Driving and Using Your Cell Phone
Reading articles on banning cell phones while driving makes me sick. Here are just a few thoughts:
- Everybody says the cell phone is a distraction while driving. I can think of at least 50 other things/activities while driving that are a distraction. None of those 50 things/activities have been talked about being banned or against the law.
-For a lot of people, being on the phone is absolutely imperative. Lots of those times, the person who absolutely must be using the cell phone, is driving.
-Emergencies happen. Most emergencies are shared with family/friends/coworkers through the use of a cell phone. Many people receive news of emergencies while they are driving.
-Government or State, are you seriously trying to tell me I cannot talk on or text with my cell phone while I am driving my car? L O L @ U. (Laughing out loud at you.) You will never, in any fashion, be able to effectively disable/prevent people from using their cell phone while driving. You have no right to tell a person that they are not allowed to talk to another person while driving a car. That’s complete BS.
Bob Siedel’s post:
“Hands-free cell phones are just as distracting, because although most of us can talk with a phone in one hand while driving with the other, we cannot keep our minds on the road when someone is seizing our attention without regard to the environment in which we are listening. This is what “cognitive distraction” means, and, as the release points out, existing studies show that whether or not the cell phone is in your hand or in your dash, the effect of cognitive distraction is the same.”
Quote from National Safety Council’s White Paper: “The white paper includes references to more than 30 scientific studies and reports, describing how using a cell phone, hands-free or handheld, requires the brain to multitask – a process it cannot do safely while driving.”
……..
Let’s just say for example, there is a person driving who is wearing a wireless bluetooth headset and the person receives a call and the person starts talking on the bluetooth headset. (I understand that hands-free talking isn’t banned in any state. Only holding the cell phone and talking is banned in some places. I keep reading, however, that hands-free cell phone use is just as distracting as using your cell phone to talk. Hmmmmmm… this is where I’m confused.) There is no difference between this driver talking through a wireless headset and this driver talking to a passenger who is inside the car with him. You realize that, don’t you? Me driving and having a phone conversation on a wireless headset is the EXACT SAME THING as me driving and having a conversation with a person inside my car. The conclusion I am forced to draw from that information is that the act of verbal speech is just too much for the brain to handle while driving and we shouldn’t speak. Are you now going to tell me that I cannot talk to the people riding in my own car with me? That all drivers must be absolutely silent. I DOUBT IT!
-Now, like my 1st thought said, there’s tons of distractions. Anything the human eye can see, could be a distraction. It all depends on how that individual person decides to process that which their eyeball sees. Literally everything under the sun can be deemed a distraction in regards to the individual person. Not every human shares the same sources of distraction nor the amount of time a certain source may distract them for. Some things can be more distracting to some than others. Meaning, do you see a billboard and want to continue looking at it? Or do you see a billboard and immediately look away back to the road? Oh hey, look at that huge buzzard eating that roadkill. Oh hey, look at this bag of drugs I just bought. Oh hey, look at that pretty lady pulled over on the side of the road with a flat tire. A 20 year old guy will be more distracted by a pretty lady pulled over than a 55 year old woman would be by the same pretty lady pulled over. A woman may be more distracted by perfume on a billboard than would be a man. If a person causes an accident because they were using their cell phone, it is because the person is too mentally weak to decide to not let the cell phone be too much of a distraction so that they couldn’t successfully accomplish the more important task at hand(driving the car). The cell phone, did not cause the accident. The person driving caused the accident.
-You want to ban text messaging while driving? Well, get ready to ban changing your radio station, taking out and putting in a new CD, inputting information into your onstar or any other navigation system on your front panel. It’s the same thing… you’re taking your eyes and 1 hand off the road/wheel for a given amount of time whether you are text messaging or doing one of the 3 tasks I just typed in the previous sentence. Changing the radio station, changing CD’s, adjusting your onstar/navi device screen on your dashboard and text messaging, ALL have caused accidents and death. Yet, nobody wants to ban radio, cd’s, or navi devices… just cell phones. Neat guys, neat. You can’t accurately say, for a majority of the population, that using a cell phone is more distracting or keeps your eyes off the road longer than another activity. Why? Because every human is individual, and we all individually decide how much concentration and time to put into an activity. When I text message, I have my eyes off the road for 2 seconds at a time. When I’m changing radio stations or adjusting my navigation, I have my eyes off the road for about 4 seconds at a time. In my specific, individual situation, I can argue that using my cell phone is the least distracting activity. Therefor, it would make more sense, in my specific situation, to ban me from using radio and navigation. All I see in every article I read in relation to cell phones and driving is that the cell phone is the most distracting thing for all drivers. The simple opinion, whom everybody seems to think is a fact : “The cell phone is a distraction while driving.” , simply isn’t true. Why? Because it isn’t a distraction for me nor is it for many others. So stop saying it like it’s a definitive truth about everybody. If you view the cell phone to be a distraction, it is because you know it distracts you. And you account for yourself, not anybody else. Like I’ve stated multiple times, I will reiterate once more because I find it necessary, just because something distracts you, doesn’t mean that same something is a distraction for somebody else.
With that in mind, lets make an example : 5% of drivers who text message get in wrecks. So, we should ban text messaging. Really? Well 5% of America is allergic to peanuts. Should we ban the production of peanuts also? The same thing went for school sports… if one person on a team did something bad, the entire team got punished. Are you willing to punish 97 % of America, because the other 3 % cannot successfully text message while driving? Good idea. Some people suck and are incompetent, so let’s punish the rest of America. That’s what I’m being told. Sick.
Furthermore, what this tells me is : Our government doesn’t have the slightest idea how to solve the problem of people getting in a wreck while using a cell phone. A small percentage of drivers get in a wreck while using the phone. Not everybody gets in a wreck while using their phone. Our government wants to punish everybody because they don’t know how to specifically target those that suck at using their phone while driving. Passing these laws will accomplish/solve nothing. Everybody who uses their phone while driving will continue to use their cell phone while driving after the law is passed in their state. Few people will abide by that law. Why? Because it’s ridiculous. Police officers, good luck putting the law into effect. How will you know if a person has a cell phone in their lap they just put there because they saw you driving by or pulled over on the side of the road up ahead? If some ridiculous ass phone law gets passed in my state, believe me when I tell you, I will continue to use my phone while driving and I will be laughing the entire time. If i see you, mr. cop, pulled over, driving in front or behind me, I will say to whoever I’m talking to, ” 1 sec , cop, putting phone down for a sec.”, and when the cop is gone, guess what?… phone goes back up to my ear. Good luck guys, putting this one into effect. Pointless.
TO SUM ALL THIS UP:
There are many different sources for distraction and every individual person chooses how long a specific source will distract themself for. Just because something is distracting for you, doesn’t mean that same something is distracting for somebody else. The cell phone isn’t a distraction for everybody. A small percentile of people get in a wreck while texting. The government wants to punish every person in America because they can’t figure out a way to keep the small percent of people who can’t text and drive from texting and driving. And it is all sickening.
