On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 03:02:31 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster
wrote:

On Wednesday, August 19, 2015 at 9:41:37 PM UTC-5, Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Wed, 19 Aug 2015 05:29:35 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 10:44:31 PM UTC-4, Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Mon, 17 Aug 2015 20:03:18 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 8/17/2015 12:11 AM, ceg wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:51:58 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

I agree with you, however, have you ever seen anyone playing a musical
instrument while driving?I never have.

Listening to music though, is far different that talking on the phone.
The brain can easily tune out the radio since it is a passive activity.
The phone requires your active participation and concentration. It
has been proven many times.

So using a cell phone should be much more dangerous AND result in a
SIGNIFICANT increase in accidents over the past 20 years as the use of
cell phones has exploded. Yet there isn't the slightest evidence of
that in the accident data.

This is the conundrum.

If cellphones are as dangerous as we think they are, then the accidents
*must* be going up.

But they're not.

So, something is wrong in our logic.


According to NBC new tonight they are. We are on track to be higher
than 2009, a 14% increase. Could be the highest number of fatalities in
years. They said 55% were speed related, 25% cell phone related.

One of you is using the wrong statistics. Me thinks you are FOS.

The problem I see is that the conclusion is absurd. The CLAIM that
the accidents were caused by the cell phones is mostly likely just
happenstance. A cell phone was in use THEREFORE the cell phone MUST
have caused the accident. Well, the brakes were in use too, should we
say the brakes caused the accident? Ditto for the headlights for
nighttime accidents.

Simulator testing, which of course you reject, has shown
that cell phone use while driving does cause accidents.
It's also obvious to me, from personal experience of using
a phone, that I know I'm distracted and my concentration
is affected. Like almost everyone else, except possibly you,
I regularly see people slowing down for no reason, weaving
into my lane, weaving into the gutter and they are doing it
while using a cell phone. The comparison with brakes and
headlights is ridiculous.

If you are like "everyone else" you are just showing confirmation
bias. You ignore people who are weaving a little who DON'T have a
cell phone but if you see someone with a cell phone and they weave
even a tiny amount its confirmation that the cell phone is an
instrument of the devil. So tell me, are the ONLY people who ever
slow down, or who weave, or who do anything else you don't like ALWAYS
using cell phones? And tell me, how many people are out there who ARE
using cell phones but are NOT weaving, NOT slowing, etc. You have no
data, no data at all, all you have is your own lack of skill which you
wish to project on every other driver. If you can't drive and pick
your nose at the same time get the hell off the road, you are a danger
to everyone.

Distracted driving accidents are not caused by just cellphones. The operative word is "distracted". In the years BCP,"Before Cell Phones", I was with my brother when a gal pull out in front of us and other traffic by entering the expressway and crossing two lanes. He and the other drivers locked up the brakes to keep from colliding with the moron. We took off after her to see that she was yapping at her passenger and blissfully unaware that she'd almost caused a multi-car pileup. I've seen idiots fiddling with the damn radio while driving or turned around screaming at misbehaving kids in the back seat. I've been 10 feet from from a vehicle that was rear-ended by a rubbernecker who wasn't watching where he was going but the most dangerous drivers I've seen causing other drivers to swerve around and dodge them are the texting drivers who are looking at their phone instead of the road. I had to go around a very stupid woman who was texting while driving slowly in the middle lane during
rush hour. I have no idea if she was rear-ended but I came very close to colliding with her. No, it's not just women who are doing it. There are probably more young men texting and dialing the phone while driving. I was in a medical transport van last week being taken to an appointment with one of my doctors and the van driver had an earphone plugged into the smartphone in his lap and he would look back and forth from the phone to the road to make a call. At least he would wait until there were no other vehicles close by or traveling toward us in the other lane. The van drivers are also radio dispatched and must communicate with their office while they're driving. He was aware of what was going on around him and not looking at his phone for more than a split second. He was not texting so I felt fairly safe but you never know when someone will run a stop sign from a side street. The most concerned I've ever been was when I was a passenger in the car being driven by the oldest
daughter
of a friend of mine and she WAS text driving. She was later involved in an accident where she struck a flagman at a road construction site. I'm not sure what was going on at the time but she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. O_o

[8~{} Uncle Skittish Monster

Heck, there can be no doubt some people have died because they looked
at the watch at *just* the wrong time and didn't see the semi stopping
in front of them. I watched the woman ahead of me, this was WAY
before anyone had car phone much less a cell phone, literally knock
the flag out of the hand of the guy stopping traffic for construction
trucks to cross the highway.