On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 4:44:08 PM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 5:05:39 PM UTC-4, Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 13:59:25 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:
On Sat, 15 Aug 2015 23:23:48 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-acci...nt/cell-phone/
cell-phone-statistics.html
"1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by
texting and driving."
Jeff, we know each other for years over the net, and I know you to be a
very data-based person.
Here's the paradox.
1. You and I believe that distracted driving can easily cause accidents.
2. Cellphone ownership has gone explosively up in the USA.
3. But, accidents have not.
That's the paradox.
A. We can *assume* that driving while using cellphones has gone up.
B. We can also *assume* that distracted driving is dangerous.
C. Unfortunately, distracted driving statistics are atrociously
inaccurate.
Yet, the paradox remains because actual accident statistics are
*extremely reliable*.
So, we really have two extremely reliable components of the paradox.
a. Cellphone ownership has been going explosively up in the USA,
b. All the while *accidents* have been going down.
Hence, the paradox.
Where are all the accidents?
I have been posting (not here but in other newsgroups) that same
question for several years and no one can answer it but they ALWAYS
attack me for asking it. What you have stated is the $64K question
... if cell phone use is as bad as driving drunk, etc, etc, and if
cell phone use has gone from essentially zero percent of drivers in
1985 to at least 50% of drivers in 2015, WHERE ARE ALL THE
ACCIDENTS????
The closest thing to an answer I get is "well, if people didn't have
cell phones the rate of accidents would have dropped much more then it
has. But that's not realistic. There are simply too many people using
cell phones to think that if it was the problem the alarmist portray
it would not have caused a spike in accident statistics that was
noticeable.
Also, I strongly question most of the studies that purport to show how
cell phones "distract' people. They usually put a person in a
simulator, tell them they MUST talk on a cell phone, and then when
THEY know it's the most inopportune time for a 'surprise' they flash a
cow on the road ahead and the simulating driver hits it. They ignore
that in the REAL world, most drivers are not simply stuck on their
cell phone completely ignoring everything around them as if in a
trance waiting for a guy in the back seat to hit the button for
EMERGENCY at the worst possible moment.
They also have no good idea whether cell phone use has simply replaced
prior distractions. It may well be that the person on the cell phone
who IS distracted is the same person who 15 years ago would have been
fiddling with their CDs and CD player trying to select a new CD to
play, or would have been fiddling with the radio looking for a better
music station, etc and would have been equally distracted and would
have been equally adding to the accident statistics.
All I can tell you is that from personal experience, when I'm
talking on a cell phone while driving, I feel that I am distracted
a lot. And distracted a lot more than I am from the radio, which
isn't distracting at all, and significantly more than from conversation
with someone in the car. I've always tried to avoid it as much as
possible, to keep calls short, etc. On the other hand, I know people
that are educated, that should know better, that just yack away on
totally non-essential calls while driving along.
When I was driving, my cell phone was OFF unless I was in a residential area, driving at low speeds, being directed to a location. I don't turn my cell phone on anyway unless I want to make a call or I've told someone to call my cell phone. I have a numeric pager with voicemail service which lets me know that someone is trying to contact me. I've carried a pager for 40 years and have had the same pager number for 25 years and it's the number everyone has to get in touch with me. I don't own a smartass phone, both mine are dumbass phones with limited intellect and functionality (yea, like me). 凸(-_-)凸
I have personally come across complete idiots texting during rush hour, driving slowly in a middle lane of a three lane expressway, with vehicles dodging and zooming past them while coming precariously close to having a collision. I've seen such accidents but managed to avoid them because I'd drive like everyone was out to get me. The greatest Karma is when two texting morons run into each other while driving or on foot. When I was last working, one of our contracts was to install a phone system and data network in a clothing store that catered to young women. The employees were of course pretty young women who speed walked around the store texting with all of their attention on their smartass phone and not paying attention to where they were going. I ran into more than one of them until I started loudly sounding "BEEP! BEEP!" as they approached on a collision course. I've read about text walkers running into innocent pedestrians or other text walkers on busy city sidewalks and it gave me an idea for a new feature and app for smartphones, "A Proximity Alert". It would go off if two text walkers were 10 feet away from each other on a collision course or if the TW got within 6 feet behind someone walking more slowly than the TW or if there was something stationary, people or not, 10 feet away, the smartphone would alert the TW with a loud "Road Runner, MEEP MEEP" along with the tonguing of a Coke bottle sound. à²*€¿à²*
http://www.cerbslair.com/ltcc/meepmeep.wav
http://www.cerbslair.com/ltcc/rrshow_theme.wav
[8~{} Uncle Meep Meep Monster