Thread: So who is really in the wrong here.

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Driver sent or got 11 texts in 11 min before crash - Yahoo! News

Who is to blame? Your thought's?

We,too,have had a number of deaths on our roads from people who text others while driving..I reached for my phone one day while in town,,(a few years ago now)and just about rear ended another car..That was it for me..I leave it in my pocket or on the seat,or floor..where I cant reach it.. If that guy was receiving and answering texts while he was driving,,He should have stopped,and either finished his phone business,or turned it off,and ignored it,,cos,the guy who was texting him,might not have known he was on the highway,driving..So,in my book,the young guy should not have been ,either driving,or texting..Quite simple..Its time the lawmakers put some teeth into the laws,and enforced them..Yup.I know,,you are never going to get them all,but hurt them in the pocket hard enough,and make an example of them,and see what happens.

A couple of years back I was told that in a business travel situation where life and accidental death coverages normally doubled for employees directly involved in an accident, corporate insurance did not pay for any employees in that vehicle if it was shown that the driver of the car was using his phone at the time of the accident. Using bluetooth is bad enough, as it distracts the thought process and takes attention away from the road, but texting is simply stupid. It's amazing how many teenage kids I see driving in urban traffic steering with their elbows with thumbs flying, and that's with an ordinance against it so they can be ticketed....

Something has got to be done, this has become epidemic. Next time you are driving look around you and a big percentage of the drivers around you are either holding a phone up to their ear or texting, and it isn't just kids doing it, the older people are too.

I was in line at the grocery store a couple of nights ago and there was a lady in front of me who couldn't even hang up from her phone call long enough to check out her groceries. She had a phone stuck to her ear and was taking her sweet old time taking one item at a time out of her cart and putting it on the counter. The cashier had to wait each time because the lady was so slow. I almost was at the point of telling her to hang the d*** thing up, but didn't want to come across as a jerk.

I think the cell phone and smart phones are a great invention, but they sure have created a bunch of problems by people who are so important and have such important things to discuss that they have to be glued to one 24-7. I hope they pass a federal law banning them from use in a car and ENFORCE it with stiff fines.

Don

I'm guilty of talking when driving and can even answer it through my hearing aids which I think makes me a safer drive. There are days where I'm pushing it and am a dangerous driver because I am so dang tired and will call my wife. The talking wakes me up. I know that overall, the phone probably causes more accidents than not, but there are times where it is handy, at least for me because I can wake up or I find out about an emergency and can head to the hospital sooner. As far as texting goes, there is no way that I will be doing that. I have also run into the frustration of standing in line while someone takes their sweet ol time and talks loud enough so that everyone in a 10 mile radius can hear them. And talking in a restaurant or some type of meeting is also rude. We have the phones, but we don't have the etiquette that should go with them.

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

..... I hope they pass a federal law banning them from use in a car and ENFORCE it with stiff fines.
Don

Headline on the KC Star this morning, CELLPHONE BAN IS URGED, apparently by the NTSB based on the accident posted above, which was in Missouri. National news says that while the NTSB can recommend the ban, each state must enact their own law, and then enforce that law.

I think England has taken the lead in banning cell phone use. When Steve and Sue were over she was telling me the cops spotted her holding her pink phone and pulled her over. She was just holding it, not talking on it, but they still saw it there.

If our police don't enforce any laws that may be passed it won't have any effect I'm afraid.

Don

IF they realy wanted to ban there use they could build a blocking device into all new cars. make it mandatory to get device installed or no plates.. How far will they go???? To many civil rights groups to do much of anything.

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

I think England has taken the lead in banning cell phone use. When Steve and Sue were over she was telling me the cops spotted her holding her pink phone and pulled her over. She was just holding it, not talking on it, but they still saw it there.
If our police don't enforce any laws that may be passed it won't have any effect I'm afraid.
Don

I'll add one more thing, and then will get off of the soap box on this one. You're right, Don. The feature accident here happened in Gray Summit, MO west of St Louis in August 2010, a year after Missouri had made it illegal for anyone 21 or younger (not sure I understand that age break??) to text while driving, and it's stated today that "The statute has led troopers ticketing about 125 motorists in the last two years. Give me a break!! That's an average of just over one per week across the entire state??

In New York State we have a ban on cell phone use while driving. They continually arrest people, charge them bucks and have points charged on their license, and yet they continue. A friend had to be nailed 3 times before he invested in a Bluetooth - which lasted for a month or so before he went back to hand held - and was again ticketed. I can't imagine what his insurance cost is, but it has to be way up.

For the most part, the LEO's are too busy as without exaggeration, 25% of the locals here have a phone stuck to their ear. In my town, the drivers of the M-B's, Lexus, BMW's and the like,of which there are a lot, it's probably closer to 75% of those often self important legends in their own minds have cells semi permanently attached to the side of their heads.

The only way to enforce a ban is to make cell phone usage impossible for the driver electronically while the vehicle is in gear. I can hear the ACLU computers gearing up as we speak, damn the highway carnage

Three or four decades of "it's not your fault...." mentality becoming ever more pervasive. Advocating personal responsibility is soooooo mean spirited!

Originally Posted by cffisher

IF they realy wanted to ban there use they could build a blocking device into all new cars. make it mandatory to get device installed or no plates.. How far will they go???? To many civil rights groups to do much of anything.

It's easier than that! It's a "CELL", All that is needed is a delay of connection when cells are changed! It's already been proven! The phone company knows how to do it! I was watching on a PBS program and this topic came up. One of the equipment manufacturers was there and explained how easy it was to do but no one will do it first! The gov't. needs to make them ALL do it at the same time!!

I hate the damn things. Don't have one, don't want one. Driving should be the center of your attention without distractions. No reason to bother making a law against it, the one's we have now aren't enforced anyway. I'm not polite about phones being used in public either. Told a lady at a restaurant who was babbling away (loudly) on hers to shut the damn thing off, nobody's impressed! She shut it off and put it in her purse. When someone is in my garage and gets a call, it's always time for me to turn on the grinder--they either get the hint or go outside to talk. The majority of the ads for Christmas gifts on the tube this year or for some kind of electronic device to talk on or play games on--and a lot of them feature kids aged 10 and under. Heck, no we're raising an entire generation who seem to think the only way to communicate is electronically. When was the last time you saw an ad for dolls, footballs, building blocks, colors or anything like that? Good friend of mine is an elementary school teacher, she told me the other day that a lot of the kids in school have cell phones and use them whenever they can!! What are parents teaching their kids? The rule here for Christmas is that no toys for the girls require batteries that allow the toy to make noise! Just good old fashioned toys that require the kids to use their imagination.

I thought the glamour of cell phones and other such electronic gizmos might fade, but it's doing the opposite. Many people think they can't go anywhere or do anything without the infernal phone there on the ready! All this emphasis on instant communication is just one more step in the I want it all right now world we seem to be caught up in. Kids are growing up fat and lazy because of all these fantastic electronic creations that their parents buy them. I suppose it's much easier to just buy kids a new video game then actually take the time to sit down and play with them, or teach them how to play a game that requires a bit of imagination or though.

Back to the cell phones and driving--shut it off when you're in the car, you can check your messages when you get to your destination or pull over to the side of the road when you use them. The consequences of distracted driving are just too severe to ignore the problem, and don't think you're such a good driver that you can still drive better then anyone on the road while talking on your phone--drunk driver's use the same logic when they get behind the wheel. Believe it or not, you can survive just fine without one of them damn phones stuck in your ear all day long!!! Don't wait for law enforcement or the government to come up with a solution, look how screwed up they have everything else that they've tried to fix. Don't be afraid to tell someone how rude they are next time they're walking around in a store or other public place talking on a cell phone and trying to impress all of us with how important they are! When I see a cop driving and chatting on his, I write down the car number, note the time, and let his boss know what the clown is doing.

Just put your dang phone down and pay a bit of attention to the world around you- might be surprised to see how many genuinely interesting things are going on!

IC2, if I understand things correctly, it is illegal to use a hand-held phone but legal for a bluetooth. Did I understand your post correctly?

When we drive, there are many things to distract us and not just a phone. When I drive, I tend to look for stock cars and old cars, especially when I am in new areas. That is one of the reasons of why I have my Hudson Metropolitan. It was sitting along I70. When I am in town, I look at the vehicles around me and wave at the people I know, and as a pastor, I do know a few. I have had people come up to me and complain because I ignored them instead of waving. They were giving me a hard time and really weren't ticked, at least I don't think they were. These are also examples of distracted driving.

I know that I could drive safer, but also know that even when I'm driving with my bad habits, I am a lot safer driver than many people around me. That also does not mean that what I do is less of a danger than something else because when you are behind the wheel, anything can happen. I got rear ended once because I slowed down with traffic to drive over debris from an accident. The kid who hit me totaled his chevy truck by running into the back of my f150.

I am also one who put off getting a cell phone. We fist got one for my wife because she was traveling a lot and wanted her to have a way to contact me if she had any problems. I ended up with one about 5 years later and refuse to text. Heck, I refuse to get the internet because don't care to surf the web on a screen that small. I have called 911 numerous times while driving including reporting a teen doing about 70 going uphill in the wrong lane of traffic. I was able to give the license number to the police and noticed that the car disappeared for about 3 months. I will admit that the phones being used while driving are a bad habit and cause more issues than they help, but there are instances where they do good. If using a phone, I think the bluetooth should be the only option because to me, that is no different than talking to somebody in the car. I am guessing that every one of us who is married talks to our spouse while we drive, at least I know that I do.

From experience, I am glad to have my phone because I have had to leave Wichita for Salina earlier than planned because I received a call that somebody was dying. I have also received calls that somebody was in the hospital and so made a detour to there instead of going home and getting a message and then have to drive back down. But I also don't talk when in a business and being waited on. I silence the ringer and return the call when done. I know that I am in the minority on this one, but I do think that there are safer ways of using the phone. As far as texting goes, there is no safe way to text and drive.

Originally Posted by pastor bubba

IC2, if I understand things correctly, it is illegal to use a hand-held phone but legal for a bluetooth. Did I understand your post correctly?

That's correct - and the idiots STILL persist in using the hand helds.

We've had one for maybe 8-10 years. The only time that it's used is if our landline is out (like today) or when we are traveling, i.e., emergency use. In those years, probably no more then 25 hours total use. We never do texting, never check the internet on that itty bitty screen (I'm also too cheap). The plan that we have now is a "seniors" plan, 200 minutes/month and nationwide for about $30 + tax plus the phone has a camera (whoopee).

Back to Uncle Bob's comment - you forgot one extremely important word in today's world, ENTITLEMENT. I'm not going political, but there are certain factions in the US fabric of today that feel that they are due, and if someone else has to pay for it, tough, not my problem