLS. YOU'RE AN IDIOT."
"wait, guys, have you ever driven a car? do you know anything about this? I... I'm not talking and driving. I am not even close to doing that."
"MY MOM SAID I SHOULD TAKE YOUR KEYS AWAY."
ok this parallel is not working out as well as it does in my head.
A grade idea and effort, C grade results.
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I guess the question comes down to what law enforcement can actually effectively DO.
Erratic driving in the public sphere is something that a cop on a public patrol can theoretically spot and intercede upon/intimidate people out of doing.
The kind of ultra-violent crime you're talking about fundamentally happens outside of the public sphere and is almost non-preventable if a criminal is systematic about it.
I mean, you aren't going to meet a white person less sympathetic to the police than me. The fact that the local police ran my dad off the city council when I was a kid by framing him for selling liquor to a minor because he wanted to save the local library by not upping the police budget as much as the cops wanted that year, even though they were a small town police force that hasn't had to fire a gun in action in 100 years... a mistrust of the police is burned into me behind my eyes.
But even I'm sympathetic to the fact that there are tragedies that police can intervene pre-emptively upon effectively and ones they cannot.
There's probably more marginal utility to the effort against erratic driving accidents, yeah?
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What is a greater danger to public safety; the person talking on their cellphone or the guy planning to invade a home?
I'm willing to bet that the social costs of automobile accidents exceed the costs of home invasions by several orders of magnitude. Home invasion is an extremely rare thing, MVAs as a result of distracted driving are extremely common.
And honestly, in my personal experience, the loss of productivity related to injuries from automobile accidents is very significant.
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I'm willing to bet that the social costs of automobile accidents exceed the costs of home invasions by several orders of magnitude. Home invasion is an extremely rare thing, MVAs as a result of distracted driving are extremely common.
MVAs as a result of distracted are extremely common, but how fatal are they? An overwhelming percentage of auto accidents result in an insurance claim and a trip to the auto-body shop, not the graveyard. A home invasion is a potent and exponentially greater cost per incident.
SC of MVA f(m)=m*500 (This number is small because of the above mentioned dilution of cost relative to the magnitude of the average auto accident)
SC of HI f(h)=h*10,000,000 (The costs of life insurance plus property insurance and the psychological trauma to the victims, etc)
If m=1,000,000 accidents
and h=100 home invasions
SC of MVA=500,000,000
SC of HI=10,000,000,000,000
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And honestly, in my personal experience, the loss of productivity related to injuries from automobile accidents is very significant.
I think death and homelessness cause some pretty significant drains on productivity as well.
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And honestly, in my personal experience, the loss of productivity related to injuries from automobile accidents is very significant.
WTF? I wrote that... why does it say AW wrote it? That is so weird.
** edit: ah shit. It seems that instead of quoting AW's post, I clicked "Modify" and somehow deleted it... sorry about that AW. You made some good points there, and unfortunately I fucked it up. **
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Thats what happens when autocrats go nuts with drunken power, side-show. Let this be a lesson to us all.
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I wish I were drunk, but I'm stuck at work. Call it cabin fever. There was a terrible storm overnight here, and it's still storming. I'm sitting next to a window, watching it storm, bored out of my skull. Most of my coworkers couldn't make it in, and I'm only here to provide back up should an emergency come up.
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btw i'm totally stealing fumbduck.
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Thats what happens when autocrats go nuts with drunken power mod while using a cell phone, side-show. Let this be a lesson to us all.
It's possible....
Intercontinental fun-fact: We call them all mobile phones here, never cell phones.
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Tell you what, next time I'm in a car and the driver answers the phone I'll slap it loose from him and lay a "Pay Attention, Stupid" on him.
please don't hit and yell at people while they are driving a car you are in
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It's possible....
Intercontinental fun-fact: We call them all mobile phones here, never cell phones.
the funnest difference is rice bubbles vs. rice krispies....
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Tonight, Asherdan is thankful that he is not afraid of the police.
Tomorrow?
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If he dies, at least we will know he died happy.
Also, they are called mobile phones and cell phones up here interchangeably.
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Now I am less worried about talking and driving and more worried about Ash's alcohol-drenched, over-heated-in-the-hot-tub heart giving out.
To address A-Cap's point, for those of you who don't know, a guy murdered my grandmother and stepgrandfather 12 hours after being released from prison on prior drug and armed robbery convictions. Here's a case where the cops did their job, rounded up a guy, he served his time (3 years), and yet the system still failed us. There's only so much we can do to control the "criminal element." The guy got caught (again) and now faces the death penalty (which I oppose). It's not the police's fault -- for cripe's sake, my uncle is a cop in the precinct where my grandmother lived -- this guy simply couldn't be rehabilitated, at least not in the amount of time given as a maximum sentence under our current laws.
I would prefer that the whole situation hadn't happened. But it seems to me like that kind of random act is a lot less preventable than, for instance, the dozens of accidents a year that occur because the driver is distracted on the phone. A junkie with a violent streak in need of a drug fix is not the kind of person you can dissuade from breaking a law; an otherwise good person who isn't aware of how dangerous driving and talking can be is much more malleable. Solve the problems that make the most impact with the least effort first -- I would think that would be second nature to an economist, no?
Case in point: my dad has always been spotty at best about wearing his seatbelt, even after an accident in which he was mildly injured 12 years ago. But I found out today that he got a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt six months ago, and he's been religious about wearing it ever since. (See? It's hereditary.) He doesn't believe a seatbelt will keep him from dying in an accident, just like many people don't believe that talking on their phones while driving is dangerous, but he DOES believe that if he continues to not buckle up, eventually he'll get caught again. That's the kind of motivation some people (myself included) require.
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My father simply refuses to change his habits. Even after the second time he's hit a stopped vehicle while he was reading his email on his Blackberry. He gets a new hands-free earpiece every 4-5 months as a gift, and then says they don't work when he loses them/they run out of batteries.
Of course, this is also a man who burns his own oatmeal every damn morning and does not see the pattern nor how to change it.
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Case in point: my dad has always been spotty at best about wearing his seatbelt, even after an accident in which he was mildly injured 12 years ago. But I found out today that he got a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt six months ago, and he's been religious about wearing it ever since. (See? It's hereditary.) He doesn't believe a seatbelt will keep him from dying in an accident, just like many people don't believe that talking on their phones while driving is dangerous, but he DOES believe that if he continues to not buckle up, eventually he'll get caught again. That's the kind of motivation some people (myself included) require.
We never wore seat belts in my family. I was raised to believe they were dangerous because my father had a wreck before or shortly after I was born where he believes he would have been killed had he been wearing a seat belt. The car he was driving hydoplaned off the road in a storm and rolled several times. He saved himself by diving into the floorboard. Something he couldn't have done had he been wearing his belt.
To reinforce this attitude almost the exact thing happened to me. In my case I was driving a two ton truck that caught a bit of gravel on the side of the highway and pulled the truck over. I saved myself by diving into the floorboard.
In both cases the roof of the vehicle was crushed into the passenger area. I've no doubt I would have been seriously injured or killed had I been strapped in. As it were, I walked away unharmed. My guitar did not fare as well (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/2020215564/).
I got three no seat belt tickets before I decided I could no longer afford to be a rebel.
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My guitar did not fare as well (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/2020215564/).
Aw man, not a Ric.
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I survuved the family
Typos are funny.
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Typos are funny.
Yeah the verb there is kind of a mystery. He could be saying survived or suffocated, we'll never know.
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Paul, I have been wondering what happened to that guitar for literally years.
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1984 was a bad year for me, as well. my brother was born and i was no longer the only child.
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Paul, I have been wondering what happened to that guitar for literally years.
Was it better for you when it was a mystery or do you prefer knowing?
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for some reason I always imagined it was broken in a way involving teen/young stupidity. I am glad to know that isn't the truth. Glad you were OK, a guitar is a small price to pay for all these years of Paul.
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for some reason I always imagined it was broken in a way involving teen/young stupidity. I am glad to know that isn't the truth. Glad you were OK, a guitar is a small price to pay for all these years of Paul.
Better less Rickenbacker than Les Paul
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Heh. More cans.
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Yeah, that was pretty smooth.
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i wish the police in this town would:
use turn signals
stop pulling into the far lane
stop prior to the white line at the stop light rather than pulling their rear axle past it.
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the other day when I helped a lady take her groceries out to her car, I realized: every insane asshole customer I've ever had is potentially driving around this city being an insane asshole.
this is a good reason not to talk on the phone while driving.
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the other day when I helped a lady take her groceries out to her car, I realized: every insane asshole customer I've ever had is potentially driving around this city being an insane asshole.
this is a good reason not to talk on the phone while driving.
This is a good thing to think about, and even its larger implications.
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"think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider" - g.carlin
(edit:attribution)
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And many of them have varying degrees of control over things in your life.
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Yeah, this is the major flaw in the "I can multitask better than most people so it's OK if I do it" argument. What's dangerous about driving is other people. It's not a question of whether you can drive in a normal situation and talk on the phone. It's a question of whether you're going to be able to react in a split second if some idiot who isn't looking where they're going does something totally unpredicatable (probably because they are talking on the phone). You need ALL your faculties in that case, and if you're talking on the phone, all your faculties are not available. They're just not, no matter how smart you are.
I realized today that part of what drives me crazy is that I don't understand why people don't intuitively get the perceptual problem. Even if I do something as simple as change the settings on the radio without taking my eyes off the road, I can actually feel the tunnel vision thing happening. You can't visualize where the radio knob is and at the same time see what's on the road in front of you, because some of the same parts of the brain are being used. If you're driving down a familiar road and nothing unusual happens, you can get away with it, is all.
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Yeah, the driving on the phone thing. Jebus. The fact is that the more attention you can give to complex tasks the better, especially if you are pointing a multi-ton conglomeration of steel and glass at me or my loved ones.
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Thats the exact language my driver's ed instructor used. 'You kids drive around like lunatics. What you need to get into your head is that you are commanding a giant machine made of steel, glass, electronics, filled with flammable liquids. And you're locked inside of it.'
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Speaking of driver's ed manuals, is there a part that says "You can park your car anywhere you want, like right in the middle of traffic, as long as you put your blinkers on"? Because I swear I don't remember that but it sure seems like everyone else does.
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when someone maneuvers through lanes around me without a turn signal i am obligated by god's love to drive my shitty buick into their house while they are sleeping. that being illegal spot lights our great nation's fall from the moral high road that our forefathers paved.
people who do not turn on their head lights when it was raining, as per the law, because "they can see just fine" will spend eternity in between levels 9 and 8 of hell. this area of hell consists of me talking to them about turn signals.
the only answer is blue-tooth enabling all motor vehicles so i can remotely manage their lighting systems for them.
i am befuddled that MOTHERFUCKERS WHO CAN'T FLIP A GOD DAMNED CONTROL AT THEIR fuck*ng FINGERTIPS IN ORDER TO LET ME KNOW THEY ARE ABOUT TO SUDDENLY STOP AND TURN INTO THE HELLPIT WALMART are able to dial the phone let alone be able to hold a conversation.
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Testifying
Continue to speak truth to power, brother.
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Anyone who thinks that wasn't worth 100 cans can just shut up.
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Anyone who thinks that wasn't worth 100 cans can just shut up.
I think it's good enough that Ark should be the only one with cans now.
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WORD UP!
It's my bias showing, but I never figured you for a Cameo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZjAantupsA) fan.
Yes, that's LeVar Burton in that video, and yes, it is the greatest video ever made.
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I assume that means you agree that Cameo's "Word Up" is, indeed, the greatest video ever made.
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I assume that means you agree that Cameo's "Word Up" is, indeed, the greatest video ever made.
Is that a red vinyl cod piece? Yes.
Does one of the officers surrender to "the word" by ripping off his clothing and gyrating in a pleasantly homoerotic fashion? Yes.
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If I didn't remember that song from when it came out, I would think that that video was a really cleverly made parody video.
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That's exactly what I was thinking too. It's so on point.
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I suppose you feel the same way about Holy Diver (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64coD-rx9sk), then? There are rats! Hooded figures! A castle!
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I suppose you feel the same way about Holy Diver (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64coD-rx9sk), then? There are rats! Hooded figures! A castle!
That blade is gonna be brittle as hell. You can't just quench it without tempering it as well.