Cell phone users

[Toecutter]

My opinion?

You're definitely entitled to it.

You illustrate your own point here. At legally intoxicated levels, you BELIEVED that you were a good driver and that you had no close calls, lane wandering etc. Is it possible that you might not have been thinking quite straight?

Yeah, I get that all the time. Like Hans said, for most people, driving is about as complex as pissing. I take it quite a bit more serious than that.

I'll stand on my record. I have some pretty wild beliefs, but that's a whole 'nother story....

 

[Jazzzzz]

I lost my '04 to a young lady too busy texting on her cellphone to see me stopped behind two other cars that were waiting to turn across traffic. She hit me hard enough that it bounced the bike off the car in front of me, shoving that car forward and my bike under her front end. Her car continued on up over the bike and dragged it another fifteen feet - she actually rear-ended the car I was stopped behind after she hit me. Cost me a month in physical therapy and all of last riding season, and I got off extremely lucky.



I used to grouse at my wife about talking on the cellphone while she was driving and she would just roll her eyes, until this happened. Drivers on their phones are worse than drunk drivers, in my opinion. There's more of them on the roads, and they're every bit as clueless as to the environment around them. If the call is so important, pull over.

YMMV, but at legally intoxicated levels plus, I was still as good or better than the vast majority of others out there.

You're deluding yourself. If you keep it up, it will bite you, and possibly someone else, in the ass.

 

[jwilly]

Oh Crap, Looks like Toe is posting on the forum above the legal limit again. :dribble: Toe, don't do it man, step away from the keyboard!!

JW

 

[Toecutter]

You're deluding yourself. If you keep it up, it will bite you, and possibly someone else, in the ass.

You forgot the IMO. Please don't present an opinion as fact, as popular as it may be. Go start a poll or something.

Like I said,

Back when I used to drink regularly

Used to, meaning: In the past, as in, no mas. Sorry, nothing happened, to me, or anybody else.

Looks like Toe is posting on the forum above the legal limit again.

I wish....

Actually, if I was drinking, I'd probably be doing a bunch of better stuff than sitting in front of a computer monitor, like fishing....

 

[Bearly Flying]

I think your doing a pretty good job of fishing right now Toe.

Getting any bites??????

 

[Checkswrecks]

Toe -

I had to re-read your post a couple of times, because at first it came across that cell phones weren't a problem and that driving after some drinks was fine. It's so easy to read between the lines and be wrong in what you said. For the most part I'm going to support you here, though.

I doubt that vehicle collision rates went up noticeably per capita since the advent of the cell phone. ... I've been cleaning up after collisions for 25 years, and it seems to me that major vehicular crashes are actually down from the time before mobile phones came along, at least in the area I cover. I attribute the decline to fewer drunk-driving incidents, for whatever reason.

Drinking was socially acceptable when you and I were learning to drive and I remember sitting on the big smooth bench seat while my Dad drove with a can of beer in his hand. The numbers are clear that the drunk driving is way down and the overall decrease in rates roughly matches. Seatbelts? Heck our first cars had none, and then just those lap-belts that would break your neck. So, you're right about the overall rates coming down. The other biggie is that NHTSA has some good data to show that the roads and cars are a lot easier to use and safer by allowing more margin for error. A person may still run out of their lane due to drinking or a cellphone, but is more likely to have a wider median, grooved pavement, or other ass-saving technology save their bacon.

But if looking at what's going on now, the data is pretty conclusive that cell phones are consistently over-represented in the current accidents. From the March 2008 American Motorcyclist Magazine that hit my postbox yesterday, 51% admit to using a cellphone while driving. Those phones didn't exist when we were learning to drive, but there is a lot of data to support them being a current problem. Example: https://www.cellphonedefense.com/catalog/ar...es.php?tPath=24

Distracted driving is distracted driving, in any form, and more risky than focused driving. ... I've followed numerous drivers as they've been having conversations with their passenger, and have been amazed at how much time they spent with their eyes off the road ahead.

I agree with you but think there's a twist that gets missed. Other distractions were always there, but people are increasingly think that multi-tasking is normal. The AMA article points out that 70% of drivers also eat, 39% tend to kids, 32% read, 18% put on makeup, and 10% do work-related tasks, including using a computer. As I wrote before about my commutes, I've seen a couple of guys get a BJ while driving and one playing a frickin' coronet.

As for skill level of the driver and the drinking references, yes some people multitask or can keep slightly better alchohol-impaired focus than other people, but there's plenty of data to show that personal abilities are just where that individual fits within the population tolerance band. Those same studies ultimately show what Jill pointed out, that the individual likely won't recognize his/her own limits until things are grossly evident. So you may be closer to one side of the band. But we knew that, right?

Bob

 

[feejer222]

Update on Brit law just on the radio today. Anyone seen handling a phone in the car whether using it or not is laible for prosecution.

 

[sonicspeed]

i got ran off the road yesterday by a lady on her cell phone

thank goodness there was a flat level place for me to go and i was in my jeep

 

[snikr]

Update on Brit law just on the radio today. Anyone seen handling a phone in the car whether using it or not is laible for prosecution.

I've even heard it's against the law to have a cell phone on in a public store or restaurant overseas. Is that true? If so maybe the USA should do the same thing.

Tom

 

[Jazzzzz]

Used to, meaning: In the past, as in, no mas. Sorry, nothing happened, to me, or anybody else.

IMO you got lucky - I've known two people killed by drunk drivers that weren't

If you honestly think that you drove just as well with a few drinks in you - because you were more focused - as you do when you're sober, there's plenty of medical research out that says you're mistaken.

I'm sorry if I came off as being preachy; that wasn't my intent. I lost my cousin to this mentality (focused himself right off the road into a tree) and a coworker was killed by a drunk driver. The topic hits a bit close to home.

 

[Toecutter]

If you honestly think that you drove just as well with a few drinks in you - because you were more focused - as you do when you're sober, there's plenty of medical research out that says you're mistaken.

I never said, or have ever been deluded enough to think, that. What I said was:

YMMV, but at legally intoxicated levels plus, I was still as good or better than the vast majority of others out there.

Meaning, I was a better driver intoxicated than most of the others are sober. Not I was as good or better intoxicated than sober. I still cringe with trepidation when I've had a couple and I let my wife drive us home. It's a good reason to not drink.

I'm sorry if I came off as being preachy; that wasn't my intent. I lost my cousin to this mentality (focused himself right off the road into a tree) and a coworker was killed by a drunk driver. The topic hits a bit close to home.

Sorry about your personal loss. I never advocated others drive while intoxicated, or while holding a cell phone. I just shared my experiences. I will use my earplug when the CA law goes into effect July 1st, and resent that I am inconvenienced by the shotgun approach to people who don't know their own limitations, just like with speed limits....

 

[Mooseonagoose]

I work part time for a transportation engineer collecting various types of data & doing traffic counts. Our counts, as specified by state & county agencies, are done at peak traffic hours [rush hour] 7-9am and 4-6pm mid-week days only. I haven't done so yet, but have thought to, ...just for the halibut, take an actual reading during one of my counts. But, just as an off-hand guess, I'd venture that the % of drivers on CFs thru a given busy interesection frequently runs to 45%, occassionally more.

If you do my job long enuf you WILL see an accident eventually [guaranteed], much more frequently you will also see multitudinous moronic close calls, ...a disproportionate number of which will currently be linked to CF use while driving! In this observance I'm not a casual bystander, I'm a sober, alert professional paying close attention to the situation at hand, from a fixed position chosen for its good field of view.

One thing that potentially IMO brings the risk of CF use whilst driving up to the hazard levels of DWI is the sheer number of people doing it all at once. While I've no supporting data here, I would have to say I doubt [w/ the possible exceptions of around midnite on New Years Eve & St. Paddy's Day] that you're often likely to see 40+% of the motoring public snockered all at once, particularly at rush hour.

Having had one rig totalled by a young lady making an illegal left turn w/ her phone stuck in her ear [she didn't see me, ...Duh]; and the spankin' new wheels I got to replace it smacked [$3000 worth] when it was 3 days old by a glitzy DB in her Escalade whom I strongly suspect was also 'dialed-up'. Couldn't prove it as she came out of a right side alley and broadsided my rt.rr quarterpanel, [...if she had been, she'd hung-up before I could confirm]. She "just didn't see how it could be her fault", luckily her own insurance adjuster was as amazed by that proclaimation as I was!

Suffice it to say that I'm no big fan of Dialing & Driving! I don't see whats so difficult about pulling over to talk [if it's really an important call] or waiting 'til I'm parked to return the call if it's casual!

 

[FJRBluesman]

...Coming up to a stopsign at a one way street (leftwise). I watch with "glee" as a driver going the wrong way cruises through the intersection while chatting on his cell phone. As he slowly approaches cars going the correct direction, he "motions" the cars on "his" side of the street to "get out of the way"...

So absorbed in his little world that he couldn't possibly think that he was in the wrong.

Your first story made me angry but your second story just makes me shake my head in annoyance and a little despair.

I've had so many people drift into my lane while chatting that alert for it. Usually, I'll hit the FIAM horns, which sound like a full Caddy, and chuckle as they jump. (Despite the never-ending temptations, I only do this if they are leaving their own lane.) The thing is that it's totally common for these asshats to get upset at ME for interupting THEM. If they keep screaming (I'm supposed to hear it?), I have a sticker on each side of my helmet that says HANG UP AND DRIVE, so I point at one with a single finger. It just serves to get their necks more purple and the veins stand out better.

Bob

Drift! I had a woman I was passing on the road, she was to my right, I was on my Beemer back then. I noticed she was on her cell phone, as I passed her, I made eye contact with her and she proceeded to signal and take over my lane. If that wasn't bad eneough, she then imediately did it again! Luckily I was looking for an out each time and had it. To say the least I wasn't very happy.

 

[James Burleigh]

Why is it that we can (usually) successfully talk to a passenger next to us but implode inward when we are talking on a cell phone? Does it really take that much extra concentration to talk to a person that isn't present? Are abstract conversations so difficult to handle?

It's a fascinating question, and one that is being studied and is driving the call [no pun intended] for abolishing cell phone use in cars completely, and not just requiring hands free, as Calif. is doing this July. People on cell phones disconnect from their environment when they're talking on the phone. It's weird to see someone driving down the street with one hand holding the phone to the ear and the other gesticulating madly through the air to punctuate the conversation. Who's driving the car?

Finally, it's why I don't use a phone in a car, let alone on a motorcycle. I cah't be disconnected from my environment when riding a bike.

I think one of the reasons in the end phones will be banned in cars will be economic: a recent study showed that cell phone use backs up traffic. That disconnection means people are taking their foot off the gas, going slower, even braking in the middle of the freeway for no reason. The reason we spend billions on freeway infrastructure is to move people to their productive locations to stabilize GDP. Longer commutes affects GDP.

Jb

 

[Ari Rankum]

Your first story made me angry but your second story just makes me shake my head in annoyance and a little despair.

I've seen my murderer many times. He or she briefly takes a pause from their conversation every time they nearly kill me as I save myself one more time. Even though I'm screaming loudly at them things that could be gisted (yes, I did just verb that noun) as "I don't want you to kill me" (I use lots of other words, too), I don't expect they hear me. They surely don't see me. I'm going to be very sad the day one finely succeeds in killing me.

The best attempt so far was the d00d on the cell phone in the Expedition that came through a red light, across two lanes of traffic, a median, and a third lane of traffic, and right across my path where I would have been. If not for my piloting on behalf of both of us, I'd not be writing this.

My ghost is going to kick the absolute **** out of the ****** that takes me out.

 

[wallypiper]

Why is it that we can (usually) successfully talk to a passenger next to us but implode inward when we are talking on a cell phone? Does it really take that much extra concentration to talk to a person that isn't present? Are abstract conversations so difficult to handle?

I doubt that there is really that much difference. My exwife used to bitch at me for ignoring here while i was driving. I would bitch back (part of the reason we are exxes now), "I'm driving. I can't drive and also pay attention to you." I think the fact is that there would be almost zero accidents if you eliminated accidents caused by distraction. Ignoring people that are just reckless or maybe running from the police, nobody ever intentionally runs a red light or changes lanes into somebody or runs into the back of somebody. They do it because for some reason their attention is not on the task at hand which is, after all, not that damn hard to do if you pay attention. I think that the difference with cell phones is that the person you are talking too is not present so they don't experience the environment with you. If somebody is sitting next to you, they can see it when you have to pause in your conversation and look over your shoulder or steer around an obstacle and the like. But the person on the other end of the phone doesn't know what's happening around you so you feel compelled, in a subtle way, to maintain the conversattion.

I recently had my phone ring as I was making my very routine commute to the office. I answered (bluetooth headset) and it was a coworker. Immediately, a mental image of this person invaded my mental space. No way to stop that, its subconscious and automatic. Then he starts asking me a question about a project we are both working on. Now a mental image of some piping located on the other side of the country starts competing for room in my head as I start to consider his question. At this point, I realized that I had made a left turn at an intersection and traveled about 1/4 mile after that without really being very conscious of the details of that. I couldn't tell you how many cars were around me, what they had done or anything else. That all passed in and out of my mind via some kind of atuopiloting mechanism that takes over the task of driving when my focus gets split. So I ended the call, telling the coworker I'd be in the office in 10 minutes and good bye. If you think you can have a meaningful conversation with somebody, on the phone or in the seat next to you, and still devote the proper attention to the task of driving in traffic, you are fooling yourself. Can't be done. Not within the realm of human capability. Your primary attention can only be on one thing at a time. You might get away with it 1,000 times - I have - because nothing happened on the road that required an immediate creative response from you. Autopilot worked because your attention wasn't required.

Back when I used to drink regularly, I never let it get in the way of me driving home afterward*. I also never had so much as a close call, or even left my lane without intent. It was all about focus. YMMV, but at legally intoxicated levels plus, I was still as good or better than the vast majority of others out there.

My opinion? You illustrate your own point here. At legally intoxicated levels, you BELIEVED that you were a good driver and that you had no close calls, lane wandering etc. Is it possible that you might not have been thinking quite straight?

Toecutter, Silver Penguin is 100% right. I don't care how many times you have succeeded in driving while legally intoxicated. Your own evaluation of your performance in that condition is totally unreliable and almost guaranteed to err in exactly the way it appears to have done so. People who have had just a little bit to drink almost always believe they are driving better than they are because your judgment is the first thing that the alcohol affects.

 

[Ari Rankum]

Toecutter, Silver Penguin is 100% right. I don't care how many times you have succeeded in driving while legally intoxicated. Your own evaluation of your performance in that condition is totally unreliable and almost guaranteed to err in exactly the way it appears to have done so. People who have had just a little bit to drink almost always believe they are driving better than they are because your judgment is the first thing that the alcohol affects.

I participated in a study at NIH when I was in college. It was the easiest money I ever made, I got asked out by a nurse (no, not a male nurse), and I learned something.

The study involved sitting down and getting all wired up to an ECG and an EKG and blood-pressure monitoring gear and drinking until I got to one of 7 levels of intoxication ranging from 0 to .16% BAL. Once they could measure the target level with a breathalyzer they put me through a battery of tests. One was a driving simulation. One was recognizing a single character as a bunch streamed by on a screen at high rate. The last was moving an electrode from one position on a pad to a precise different position on the pad as quickly as possible under randomly provided cues.

The study was supposed to be blind, but I spent most of the .16 day passed out on a couch after the testing was done. Heh. The principle investigator talked to me a bit about the study when my participation was over. He said I, as with most of the people in the study, actually had my best scores with the equivalent of "one drink" in my system. That said, it's a rule with me - beers or bike, pick one.

 

[FJRAust]

It's quite clear that the majority of people here are of the opinion that using a mobile phone (cell Phone) while driving is a bad practice and causes us and them to make mistakes and therefore motor vehicle accidents.

Here in Australia it's simply againist the law. There are heavy penalties and you can if you have incured repeated driving offences lose your drivers/riders license, non-the-less people continue to do it.

It's odd though. The law only prevents you from holding a phone to your ear, the law doesn't prevent you from having a conversation via Bluetooth or a head set.

I admit I use my headset to primarily listen to the radio on the bike (I cop a lot of flak from my fellow riders for this) I also have my phone set to auto answer when ever the head set is connected. Although I keep these conversations to a "Hello, OK call me back or I'll call you back". Therefore I can confirm the level of lost concentration when on the phone..

I do expect in time it will be ilegal to use a phone, smoke, eat, etc. while driving. I don't disagree.. If it saves lives lets do it..

Just to add,

Drink driving is for fools. We all know we are impared after consuming alcohol. While Driving or Riding you need to be at your best to ensure when things go horribly wrong you can do everyting possible to minimise the nasty outcome.

Here drink driving is a criminal offence. For those who have held a license for less than 4 years they have a limit of .0000, NONE.

For those with a full unrestricted license the limit is .05. Bugger all..

 

[wheatonFJR]

It's quite clear that the majority of people here are of the opinion that using a mobile phone (cell Phone) while driving is a bad practice and causes us and them to make mistakes and therefore motor vehicle accidents.Here in Australia it's simply againist the law. There are heavy penalties and you can if you have incured repeated driving offences lose your drivers/riders license, non-the-less people continue to do it.

It's odd though. The law only prevents you from holding a phone to your ear, the law doesn't prevent you from having a conversation via Bluetooth or a head set.

I admit I use my headset to primarily listen to the radio on the bike (I cop a lot of flak from my fellow riders for this) I also have my phone set to auto answer when ever the head set is connected. Although I keep these conversations to a "Hello, OK call me back or I'll call you back". Therefore I can confirm the level of lost concentration when on the phone..

I do expect in time it will be ilegal to use a phone, smoke, eat, etc. while driving. I don't disagree.. If it saves lives lets do it..

I would say that statement is true only for those who have posted...those that disagree with the statement are likely on the sidelines-not wanting to stir things up. From my own experience in rush hour city-suburban traffic, cell-phone usage is approx. 25% to 40% of drivers.

And I don't think the cell phone concentration problem is the holding the thing to your ear or not...it is the concentration required to maintain the concentration.

 

[FJRAust]

I would say that statement is true only for those who have posted...those that disagree with the statement are likely on the sidelines-not wanting to stir things up. From my own experience in rush hour city-suburban traffic, cell-phone usage is approx. 25% to 40% of drivers.

And I don't think the cell phone concentration problem is the holding the thing to your ear or not...it is the concentration required to maintain the concentration.

Of course the concentration issue while holding a conversation is valid.

I'm sure you can accept that by utilising a hand to hold a phone you put your self at a physical disadvantage.

Would the loss of an arm be considered disabled? or just disadvanatged.