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morfizm
| Oct. 10th, 2012 09:43 pm Texting while driving There is an initiative from ... AT&T (wtf?!? how come a phone company is related to driving?) to stop texting while driving:
http://itcanwait.com/
In my opinion, the arguments are stupid. They are showing a bad car accident and saying that it has happened *because* she was texting. It has not! It happened because she couldn't handle driving while texting. Nothing other than that.
All they need is to add "multitasking" ability to the driving training. It is hypocrisy to dismiss this idea by saying "you shouldn't do anything other than driving, because driving is so risky, important and requires your full attention", because, in fact, virtually EVERYBODY does something other than driving while driving. Every stupid movie shows conversations while driving. Real conversations distract the driver much more than texting. You can't postpone them, you can't easily change your level of engagement depending on situation on the road, and you (sometimes) can't shut the other people. Yet, noone bans conversations while driving, noone bans eating, etc. And we shouldn't ban neither of this, nor texting. We should train. Or, at least, honestly say: "yes, ideally we should train, but, unforturnately, we have to ban, because training is too expensive; we're working on making it more affordable".
One more thing that makes me willing to throw up is the stupid use of the word "texting". "Texting" driving tickets are not given for texting, they are given for any use of the phone which is held in hand, such as checking calendar, reading e-mail, playing games, taking notes, taking voice notes, checking weather, checking stock price, and so on and so forth. It is rude to associate all these activities with texting, because in my opinion texting is mostly waste of time and it is a very inefficient way of communication. But even if I liked it, I wouldn't use one term ("texting") to denote a whole set of activities, which are, for the most part, totally different from texting. 24 comments    | |
Relax, it's PR. Everyone's crazed about children safety in this weird country as if it's the only virtue in life. They're just using it. Unless... unless, they have started monitoring fast moving callers.
As for texting, the number one cause of these fatal accidents may be nose picking. Why? Would admit such a dumb cause? I guess, you wouldn't. And yet, when you're doing that you may be not paying enough attention to the road and your abilities to maneuver are impacted (inversely proportionally to the nose cleanliness). We need to ban nose picking while driving! :)
Edited at 2012-10-11 05:15 am (UTC)
| | From: |  morfizm |
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| Date: | October 11th, 2012 05:43 am (UTC) |
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I demand, for the sake of social justice, they ban and start ticketing for nose picking!!! :)
automobile-related crash causes are well studied, and #1 is "adjusting controls".
that doesn't help much though, the right question is not "how many car crashes was caused by some activity", but "what's the chance that you and/or other people will die doing that activity". I haven't found the those stats though.
Right, those include adjusting air vent controls. :)
correct. radio volume controls should be banned too! :)
seriously I think talking to someone in the car is safer than talking over cell phone for a simple reason - the person in the car is aware of the situation you both are in and (in self-defense) will shut up if you are really into something dangerous. the person on the other end of cell phone line has no idea.
| | From: | morfizm |
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| Date: | October 11th, 2012 05:19 pm (UTC) |
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I disagree. If something is really dangerous, disconnecting the phone is like a breeze. One button. A real person often has no clue about driving situation, and in order to shut him up, you need to say something, and, sometimes, not just say, but convince (!) - may be more than just a word. And before you're done, the other person may continue to distract you, with not just info (like text) but with highly emotional real life talk.
In all honesty, I never text when drive. I think no matter how good you multi-task, your attention still spins away from traffic the moment you lower your head to type. And things happen fast on the road. Do I agree with nazi policies about text/drive - perhaps not completely, but in general I think people should give up texting while driving - we lived without it somehow before, and I sure can live without it now. I really don't want to get rammed by some "bad multitasker" even if I'm awesome at multitasking myself! I think difference between eating and texting is that you can still keep eyes on the road while chewing whereas texting requires you to lower your gaze to your screen. That's it. As far as children craze, yes... I think at 8 I was able to go outside and my parents left me at home alone. I think now that age is like 15 ;) Crazy.
Edited at 2012-10-11 01:39 pm (UTC)
Let's just go with driver-free cars and end it ;) Edited at 2012-10-11 02:48 pm (UTC)
Many airports have driver-less trains connecting different gates and probably not a single passenger has died in a crash in one of them. We need moar of those! :)
we lived without driving cars somehow before and I'm sure can live without it now!
Not really, Denny, without cars we had much better public transportation, or if we go even deeper into history, at some point all you needed was within walking distance. Right now I can't go to a store without a car. Different times. But it doesn't mean a person can't text for an hour, give me a break. Whatever important u got to say, u can call now on ur hands free :) If they develop hands free SMS I'd be all cheers, per above - but till then, I don't want some idiot killing me over a text message.
don't think of me as backward focused :) self-driving cars, of course will solve all those problems
I'd go for a self-driving car in a heartbet! :)
| | From: | morfizm |
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| Date: | October 11th, 2012 03:59 pm (UTC) |
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Why should we? I mean, why dangerous driving is the problem we want to solve at all? If you think of risk of death, ... well, there are so many other ways to kill yourself or kill others. Would you propose to eliminate all that other activities? My point is that bans should not be stupid, where stupid = stupidly overly restrictive. If something is dangerous, we should learn to do it in safer ways.
oh I forgot to add *sarcasm* :)
| | From: | morfizm |
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| Date: | October 11th, 2012 03:58 pm (UTC) |
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Well, a person who cannot drive can ram you as well. Does it mean we should prohibit the entire driving? More over, regardless what others do, you can be 100% safe if you don't drive and don't walk near roads. Does it mean you should do it? My point is that driving is skill, and driving in different circumstances is part of that skill. We teach people to drive at night, drive on highways, drive in wet road conditions. Why? Because at night it's different and more dangerous. On highways it's different and more dangerous. In wet road conditions it's different and more dangerous. Driving and speaking, driving and texting, driving and playing pacman - it's all different and more dangerous, and you can learn to do it safely as well.
my thinking of course is that we need to perfect self-driving cars and take humans out of equation.
| | From: | morfizm |
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| Date: | October 11th, 2012 05:06 pm (UTC) |
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This doesn't solve attitude problem. They will continue the same stupidity on a different subject.
what you see as stupidity is just average. never forget that half of people have iq less than 100 points :)
| | From: | morfizm |
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| Date: | October 11th, 2012 05:09 pm (UTC) |
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Why these people are so noisy and influence decision making of people with IQ > 100? (or... are you saying the IQ distribution is even, so, perhaps, the leads of AT&T projects are subject to the same distribution? Whoops ;))
no what I'm saying to be a successful business you need to appeal to that 50% as well. and it is way easier than to appeal to top 50%!
| | From: | morfizm |
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| Date: | October 11th, 2012 05:17 pm (UTC) |
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You're right, but it sucks :(
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