This Texting While Driving is really starting to get to me!

[ninjabread]

As a libertarian, I don't want to see laws dictating exactly what you do. I do not want to see laws against texting and driving. What I do want to see is people who injure others because they are obsessed with their phones charged with assault. We do it for drunks, why not for someone who injures/kills because they couldn't put their phone down? If it can be proven that you injured/killed someone because you were intentionally ignoring everything around you, there should be consequences!

Why should it matter if the distraction is a phone? Is the victim hurt any less if the distracted driver was reckless because they were putting on makeup, yelling at their kids in the back seat, entering a license plate into their MDT, rubbernecking, et cetra?

[treadlightly]

I'm not saying punctuality isn't a hallmark of a productive person, but on the other hand every time a manager is hard on someone for showing up late, it's a little vote for more multitasking behind the wheel.

Or maybe just set the alarm 5 minutes earlier?

We're all adults... by the time you are gainfully employed, you know (or should know) how to be on time. Besides, the vast majority of people aren't "working" on their phone. They could show up a few minutes early and text a bit before clocking in, or while waiting for the meeting to start.

Blaming your boss for multitasking while driving to work has nothing to do with the price of tea in China.

Well, the pace of life is sometimes unsympathetic. If I have services down when a conference call is scheduled, you can bet my focus is on what counts and that is on customer facing services. That can throw me late, and I know it sometimes throws others late to my presentations. I always remember the guy walking in late may be a slacker or he may have worked harder to get to my presentation than I did. With the people I work with, it's much more likely to be the latter.

As for me, personally, I'm an IT teleworker. I don't drive to work. I walk about 15 feet from my bedroom to my adjacent office. Why, you might ask, do I have it so easy when you have to contend with people blaming their bosses for the texting they are doing while they threaten to swap paint with you?

I credit time management skills. What others do in hours, I do in minutes. I work my shift and then study and work on what I call skunk projects. These are programming tasks my manager would likely not approve, but once completed off the company clock are expected to make our operations more efficient.

And I have a quick parable to illustrate. An executive officer, a network technician, a project manager, an applications developer, and a systems admin walk into a bar.

Fine, let 'em booze it up. I can do all their jobs. At least those portions of their jobs I wouldn't just automate.

[WTR]

Texting while driving is the poster boy for distracted driving at the moment. However, any type of distraction while driving is just as dangerous.

[nightmare69]

It's scary seeing someone texting on loop 410 in San Antonio while driving 90mph. Last time I was on that loop is was bumper to bumper green flag racing and people will still play with their phone.

[The Annoyed Man]

This issue is personal to me.

In September of last year, my daughter and granddaughter were rear ended by someone who was (admittedly) texting. The lady who hit her and her 14 year old child special needs child were both life flighted from the scene. Four months later (January of this year), my wife was broad sided (at 60+ mph) on the driver's side. The girl who hit her was checking her facebook post when she blasted through the red light. The girl who hit her got a helicopter ride, no longer has a spleen, and has had multiple orthopedic surgeries. (Thank God and Volvo, all of my family members are OK)

As a libertarian, I don't want to see laws dictating exactly what you do. I do not want to see laws against texting and driving. What I do want to see is people who injure others because they are obsessed with their phones charged with assault. We do it for drunks, why not for someone who injures/kills because they couldn't put their <darn> phone down? If it can be proven that you injured/killed someone because you were intentionally ignoring everything around you, there should be consequences! Making the conscious decision to stare at the phone screen is, IMO, just as bad if not worse than deciding to drive after a night of drinking. At least with the drunk, there is a chance that they will see what's going on and react, the person who CHOOSES to stare at the phone sees nothing.

[\rant]

I think that you've hit on something here.....nailing someone on assault charges if their phone use causes injury to someone else. Preemptive enforcement of a texting ban may be problematic, but these days, cellphones are routinely checked after the fact in accident investigations, and because the data is time stamped, it is fairly easy to prove that the phone was in use at a given time.

I agree that personal responsibility has become an uncommon virtue in modern society, but it is never too late to return to teaching it in the schools. The only thing standing in the way of that is the DNC........

[The Annoyed Man]

This issue is personal to me.

In September of last year, my daughter and granddaughter were rear ended by someone who was (admittedly) texting. The lady who hit her and her 14 year old child special needs child were both life flighted from the scene. Four months later (January of this year), my wife was broad sided (at 60+ mph) on the driver's side. The girl who hit her was checking her facebook post when she blasted through the red light. The girl who hit her got a helicopter ride, no longer has a spleen, and has had multiple orthopedic surgeries. (Thank God and Volvo, all of my family members are OK)

As a libertarian, I don't want to see laws dictating exactly what you do. I do not want to see laws against texting and driving. What I do want to see is people who injure others because they are obsessed with their phones charged with assault. We do it for drunks, why not for someone who injures/kills because they couldn't put their <darn> phone down? If it can be proven that you injured/killed someone because you were intentionally ignoring everything around you, there should be consequences! Making the conscious decision to stare at the phone screen is, IMO, just as bad if not worse than deciding to drive after a night of drinking. At least with the drunk, there is a chance that they will see what's going on and react, the person who CHOOSES to stare at the phone sees nothing.

[\rant]

you are contradicting yourself. first you say you don't want to see laws against testing and driving, then you say you want them charged with assault....you have to have laws in order to charge people, so which do you want? Not sounding very libertarian...

SewTexas, I think his point is that it is not necessary to pass additional laws to punish people for assault if they injure someone while texting, and that this would be better than adding new laws to the books to punish a behavior which has the potential to harm, but hasn't YET hurt someone. The former can definitely be enforced. Charles and others with LEO experience have spoken to how UNenforceable the anti-texting law will be. My own view is that if a law is unenforceable, then it has no business being on the books. And I am happy to see someone thrown behind bars on assault or homicide charges if their behavior actually harms someone else. And I agree, BTW, that texting while driving is horribly irresponsible. But then, so is unprotected sex out of wedlock, and we don't lock people up for that either.

[chasfm11]

I have a couple of points.

I put in a 100+mile day last Friday running various family members to medical procedures. I had two red light runners and a stop sign runner to deal with in the course of my day. The previous day, I was stopped at a traffic signal on a 4 lane divided highway, waiting for the light to change. When it did, I counted my ususal "1001,1002" before pressing the accelerator and at that exact instant, heard a very short squeal of brakes and a very loud thud. I looked to my left and there was a car obviously spun around and its rear bumper just a couple of feet from my car. I immediately stopped and dialed 911. As I was assessing the situation, it was pretty clear what had happened. The car with its bumper next to me had run the red light (based on my timing) and a woman her her teenage daughter had slammed into his rear quarter panel with enough force to spin him around. Had the woman not tagged him, he would likely have t-boned me. I contend that it isn't just the texting while driving that people are ignoring but that the overall common sense while driving is deteriorating and that the texting problem is just one symptom.

In regard to detecting people on cell phones (and here, I'm not differentiating between calls and text), I can often pick them out from quite a distance. They are most often driving slower than surrounding traffic and are clearly having problems staying within their lanes. Few roads in my area are straight and there almost always minor adjustments needed to follow the slight lane variations. I can pick out a car doing that a quarter of a mile away. Since they are slower than the surrounding traffic and I try to stay with that, when I do overtake them, I can see them fiddling with an electronic device. I cannot remember the last time when I saw a car displaying those symptoms when some sort of electronic device was not visible. While I admit that some people modify behavior around a police vehicle, I don't believe that the people who are texting and driving are aware enough of their surroundings to do that. My point is that if I can detect those types of distracted drivers, so can LEOs. As a post script, I also watch my mirror and if I see someone behind messing with a cell phone, I change lanes or pull off. Our town very aggressively targets speeders. The same police vehicle driving in the flow of traffic instead of being parked on the side with a radar or laser gun would be able to see what I'm seeing.

[John Galt]

This is one of the reasons that I have dramatically cut back my motorcycle riding.

[Papa_Tiger]

Papa_Tiger,

Please quote me where I said More Laws would be effective to stop texting and driving?

If I did I was wrong.

I want to stop texting and driving, but I don't think I stated new laws about it will suffice.

I think I stated creativity about stopping it. Not new laws.

So, show me where I sponsored new laws and I'll retract that with apologies.

What I see, is passivity i.e. there's nothing to be done, so we can do nothing to stop it.

New laws against it? Pfffsttt. No, of course that won't help, so we have to be creative to stop it...

How is that to be done?

Technology!

Then, when caught, into prison.

You mr/ms texting while driving will go to prison for a minimum of a year in county lock up or maybe 18 months into the big one...

This offense isn't minor....

What law would be used to guarantee a 12-18 month sentence for being caught texting while driving? There aren't any that would apply today to achieve that sentence, so you'd have to add new laws to change or increase punishments... Sounds an awful lot like you are advocating for new laws to me.

How will technology stop this public danger?

It generally requires a government mandate (more laws - or worse, bureaucratic regulations) to get all the manufacturers of a class device onboard with implementing a new technology for safety reasons.

How do you use creativity to force change?

[flechero]

I'm not saying punctuality isn't a hallmark of a productive person, but on the other hand every time a manager is hard on someone for showing up late, it's a little vote for more multitasking behind the wheel.

Or maybe just set the alarm 5 minutes earlier?

We're all adults... by the time you are gainfully employed, you know (or should know) how to be on time. Besides, the vast majority of people aren't "working" on their phone. They could show up a few minutes early and text a bit before clocking in, or while waiting for the meeting to start.

Blaming your boss for multitasking while driving to work has nothing to do with the price of tea in China.

Well, the pace of life is sometimes unsympathetic. If I have services down when a conference call is scheduled, you can bet my focus is on what counts and that is on customer facing services. That can throw me late, and I know it sometimes throws others late to my presentations. I always remember the guy walking in late may be a slacker or he may have worked harder to get to my presentation than I did. With the people I work with, it's much more likely to be the latter.

As for me, personally, I'm an IT teleworker. I don't drive to work. I walk about 15 feet from my bedroom to my adjacent office. Why, you might ask, do I have it so easy when you have to contend with people blaming their bosses for the texting they are doing while they threaten to swap paint with you?

I credit time management skills. What others do in hours, I do in minutes. I work my shift and then study and work on what I call skunk projects. These are programming tasks my manager would likely not approve, but once completed off the company clock are expected to make our operations more efficient.

And I have a quick parable to illustrate. An executive officer, a network technician, a project manager, an applications developer, and a systems admin walk into a bar.

Fine, let 'em booze it up. I can do all their jobs. At least those portions of their jobs I wouldn't just automate.

You are probably like me in that you consider 5-10 minutes early to actually be "on time."

I think the distinction between habitually late (which much of the younger generation is) and being punctual is noteworthy. Someone who is late one day because something big/important/tragic happened is completely excusable and shouldn't be a reflection on their character.

Someone who is always late or always has a crisis of some kind, well... you get my point. Those people are probably texting in the car already and your scolding or a fine won't impact the frequency by much.

Carry on, Sir!

[Charles L. Cotton]

Nightmare69 made a point that I think a lot of people missed. There is a way for LEO's to address the "distraction" problem (I hate typing that!) and it is a citation called "failure to drive in a single marked lane." That requires no proof of cause such as a cell phone, crying kids, spilled coffee, etc. Just write the ticket.

Criminal laws are not going to stop the problem, so please stop calling for more laws. It's a very slippery slope because this whole "distracted driving" topic could well lead to an epidemic of new criminal laws. Drunk driving laws haven't stopped drunks from driving or people getting killed. Reckless endangerment laws haven't stopped parents from leaving their children in hot cars in parking lots. Animal cruelty laws haven't stopped people from leaving dogs to die in hot cars. I could go on and on. These types of criminal laws are largely ineffective because people suffer from "Other Guy Syndrome." "It's going to happen to other people, but not to me! Why further the mindset that every problem can be fixed with a restrictive law or that government can protect us from anything and everything? This is just another version of "safety at any cost, even freedom. Why call for ineffective criminal laws when there is an easy technological fix?

The only answer is technology. Cell phone manufacturers must disable the incoming/outgoing text feature while the unit is moving at a speed greater than X MPH. This has a downside as it will require the GPS to be on all the time which will drain the battery much faster. The manufacturers will have to allow the location feature to be turned off even with the GPS operational so that people cannot be tracked against their will. This is especially for women and high-risk people. It's all a matter of software, so it's not a difficult fix. Folks, PLEASE put down the hammer and pick up a slide rule. (Let's see how many of the youngsters know what that is!)

Chas.

[striker55]

I had purchased a car and not even a week I got rear-ended at a traffic light. The person hitting me was texting, I could see her looking down when she hit me. I motioned to her to pull into a parking lot across the street to exchange info. I went ahead and she made an immediate right and drove down Fry Rd. I chased her for about 2 miles, my brother saw her pull into a gas station and park behind a bush. I pulled in and blocked her car, I then called for a sheriff. Sheriff arrives and I explain what happened, also informed him I was carrying, no problem. He couldn't do anything because she hit me in Harris County and we were now in Ft. Bend. He told us to go back to the scene and he would follow to make sure she didn't take off again. Harris County handled the paperwork, she was a young, cute, female driving on a suspended license and the car was uninsured. I wanted her arrested but they let her go with a ticket and her boyfriend showed up to drive her home. In the end her father paid for the damage in cash.

[mojo84]

I can put my phone in "drive mode" and it will auto respond to the sender with a text telling them I'm driving and will reply soon. This is a manual process I must initiate. The manufactures could make this an automatic process using the already installed technology such as the GPS and accelerometer. Once the phone is moving at a certain rate of speed it could automatically switch into drive mode.

Passengers that are not driving could have a way to override this via a manual process that takes some effort. This would not be 100% effective but would be more effective than making more ineffective laws.

[treadlightly]

Folks, PLEASE put down the hammer and pick up a slide rule. (Let's see how many of the youngsters know what that is!)

Chas.

Slide rules were the primary computational hardware of NASA, the Neanderthal Aeronautics and Space Administration, and were wooden. Whittled down logs, you might say, and very heavy. You couldn't weigh them on bathroom scales. You had to use C and D scales.

They are banned from modern classrooms because of zero tolerance for profanity. No cursors in classrooms. But that's not the root of the problem, it's just a sine of the times.

[Jusme]

Nightmare69 made a point that I think a lot of people missed. There is a way for LEO's to address the "distraction" problem (I hate typing that!) and it is a citation called "failure to drive in a single marked lane." That requires no proof of cause such as a cell phone, crying kids, spilled coffee, etc. Just write the ticket.

Criminal laws are not going to stop the problem, so please stop calling for more laws. It's a very slippery slope because this whole "distracted driving" topic could well lead to an epidemic of new criminal laws. Drunk driving laws haven't stopped drunks from driving or people getting killed. Reckless endangerment laws haven't stopped parents from leaving their children in hot cars in parking lots. Animal cruelty laws haven't stopped people from leaving dogs to die in hot cars. I could go on and on. These types of criminal laws are largely ineffective because people suffer from "Other Guy Syndrome." "It's going to happen to other people, but not to me! Why further the mindset that every problem can be fixed with a restrictive law or that government can protect us from anything and everything? This is just another version of "safety at any cost, even freedom. Why call for ineffective criminal laws when there is an easy technological fix?

The only answer is technology. Cell phone manufacturers must disable the incoming/outgoing text feature while the unit is moving at a speed greater than X MPH. This has a downside as it will require the GPS to be on all the time which will drain the battery much faster. The manufacturers will have to allow the location feature to be turned off even with the GPS operational so that people cannot be tracked against their will. This is especially for women and high-risk people. It's all a matter of software, so it's not a difficult fix. Folks, PLEASE put down the hammer and pick up a slide rule. (Let's see how many of the youngsters know what that is!)

Chas.

The only drawback I see for "disabling" the phone using motion, is that it would also affect passenger's phones. But I agree, that there is probably a way to achieve the cure, with technology.