ceg wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:10:06 -0500, Muggles wrote:

I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.

If that is the case, that cellphone usage is *not* distracting, then,
instantly, that would *solve* the paradox.

It's true, playing music can be pretty distracting. It isn't normally,
but sometimes it can be.

But, then, how do we reconcile that observation with the fact that
(unnamed) "studies show" that cellphone use is "as distracting as
driving drunkly"?

Well, around here, driving drunkly was common and normal behaviour for
a large segment of the population thirty years ago, and now it isn't.
Perhaps as a hazard it has disappeared and been replaced with texting
while driving instead.

The *new* paradox looms - which is - if cellphone use isn't distracting,
then why do "studies show" that it *is* distracting (as drunk driving)?

Nothing makes sense in all these arguments.
There is very little intelligent discussion.

This is true, because there is very little actual data. So an intelligent
discussion is pretty much impossible.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

ceg writes:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 11:32:55 -0400, micky wrote:

Yet, the paradox remains because actual accident statistics are
*extremely reliable*.

Why is that a paradox?

I thought the paradox was clear by my Fermi Paradox example.

Very funny.

The Fermi Paradox is about "absence of evidence for extraterrestrial
intelligence".

--
Dan Espen

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 15:36:10 -0700, Ashton Crusher
wrote:

And if cell phone use and texting is so
horrible, why do we allow the police to drive around all day talking
on their radios and typing on their mobile data terminals? Funny how
when outlawing teh "distraction" would interfere with the police state
suddenly it's not important to outlaw it.

Police and fire do not "type" on their mobile terminals. Most are set
to not allow input while moving. They also do not talk all day on the
radio. Just listen on a scanner and see how often someone actually
talks while moving. It's rare and maybe once per WEEK per officer at
most. Only in hot pursuit will they talk while moving. If there are
two officers in the car, the passenger will do the talking.

There are also other users of mobile data terminals that are exempted
by the Calif Vehicle Code. While the law was written to prevent
people from watching TV while driving, it has been expanded to data
terminals, GPS, computahs, etc. Section 27602:
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcmath:/dmv_content_en/dmv/pubs/vctop/vc/d12/c5/a5/27602

Note that ham radio operators have been exempt. Part of the reason is
that there was no evidence of any significant accidents or fatalities
to hams resulting from talking while moving when the ordinance was
inscribed. There are about 2,000 ham operators in the county. I
think I've met about 1/3 of them. In the last 40 years, I don't know
of any that have died or been injured while driving, much less while
talking on the radio.

So, what's the difference between texting, talking, and ham radio
operation? Ham radio is a simplex operation. You can only talk and
listen, one at a time, and not simultaneously, such as on the
telephone. We seem to be able to handle either the input or output
channel quite easily, but not simultaneously. I've done some crude
testing to see if that's true. When I use a PTT (push to talk
microphone) to make a phone call while moving, there's no problem
because my caller and I are operating simplex. The same operation
done with a handset, in full duplex mode, it highly distracting and
sometimes confusing.

If you want innovation in this area, consider adding a typical mobile
radio microphone to a cell phone, add a loudspeaker, set it up for
simplex, and maybe the mythical accident rate will fall. If not, I
can probably arrange the statistics to demonstrate that it will.

For texting, I had a recent bad experience. I was the passenger in a
car where the driver was getting "notifications" continuously roughly
twice per minute. The phone would make an obnoxious noise when they
arrived. He just couldn't resist the temptation to look at his phone
and see what had just arrived. I mentioned it to him, and was
ignored. There was no interactive texting or chat session, but plenty
of approximately 3 second distractions. That's enough for an
accident. Fortunately, there were none, although I was tempted to
kiss the ground as I exited the vehicle.

Note, I'm not addressing Texting... that's not a
'distraction', it is literally a separate task from driving and I
would expect properly done research would show it's in a whole
different class of hazards from talking on a phone. But that's just
an expectation.

Yep. You got it. The smartphone has an accelerometer and can easily
tell when it's moving. Buffer incoming texts and block the keyboard
while the phone is moving. End of problem (until it's hacked).

Apps are already available but it really should be built into the
phone firmwa
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=no%20text%20while%20driving%20app&c=apps




--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

ceg writes:

The paradox is that cellphone ownership skyrocketed in the past few years
in the USA, while accidents continued on the *same steady decline* that
they had been on for decades.

Here's a hint:

cell phone ownership IS NOT EQUAL TO cell phone usage while driving

--
Dan Espen

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:14:45 -0500, ceg wrote:



PARADOX 2: If 98.5% of the drivers are already such responsible users of
cellphones, then why the need for the laws that penalize cellphone use
while driving?

Because there's no end of people who think they should tell others how
to
live their lives. Mandatory wiper laws are an example. I guess there are
still people who think living isn't terminal.
This http://tinyurl.com/qclh5gg leads to the Carpe Diem site.
It talks about a woman who successfully challenged Mississippi's Board
of Cosmetology. They required 18 months of schooling for people who
wanted to braid hair professionally.



--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 7:10:02 PM UTC-4, Muggles wrote:


I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.


I think you're lost in space again. Listening to music doesn't
require your concentration, you're paying attention to every word,
so you can understand what the person on the phone is saying.
It also doesn't require typing in numbers, looking up numbers
in directories, responding because it's suddenly ringing and it
may be your boss, texting, etc.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:58:37 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:38:06 +0100, Gareth Magennis wrote:

QUOTE:
In 2014, 1.5 per cent of car drivers in England were observed using a
hand-held mobile phone whilst driving. This is similar to the 1.4 per
cent of car drivers in England observed using a hand-held mobile phone
in 2009 and is not a statistically significant change.
UNQUOTE.

I only mention the USA accident *rate* because we have *reliable* numbers
for the USA, both prior and during the skyrocketing cellphone ownership
rates in the USA.

Do we have reliable accident rate figures for the UK to see if the
cellphone paradox applies to the UK as much as it does to the USA?


Speaking of the UK, they did a study of the influence of speed cameras
(they have a LOT of them) on accidents and it showed that where there
were cameras that statistically the accidents INCREASED. They
attempted to bury the report. It was eventually released but
uniformly ignored by those in power. Further proof, as if more was
needed, that speed cameras are for revenue, not safety.

On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 3:55:34 PM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 4:50:14 PM UTC-4, Gareth Magennis wrote:
"ceg" wrote in message ...

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:38:06 +0100, Gareth Magennis wrote:

QUOTE:
In 2014, 1.5 per cent of car drivers in England were observed using a
hand-held mobile phone whilst driving. This is similar to the 1.4 per
cent of car drivers in England observed using a hand-held mobile phone
in 2009 and is not a statistically significant change.
UNQUOTE.

I only mention the USA accident *rate* because we have *reliable* numbers
for the USA, both prior and during the skyrocketing cellphone ownership
rates in the USA.

Do we have reliable accident rate figures for the UK to see if the
cellphone paradox applies to the UK as much as it does to the USA?



Are you not missing the point?

The UK figures seem to suggest that "skyrocketing mobile phone ownership"
does not actually mean that more people are using their phones whilst
driving.

After all, everyone has one now, surely.


Gareth.


IDK what the experience in the UK has been. But I do think
everyone here would agree that in the USA, since the introduction
of cell phones, there has been a large increase in the number
of people using them in cars. So much so, that many states have
made it illegal, including here and I still see plenty of people
doing it. So, I think that premise that CEG's reasoning is
based on is valid.

Since it's illegal in many states drive text and talk , people are going to "LIE" about the cause of an accident unless the police confiscate all cell phones after an accident and examine them and the driver's cell phone records. Statistics are only valid based on the accuracy of the data. Think global warming. 8-)

[8~{} Uncle Text Monster

On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 7:08:22 PM UTC-4, ceg wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 13:42:28 -0700, trader_4 wrote:

As I and others have said, it could be that other causes of accidents eg
drunk driving, have been going DOWN. We know the number of deaths due to
drunk driving have been cut by half. It's reasonable to assume that
there are also a lot more non-fatal accidents that have also been
eliminated. It could be changes in what gets reported and what
doesn't. Were the standards of reporting, the methods the same in all
states, over all those years? It seems the census folks have concerns
about something there, with the warning about year to year comparisons.

It could be a *lot* of things, I agree.
Hence the paradox.


Nice edit job, where you ignored where I showed you that you're
continued statement that accidents have been going down for years
is wrong and also where the census bureau folks that you cite say
that trying to compare data from year to year "should be done with caution".

Looks like you're not interested in the actual facts, just repeating
the alleged "paradox"

Here is what I posted again:

For someone so concerned about what's going on, seems you haven't really
spent much time looking at the data yourself, even though you dumped
the unanalyzed, raw data links on us. From your very first link:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/stat...es/12s1103.pdf

In 1995 there were 10.7 mil accidents, in 2009 there were 10.8 mil.
That isn't going down, down, down.

They also state:

"Data are estimated. Year-to-year comparisons should be made with caution."

Which may explain why with the number mostly steady at about 10.7 mil
from 1995 to 2009, there is a one time huge jump up to 13.4 mil in 2000.
In other words, given that disclaimer, we really don't know the accuracy
of the data set.

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Police and fire do not "type" on their mobile terminals. Most are set
to not allow input while moving. They also do not talk all day on the
radio. Just listen on a scanner and see how often someone actually
talks while moving. It's rare and maybe once per WEEK per officer at
most. Only in hot pursuit will they talk while moving. If there are
two officers in the car, the passenger will do the talking.

Around here, it is routine to see two officers in the car. When they
are not on their way to a call, one officer is driving while the second
officer is typing every license plate he sees into the terminal and
running plates as fast as he can in hopes of finding a car with
outstanding warrants. There is a very distinct division of tasks.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:24:42 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 11:32:55 -0400, micky wrote:
Why is that a paradox?

I thought the paradox was clear by my Fermi Paradox example.

Think again. The Fermi Paradox is better stated as:
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Much of this has its basis in theology where wrestling over the
existence of God is an international sport. A more simplistic version
is that you can't prove anything with nothing as evidence.

The corollary also doesn't work whe
"Quantity of evidence is not evidence of quantity".
In other words, just because you have a large pile of numbers, doesn't
mean you can prove a large number of things.

The problem is that the "Fermi Paradox" is the logic sucks.

"The great Enrico Fermi proposed the following paradox. Given
the size of the universe and evidence of intelligent life on
Earth making it non-zero probability for intelligent life
elsewhere, how come have we not been visited by aliens? Where
is everybody?, he asked."

No matter how minute the probability of such life, the size
should bring the probability to 1. (In fact we should have
been visited a high number of times: see the Kolmogorov and
Borel zero-one laws.)

So, what's missing? Well, it's time or rather how many solar
revolutions a civilization can exist without destroying itself or
having some cosmic catastrophe do it for them. The details are worked
out in the Drake Equation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
which computes the probability of two civilizations coming into
contact. If you happen to be a pessimist, and use pessimistic
probabilities, the probability might as well be zero. Inflating the
statistical population to astronomical proportions does nothing to
change the probabilities and certainly will not result in a 100%
chance of an alien encounter.




--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Per ceg:
Where are all the accidents?

How about under reporting?

How could cell phone-generated accidents get into the system as such?

Guy I used to windsurf with bought the farm a couple of years ago when a
guy in an F-150 drove into him from the back at highway speed (i.e.
50-60 mph).

He was riding on a wide shoulder, bright clear day, no intersections.

I have a hard time imagining that the guy who killed him told the
investigating officer "Yeah, I was just so into this (cell phone
conversation/text message/email) that I drifted on to the shoulder and
drove right into the victim."

Same with the buy who almost got me on the Atlantic City Expressway a
couple years ago: I'm running the right lane, guy in the left lane just
starts drifting into me and I can see him holding something in one hand
and poking his finger at it with the other hand (steering with his
knees?).... I took the shoulder and avoided contact - but if there had
been an accident I would not have expected the other driver to 'fess up.

Same with the guy in a pickup truck that almost nailed me on my bike
several years ago. I was riding on a very large cross-hatched (no
cars) area. I saw him coming - intent on *something* between his
knees... I zigged, he didn't zag and then he drove right through the
space I was occupying... never looked up. If I had woken up dead that
day, I am pretty sure he would have some other explanation than "I was
absorbed in my cell phone".

And then there is the Canadian study that equated driving while talking
on a cell phone with some level of alcohol intoxication....
--
Pete Cresswell

On 16 Aug 2015 20:42:19 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Around here, it is routine to see two officers in the car. When they
are not on their way to a call, one officer is driving while the second
officer is typing every license plate he sees into the terminal and
running plates as fast as he can in hopes of finding a car with
outstanding warrants. There is a very distinct division of tasks.
--scott

Sounds like New Yuck City. You must live in a technically
impoverished area. Even the local fast food restaurants now have
license plate readers. The technology is quite common on the left
coast:
https://www.google.com/search?q=automatic+license+plate+recognition+syste m&tbm=isch
http://www.licenseplatesrecognition.com/how-lpr-works.html
http://www.licenseplaterecognition.com
http://elsag.com/licenseplatereader.htm
http://www.theiacp.org/ALPR
etc... Even cheap security cameras have a headlight blocking featu
http://www.cctvcamerapros.com/License-Plate-Capture-Cameras-s/283.htm

Are you sure the second officer is typing in license plates and not
updating his Facebook page?

"Don't worry about the radios. We can always use Twitter for
dispatch"
(Don't ask me who said that).

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Per ceg:
Overall accident statistics for the USA are very reliable, since they are
reported by police, insurance companies, and by individuals.

Am I the only one that sees a non-sequitur in that statement?

I'm thinking it's somewhere in he
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

But I'm haven't drunk enough coffee lately to find it.
--
Pete Cresswell

On 08/16/2015 12:58 PM, trader_4 wrote:

[snip]

I don't think that's true and I believe studies have shown it.
Here is a simple example of why. When the person is in the car,
and all of a sudden you're at a dangerous intersection or someone
is stepping out in the street, they can see it. The can also see
that your attention has shifted. When you're on the phone they
are immune to any of that and don't know what's going on, so they
keep talking.

That's true. There's also the tendency to imagine you're where the
person you're talking to is. With the phone, that's not in your vehicle
and it takes too long to shift attention.

[snip]

--
"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to
the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth." -- Pierre
Abelard

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

On 8/16/2015 7:10 PM, Muggles wrote:


I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.


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.

In sci.electronics.repair, on Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:24:42 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 11:32:55 -0400, micky wrote:

Yet, the paradox remains because actual accident statistics are
*extremely reliable*.

Why is that a paradox?

I thought the paradox was clear by my Fermi Paradox example.

Do you remember the Fermi Paradox?

No, I don't.

As I recall, a bunch of rocket scientists were making the assumption
before lunch that aliens must exist, when, all of a sudden, Fermi, over
lunch, realized belatedly that if they do exist, then there must be some
"signal" (or evidence) from them.

Enrico Fermi said that? Because it's not true. Until humans on earth
invented radio, less than 200 years ago, there were no signals from us.

And none of our radio waves have reached places 200 light years away or
more even now.

Plus there are animals living in the woods and rivers and oceans and on
mountains and underground that people who never go to those places never
see and only know about because others have told them. If others didn't
tell them, they wouldn't know. If the animals there are sending out
signals, they are short distance signals and they don't reach me.

That evidence didn't exist.
Hence the paradox.

It's the same concept here.

1. We all assume cellphone use while driving is distracting.
2. We then assume that distracted driving causes accidents.
3. But, the belated realization is that there is no evidence supporting
this assumption in the total accident statistics (which are reliable).

Even worse, if we believe the studies and the (clearly flawed) statistics
on cellphone use while driving, that just makes the paradox WORSE!

If cellphone use is so distractingly dangerous, why isn't it *causing*
more accidents?

That's the paradox.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:47:34 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 22:49:38 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

Overall accident statistics for the USA are very reliable, since they are
reported by police, insurance companies, and by individuals.

Most people lie on accident reports to avoid potential complications
with insurance payments. For example, few will admit that it was
their fault when the traffic policeman is standing there just waiting
for a confession and to deliver an expensive ticket.

Anecdote time. While going to medical skool, a doctor friend worked
in the coroners office of a large city. Like all large cities, the
coroners office had a steady stream of deadbeats, bums, winos, and
homeless that arrived without the benefit of medical attention and
records. Not wanting to spend the money on an autopsy and a medical
examiner, they quietly guessed at the cause of death with fairly good
accuracy. However, after a few embarrassing mistakes, that was deemed
unacceptable. Causes unknown were also not a viable option. So, they
inscribed "heart failure" on all such cases, which was certainly true,
but not necessarily the cause of death. That actually worked well for
a few years, until someone ran statistics on what appeared to be a
heart disease epidemic centered in this large city. The city now
requires either an attending physician report or a mandatory autopsy.

While I'm not in a position to prove or demonstrate this, I think
you'll find that such "accident" reports are highly opinionated, are
skewed in the direction of smallest settlements, and are rarely
corrected.

The numbers are high enough, and consistent enough, to make the error
only a very small percentage.

Right. Big numbers are more accurate.

The theory is that given a sufficiently large number of independent
studies, the errors will be equally distributed on both sides of a
desired result, and therefore cancel. That has worked well for global
warming predictions. Unfortunately, the studies have to be
independent to qualify and does not work at reducing the distribution
in a single study.

You won't get *better* data that the census bureau data on accidents in
the USA by state - and none are showing what we'd expect.

OMG! Do you really trust the government to do anything correctly? I
wish I had your confidence and less personal experience. I'll spare
you another anecdote illustrating the problem at the city level.

Hence the paradox.
Where are the accidents?

Ok, think about it. You've just crashed your car into an immovable
object while texting. You're still conscious and on an adrenalin
high. The police are on their way and the last thing you need is for
them to find your smartphone on the floor of the vehicle. So, you
make a phone call to your wife telling her you'll be late for dinner
and by the way, you've decided to buy her a new car. The police walk
up, ask you a few questions, and notice you talking on the cell phone.
If you're cooperative, nothing happens. If you're a total jerk, the
mention the cell phone in their report, and you get nailed for
possibly talking/texting while driving. You're screwed if they
confiscate the phone for forensic analysis or request a call record
from you provider.

In short, the statisics are where they want them. If there's a
political or financial benefit to showing huge numbers of talk/text
driving accidents, they will magically appear. If they thing that
nobody really cares about the numbers, you will have a difficult time
finding them. If the numbers accumulate some academic interest, you
will see the same wrong information repeated endlessly in statistical
surveys and college dissertations. Everyone lies, but that's ok
because nobody listens. Incidentally, 87.3% of all statistics are
fabricated for the occasion.

You've missed the point. All those things you raise may well be true
but they were just as true before there were cell phones. The mix of
truth and lies in accident reports goes on but one key thing continues
and that is that virtually ALL significant accidents, certainly those
society might want to concern itself with, are REPORTED and go into
the statistics of HOW MANY accidents. Yeah, the listed causes might
be lies or honest mistakes but the NUMBERS are reported consistently
year after year after year. And its the NUMBERS of accidents ceg is
talking about as the data set, not the CAUSE that's listed. So we
know that the NUMBER of accidents, rate actually, the normalized
number, has steadily been going down down down.

Yet there are people claiming that a NEW and HORRIBLY DANGEROUS CAUSE
of accidents has been unleashed into the driving world, the Cell
Phone. We can't argue with the fact that over the past two decades
MILIIONS AND MILLLIONS of cell phones wound up in the hands of and
used by drivers, that's just a fact. But if all those cell phones are
REALLY this horribly DANGERIOUS ACCIDENT CAUSING instrument, WHERE ARE
THE ACCIDENTS????

In sci.electronics.repair, on Sun, 16 Aug 2015 17:52:04 -0700, Jeff
Liebermann wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:24:42 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 11:32:55 -0400, micky wrote:
Why is that a paradox?

I thought the paradox was clear by my Fermi Paradox example.

Think again. The Fermi Paradox is better stated as:
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Much of this has its basis in theology where wrestling over the
existence of God is an international sport. A more simplistic version
is that you can't prove anything with nothing as evidence.

The corollary also doesn't work whe
"Quantity of evidence is not evidence of quantity".
In other words, just because you have a large pile of numbers, doesn't
mean you can prove a large number of things.

The problem is that the "Fermi Paradox" is the logic sucks.

"The great Enrico Fermi proposed the following paradox. Given
the size of the universe and evidence of intelligent life on
Earth making it non-zero probability for intelligent life
elsewhere, how come have we not been visited by aliens? Where
is everybody?, he asked."

No matter how minute the probability of such life, the size
should bring the probability to 1. (In fact we should have

The thing is that probabilty on a yes or no question is only valuable
for betting parlors and insurance brokers, which are really the same
thing. One may thing the probability is very high, because there are
so many places life could be, but if there is no life beyond the earth,
it doesn't matter what the probability WAS.

It is partly tied up with theology, iiuc, in that some believers in God
want to believe that this earth is his only creation. I don't know why
they would think that either.

Another problem, IMO, is that scientists, as reported by the news, seem
to think life could only be water based, and seem to discount places
without water. . I know water has advantages, but it's not the only
possibility.

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if there were no life anywhere else.
There are cerrtainly lots of places beyond earth with no life, so why
not more.

OTOH, if there is life, I see no special reason they would have a radio
transmitter. Until I got a cell phone, I didn't have one.


been visited a high number of times: see the Kolmogorov and
Borel zero-one laws.)

So, what's missing? Well, it's time or rather how many solar
revolutions a civilization can exist without destroying itself or
having some cosmic catastrophe do it for them. The details are worked
out in the Drake Equation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
which computes the probability of two civilizations coming into
contact. If you happen to be a pessimist, and use pessimistic
probabilities, the probability might as well be zero. Inflating the
statistical population to astronomical proportions does nothing to
change the probabilities and certainly will not result in a 100%
chance of an alien encounter.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 21:05:33 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per ceg:
Overall accident statistics for the USA are very reliable, since they are
reported by police, insurance companies, and by individuals.

Am I the only one that sees a non-sequitur in that statement?

I'm thinking it's somewhere in he
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

But I'm haven't drunk enough coffee lately to find it.


No non-sequitur. The statistics ARE reliable as a year to year
measure. That an individual report may have errors is unquestionably
true. But the only number of significance is simply the NUMBER of
REPROTED accidents, not the accuracy of the little details of the
reports. If Officer Odie is dyslexic and instead of Hwy 52 MP 429 he
puts Hwy 25 MP 249 the report will be off by perhaps hundreds of miles
but that ACCIDENT occurred and it is included as part of the Total
number of accidents that go into the rate. Unless you want to make an
argument that there is some systemic problem where the same accidents
are getting reported multiple times for almost every jurisdiction in a
state or that the dog is eating the reports before they are filed I
don't see any reason to challenge the basic accident rates as accurate
enough for this discussion.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 23:25:35 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:10:06 -0500, Muggles wrote:

I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.

If that is the case, that cellphone usage is *not* distracting, then,
instantly, that would *solve* the paradox.

But, then, how do we reconcile that observation with the fact that
(unnamed) "studies show" that cellphone use is "as distracting as
driving drunkly"?

The *new* paradox looms - which is - if cellphone use isn't distracting,
then why do "studies show" that it *is* distracting (as drunk driving)?


I've elaborated on that very question earlier in this thread. The
short version is that most of the 'studies' are crap designed to prove
cell phones are dangerous thru a variety of nonsensical study
protocols. You want to prove pianos are dangerous? Do a study where
one person puts their head under the upraised and held in place by the
stick "hood" of the piano then simulate a magnitude 6 earthquake.
You'll find pianos to be quite dangerous.


Nothing makes sense in all these arguments.
There is very little intelligent discussion.

So, maybe the solution to the paradox is, as you said, "it really
doesn't matter" whether someone is using the phone while driving,
or not, with respect to accident rates in the USA???

But that flies against "common wisdom".

On 16 Aug 2015 19:54:01 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

ceg wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:10:06 -0500, Muggles wrote:

I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.

If that is the case, that cellphone usage is *not* distracting, then,
instantly, that would *solve* the paradox.

It's true, playing music can be pretty distracting. It isn't normally,
but sometimes it can be.

But, then, how do we reconcile that observation with the fact that
(unnamed) "studies show" that cellphone use is "as distracting as
driving drunkly"?

Well, around here, driving drunkly was common and normal behaviour for
a large segment of the population thirty years ago, and now it isn't.
Perhaps as a hazard it has disappeared and been replaced with texting
while driving instead.

The *new* paradox looms - which is - if cellphone use isn't distracting,
then why do "studies show" that it *is* distracting (as drunk driving)?

Nothing makes sense in all these arguments.
There is very little intelligent discussion.

This is true, because there is very little actual data. So an intelligent
discussion is pretty much impossible.
--scott

No, there is a LOT of data. And contrary to the theorizing of the
alarmists, there is no REAL WORLD evidence that the literal explosion
of cell phone use has caused even a blip in accident rates. A few
anecdotes of 'I saw Santa on his cell phone and he drove his sleigh
right into the side of the chimney" don't prove that cell phones are
some special case of distraction that should be outlawed while we
still allow the carrying of chatty passengers, the eating of food, the
application of lipstick, and the fiddling with CDs and MP3 players.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 22:21:39 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 8/16/2015 7:10 PM, Muggles wrote:


I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.


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.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 01:10:23 -0500, ceg wrote:

The cellphone paradox - where are all the accidents?

The Fermi Paradox is essentially a situation where we "assume" something
that "seems obvious"; but, if that assumption is true, then something
else
"should" be happening. But it's not.

Hence, the paradox.

Same thing with the cellphone (distracted-driving) paradox.

Where are all the accidents?

They don't seem to exist.
At least not in the United States.
Not by the federal government's own accident figures.

1. Current Census, Transportation: Motor Vehicle Accidents and Fatalities
http://www.census.gov/compendia/stat...atalities.html

2. Motor Vehicle Accidents€”Number and Deaths: 1990 to 2009
http://www.census.gov/compendia/stat...es/12s1103.pdf

3. Motor Vehicle Crash Deaths in Metropolitan Areas €” United States, 2009
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a2.htm

If you have more complete government tables for "accidents" (not deaths,
but "ACCIDENTS"), please post them since the accidents don't seem to
exist
but, if cellphone distracted driving is hazardous (which I would think it
is), then they must be there, somewhere, hidden in the data.

Such is the cellphone paradox.


Mythbusters on the Science Channel just aired a test of hands free
vs. hands on cell phone
use while driving. All but one test subject failed their simulator test
either by crashing or getting lost.
Thirty people took the test. The show aired 9:30 CDT on August 16.

--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 23:01:29 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 14:04:23 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

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.

I agree with you that the studies that show distracted driving to be
tremendously dangerous *must* be flawed, for a bunch of reasons, but, one
of them is that it just makes the paradox *worse*!

Let's assume, for a moment, that driving while distracted by cellphone
use *is* as dangerous as the studies show.

Well then, the spike in accidents, as you noted, should at least be
*visible* (it should actually be tremendously visible!).

But it's not.
Hence the paradox.
Where are the accidents?

From my standpoint, there are essentially no new accidents. One
distraction has replaced another. It's even possible that people who
in the past would have fallen asleep did not today because they were
on their cell phone and that engagement kept them awake. But no one
knows.... How do you quantify and categorize accidents that didn't
happen?

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 17:05:28 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 8/16/2015 9:59 AM, 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?


What percentage of those accidents are phone related?
Accidents may be down, but take out cellphone related instances and they
may have gone down another 10% or 20%

And if everyone had DRL's accidents would be reduced another 30%. And
if everyone had ABS another 25%. And if everyone had drivers Ed,
another 10%. And if tire laws were more stringent we could reduce
accidents another 15% and if every state had mandatory inspections
another 10%. By the time we get done with all our "improvements" we
won't need to manufacture new cars, the accident rate will be negative
and new cars will be spontaneously popping out of the road.

On 8/16/2015 6:25 PM, ceg wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:10:06 -0500, Muggles wrote:

I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.

If that is the case, that cellphone usage is *not* distracting, then,
instantly, that would *solve* the paradox.

But, then, how do we reconcile that observation with the fact that
(unnamed) "studies show" that cellphone use is "as distracting as
driving drunkly"?

What if the same character flaw exists in people that not only
contributes to them being drunk drives, but also contributes to being
more easily distracted while driving?



--
Maggie

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 22:58:30 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 17:05:28 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

What percentage of those accidents are phone related?
Accidents may be down, but take out cellphone related instances and they
may have gone down another 10% or 20%

That may very well be the case, but taking a look at the numbers, the
accidents seem to be *steadily* decreasing.

It would be nice though, to see two reliable charts plotted on top of
each other.

1. Total accidents in the USA from the 50s to now, versus,
2. Total cellphone ownership in the USA over those same years.

From 1985 to 2010 there are roughly 1000 times more cell phones. If
in your morning commute in 1985 you were endangered on your 20 mile
commute by 5 people with car phones, by 2010 you would be endangered
by 5000 people with them. The roads should be awash in blood.

But lets talk in terms of something more visible. If the same ratio
is applied to those truck tires that fly apart, if in 1985 you saw a
truck tire fly apart once in a YEAR, in 2010 you would be seeing over
2 of them fly apart EVERY DAY.


http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933563.html

1985 340,213
1986 681,825
1987 1,230,855
1988 2,069,441
1989 3,508,944
1990 5,283,055
1991 7,557,148
1992 11,032,753
1993 16,009,461
1994 24,134,421
1995 33,758,661
1996 44,042,992
1997 55,312,293
1998 69,209,321
1999 86,047,003
2000 109,478,031
2001 128,374,512
2002 140,766,842
2003 158,721,981
2004 182,140,362
2005 207,896,198
2006 233,000,000
2008 262,700,000
2009 276,610,580
2010 300,520,098

On 8/16/2015 7:34 PM, trader_4 wrote:
On Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 7:10:02 PM UTC-4, Muggles wrote:


I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.


I think you're lost in space again. Listening to music doesn't
require your concentration, you're paying attention to every word,
so you can understand what the person on the phone is saying.
It also doesn't require typing in numbers, looking up numbers
in directories, responding because it's suddenly ringing and it
may be your boss, texting, etc.


What about talking to passengers in a car? If listening to music isn't
considered to be a distraction, then talking to passengers wouldn't be
considered to be a distraction, either, correct? Or, some may say all
of those things are distractions, so then why would talking on a
cellphone be any more or less a distraction than the others things I listed?

My comment said, "I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing
music might be."

Many people have adapted to multitasking. Driving in an act of
multitasking all by itself.

Any distraction is only significant if the one dealing with the
distraction is not adept at multitasking, or they've added some sort of
impairment to their ability to pay attention.

--
Maggie

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 23:14:45 +0000 (UTC), ceg
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 21:50:10 +0100, Gareth Magennis wrote:

The UK figures seem to suggest that "skyrocketing mobile phone
ownership" does not actually mean that more people are using
their phones whilst driving.

After all, everyone has one now, surely.

In the USA, I would agree that almost every driver has one, and, in fact,
there are usually as many cellphones in the vehicle as there are kids and
adults over the age of about middle school.

In fact, with tablets and cameras and gps devices also abounding, the
number of "distracting" electronic devices probably exceeds the number of
occupants in the car, such that we can consider 100% to be a somewhat
conservative number (counted as the number of devices per vehicle).

So, it's no wonder that, after almost every accident that the police
investigate, they can confidently check the convenient box for "was a
cellphone found in the vehicle?".

So, what you're saying is that only a small percentage of people who
*own* the cellphones are actually *using* them while driving.

If this is the case, then that might solve the paradox.

Q: Where are the accidents?
A: They don't exist
Q: Why not?
A: Because only a small percentage of people are dumb enough to cause an
accident by using their cellphone while driving.

But, if that is true (and it might be), then why bother with a *law* if
people are *already* so very responsible such that 98.5% of them wouldn't
think of using their cellphone while driving?

That then becomes the second paradox?

PARADOX 2: If 98.5% of the drivers are already such responsible users of
cellphones, then why the need for the laws that penalize cellphone use
while driving?


That's easy.
1) the world is full of control freaks that live for ways to make
other people toe the line (usually arbitrarily drawn) whether those
other people need to or not.
2) Gvt wants as many laws as it can possibly have regardless of need.
That is clear by the fact that they add thousands of laws while at
the same time eliminating virtually no law no matter how antiquated
and inapplicable it is to modern society.

You see it in the newsgroups all the time. Someone "thinks" X is bad
and wants to make it illegal. They have ZERO data showing it's bad
but they are sure it is and that's all they need to criminalize it.
These same moronic nanny's are the same kind of people who love to get
elected to home owners associations and gvt.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:21:02 -0500, "Dean Hoffman"
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:14:45 -0500, ceg wrote:



PARADOX 2: If 98.5% of the drivers are already such responsible users of
cellphones, then why the need for the laws that penalize cellphone use
while driving?

Because there's no end of people who think they should tell others how
to
live their lives. Mandatory wiper laws are an example. I guess there are
still people who think living isn't terminal.
This http://tinyurl.com/qclh5gg leads to the Carpe Diem site.
It talks about a woman who successfully challenged Mississippi's Board
of Cosmetology. They required 18 months of schooling for people who
wanted to braid hair professionally.

Gee, 18 months hardly seems like enough....

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:34:59 -0400, Hang Up and Drive
wrote:

Here you go, found some accidents for you:

Cell phone use is now estimated to be involved in 26 percent of all motor vehicle crashes – up from the previous year

http://www.nsc.org/Pages/NSC-release...d-trends-.aspx

http://www.nsc.org/learn/NSC-Initiat...h-studies.aspx

The first link is fact free fluff.

Here's all you need to know about the second, a quote from one of
their studies...

"Effects of phone use on driving performance when drivers are in their
own vehicles are unknown. "

That's right, they have ZERO idea whether the research even models the
REAL WORLD. ALL they know is in UNreal fake scenarios you can get
people to do the wrong thing when that's what you set out to find.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 20:12:35 -0400, Dan Espen wrote:

The Fermi Paradox is about "absence of evidence for extraterrestrial
intelligence".

This "cellphone paradox" is similar in that there seems to be
an absence of evidence of actual accident rates going up.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 17:52:04 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Think again. The Fermi Paradox is better stated as:
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

I don't disagree.

The absence of evidence of cellphone use causing accidents is
not evidence of absence.

I don't disagree.

Yet, it's still a paradox because common wisdom would
dictate that accidents *must* be going up (but they're
not).

Hence the paradox.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:47:34 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

While I'm not in a position to prove or demonstrate this, I think
you'll find that such "accident" reports are highly opinionated, are
skewed in the direction of smallest settlements, and are rarely
corrected.

I think *some* statistics regarding car accidents *are* skewed,
and, in particular, any statistic that assigns a partial cause
to the fact that a cellphone was in the vehicle.

It's sort of like when they find an empty beer bottle in the
vehicle, they may ascribe it to an "alcohol" related category.

The problem here is that *every* car in the USA (well, almost
every car) has at least one cellphone per person over the age
of about 15.

So, *every* accident can easily be ascribed to the category
of "cellphone" related.

However, if we just look at actual accident numbers, I think those
are very good statistics, because they accidents are easy to
accurately report.

1. Police are required to report them when they are involved,
2. Insurance companies probably report them when a claim is made,
3. Drivers are required to report them in most states, etc.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:47:34 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

OMG! Do you really trust the government to do anything correctly? I
wish I had your confidence and less personal experience. I'll spare
you another anecdote illustrating the problem at the city level.

You'll note that I *asked* for better data, but nobody (yet) has
provided better accident statistics than what the government shows.

One person provided a statistic from the UK which showed that
cellphone *use* was extremely low in UK drivers, but nothing more
than that has been provided.

I'm not afraid of data. But nobody seems to have better data than
what I found.

One person noted that the accidents in a few years didn't go down
(they were flat), but nobody can show reliable data yet that the
accidents are going up.

So, the paradox remains.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:47:34 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Ok, think about it. You've just crashed your car into an immovable
object while texting. You're still conscious and on an adrenalin
high. The police are on their way and the last thing you need is for
them to find your smartphone on the floor of the vehicle.

This scenario is already well accounted for.

It would show up in the total accident statistic.

So we already accounted for this scenario before we even started
this thread as it's counted in the government statistics already.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 21:05:33 -0400, (PeteCresswell) wrote:

Am I the only one that sees a non-sequitur in that statement?

I'm thinking it's somewhere in he
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

But I'm haven't drunk enough coffee lately to find it.

I asked for *better* statistics, but, so far, nobody has shown
any.

I'm not afraid of data.

But, what I found is apparently the best we have for total
accidents, year over year, in the USA.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 20:17:06 -0400, Dan Espen wrote:

cell phone ownership IS NOT EQUAL TO cell phone usage while driving

You'll notice that I have been very careful to distinguish
between the two words:
1. Ownership, and,
2. Usage.

The *assumption* is that greater ownership means greater usage, but,
someone already posted a UK statistic which refutes that fact.

That statistic, as I recall, was something like only 1.5% of the
population were dumb****s that drove while using the cellphone.

So, it may just be that the dumb****s who cause accidents are dumb****s
who cause accidents no matter what. If it isn't a cellphone, it would
be something else.

At least that explanation would solve the paradox.