"ceg" wrote in message news:mr2881

stuff snipped

Let's hope the two or three articles in that list that purport to shed
light on the paradox actually do so. They may simply be yet another
of the myriad tear jerker articles that sway dumb****s who have absolutely
no science background (and therefore no basis in pure logic) like
trader4 (who either is uneducated or just plain of low intelligence).

Those are two traits I would NOT ascribe to Trader4. Impatient with people
he disagrees with, yes. (-:

Here I think he's right, though, because it seems you're assuming some
direct correlation of every new cellphone going into the hands of a driver
that's never had one before. That's a pretty fatal logic flaw because it's
an assumption easily disproved by researching who owns cell phones, how
many, how old the users are, whether this is a first cellphone ever or a
replacement, etc.

I see enough pre-teens with cellphones to know yours is a faulty main
premise. I know enough people with multiple cell phones to dispute the
notion that there's anything remotely like a one-to-one correspondence of
each new cellphone going straight into the hands of a driver who's never had
one before.

It's easily demonstrated with vectors, alas Usenet's still in the ASCII
graphics world. You have a number of factors working to bring down the
accident rate. Graduated licensing for young adults, key-interlocks for
drunk drivers, better driver's ed, cars with accident avoidance technology,
pressure from the authorities and even peer pressure. Every time I pass by
a texting driver I honk the horn and wag my finger at them. One day I will
probably scare one into a ditch because they always look at me with the
"where am I?" look of total distraction. I often tell people I drive with
to put the cellphone away when they are tempted to make a call that doesn't
qualify as urgent. Do I get yack-back from them? Sure.

So there are any number of pressures working to cancel out the expected rise
in the accident rate from increased cellphone usage. All most be considered
when trying to determine what's happening.

Then there are some great PSA's on TV showing texting teens getting atomized
by tractor-trailers or sailing off overpasses that *might* be having some
effect.

But anything near a one-to-one correlation of cellphone owners and drivers
can't possibly be true or supported by any statistics I've reviewed.

http://www.pewinternet.org/data-tren...-demographics/

Tells us the market's saturated with 90% of American adults people reporting
ownership of a cellphone. So all these new phone are not getting into the
hands of *new* drivers.

http://kff.org/disparities-policy/pr...-children-and-
teens-up-dramatically-from-five-years-ago/

Over the past five years, there has been a huge increase in ownership
among 8- to 18-year-olds: from 39% to 66% for cell phones,

That suggests that a lot of the new phones *aren't* going to anyone driving
a car. At least not yet.

--
Bobby G.