Texting while driving

[EX-F150 owner]

I repeat...unless you apply the same laws to police officers, firefighters, paramedics, cable TV vans, utility trucks, power company truck, pizza delivery guys, ad infinitum who have laptops installed in their vehicles that allow "messaging"... DON'T EVEN THINK OF TAKING AWAY MY PHONE OR TEXTING CAPABILITIES. If states (Florida included) can remove helmet laws and riders splatter their brains on the roadways and vegetate for the rest of their lives, then leave my phone alone! If I have the right to ride my bike without a helmet, then I certainly should be able to decide if I want to text and drive or not.

 

That's about the dumbest thing I have ever read

[mferry22]

I work for the electric company and 95% of the time there are 2 people per truck. The driver is not allowed to even be on the phone nevermind texting per Ma. DOT regulations. If I got caught on the phone I would get in serious trouble. As for comparing texting to riding a motorcycle without a helmet is just plain stupid. Also saying it doesnt impair your judgement like drinking does, no one said it did it DISTRACTS you to the point that your reaction time suffers. I find it scary that so many people on this forum are arguing yhat it is ok to text and drive.

[zach1990]

OH YEAH???????????????????????? - READ THIS ARTICLE:

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit found, on average, there is a crash every other day in California, caused by an emergency driver who is distracted.

 

 

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Distracted-Emergency-Drivers-Cause-Crashes-182900891.html

 

Consider: there is normally only one police officer in each car, when an ambulance is transporting a patient to the hospital, there is only one paramedic in the cab, there is only one Fedex or UPS driver entering data into his/her handheld as he/she drives. In our high tech society, there is no way we can live without entering data into the "system" in some way and it's going to happen as we drive. It is forced upon the employees by their agency or their company. So do NOT impose restrictions on me and my cell phone!

Just try to not hit anyone else when your theory goes south so that your the only texting and driving fatality from that wreck

 

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[Doug_Scott]

I work for the electric company and 95% of the time there are 2 people per truck. The driver is not allowed to even be on the phone nevermind texting per Ma. DOT regulations. If I got caught on the phone I would get in serious trouble. As for comparing texting to riding a motorcycle without a helmet is just plain stupid. Also saying it doesnt impair your judgement like drinking does, no one said it did it DISTRACTS you to the point that your reaction time suffers. I find it scary that so many people on this forum are arguing yhat it is ok to text and drive.

 

My point on comparing txting to impaired was to point out that the major issue with impaired is not the distraction, but the judgement part. Saying txting is the same as impaired is just plain wrong. They are not even in the same universe. I am not saying txting is ok, I am simply saying comparing it to impaired is just plain wrong. They are both bad, I will even go so far as to say they are equally wrong. But they are equal for different reasons. Comparing the two lessens the wrongness of impaired. Have you not noticed that anytime you tell someone they can't do something, they will first fight for the "right" to do it, then they will consider what it was they were fighting for?

[MikeNH]

Lets try and keep the discussion civil folks. Thanks.

[mferry22]

I agree with you Doug I guess I worded it wrong. I wasnt trying to compare judgement vs impaired, I was just trying to point out that texting while driving can affect reaction times to situations comparable to being intoxicated while driving. I also agree that when you make a law saying someone cant do something the first reaction is "no one is going to tell me I cant do that." Sorry for confusion, went to a christmas party last night and am a little foggy this morning.( Dont worry wife drove home).

[music]

 

• Texting and driving
  
• Texting and running a chainsaw
  
• Texting and shooting
  
• Texting and skiing
  

 

Two of these endanger others. The other two only endanger the dumb-a## doing it

 

 

[MikeNH]

You forgot texting and walking in a mall- the gal that walked into a fountain because she was so absorbed in her phone.

[SnakeEyeSS]

I will say in the area I work the sight of a police officer breaking distracted driving laws is a regular sight. And an old job took me by the police repair facility daily. There was probably 5-6 wrecked police cars a week On a good week .....up to 10. Poor guys couldn't fix them fast enough, they owned their own overworked frame straightener. A lot of them were front end damage. In a town with 800 officers. On the other hand, another Government branch in the same town, with a similiar number of drivera, sees a couple of wrecks a MONTH.

 

think about that, roughly every officer had an accident every two years.....yikes.

 

 

Not that you need to be distracted to be a bad driver.

I personally watched one officer almost run into me head on because he floored his Impala and couldn't control the torque steer on a road with space for one vehicle. I was PARKED at the time. I am talking so close that I checked for scratches from his mirror.

 

The town I live in however, has some the best cops I know of in NE Oklahoma. A few live the street over, and I had a false alarm on my house and they got there in a few minutes. You never see them hiding in a corner away from work, And they don't use speeding tickets as a source of revenue.

 

SAme with the Sheriff dept in my county And the next.

[j-ten-ner]

Sometimes I wish I could take an old heavy truck with a huge front bull bar and smash into the cars of drivers sitting on a green light and looking at their f**king cell phone.

I really would like to see the car going off in pieces and flying all over the place. And the dumb look in the face of the driver.

 

I think that's the only language some people understand.

 

so long

j-ten-ner

[tanked_darren]

Sometimes I wish I could take an old heavy truck with a huge front bull bar and smash into the cars of drivers sitting on a green light and looking at their f**king cell phone.

I really would like to see the car going off in pieces and flying all over the place. And the dumb look in the face of the driver.

 

I think that's the only language some people understand.

 

so long

j-ten-ner

Should be a reward for doing something like that.

 

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[ninjaguy_fl]

I think it comes down to three things:

1. Fair is fair.... if I am not allowed to text and drive, then stop using the terminals (laptops) in government and company vehicles. Make them be put in park before they will work. You may think that the drivers don't return messages or look at maps, or read displays, but you are WRONG. I live on a busy street and see it every day.

2. If texting and driving is banned, than you better plan on removing your TomTom, your infotainment center, and even your On-Star because they are all distractions.

3. Most people have phones that are capable of texting. Even if texting is considered a crime, people will continue to do it just like speeding. The odds against getting caught are almost nil and people will take the chance.

[music]

I think it comes down to three things:

1. Fair is fair.... if I am not allowed to text and drive, then stop using the terminals (laptops) in government and company vehicles. Make them be put in park before they will work. You may think that the drivers don't return messages or look at maps, or read displays, but you are WRONG. I live on a busy street and see it every day.

2. If texting and driving is banned, than you better plan on removing your TomTom, your infotainment center, and even your On-Star because they are all distractions.

3. Most people have phones that are capable of texting. Even if texting is considered a crime, people will continue to do it just like speeding. The odds against getting caught are almost nil and people will take the chance.

 

 

The use of hand-held phones in commercial vehicles is illegal *today*. It's not a proposal, it is law. If officers, or whomever, are breaking the law, then that's an enforcement problem. You, or anybody else, can report them to the DOT, and they will be very happy to investigate. They have folks who's only job in life is to suck fines out of companies, government entities, and yes... those offending commercial drivers. See: http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/administration/rulemakings/rule-programs/rule_making_details.aspx?ruleid=347 .

 

As for infotainment and mapping systems in the driver console of vehicles, I tend to agree that they should never have been allowed in a moving vehicle. Then again, so should a third of the drivers on the road today...

[8.1HD/ALLISON]

Just thought I would share a little story from last night. So the pager goes off, and we get dispatched to a crash. Show up and its on this straight as can be county road. Here is this nice Chevy truck that is on its roof and had skidded down the road a good ways. 3 patients, luckely were all ok with minor issues. The truck is totalled. And why did this happen you ask? Because the driver THOUGHT he was capable of texting and driving. Just wanted to share that with all of you who are oblivious to distracted driving. Wish I would have had time to snap a few pics cause that truck was trashed.

I don't disagree with the GPS, laptops, etc. None of those should be used unless stopped at a safe location. All distracted driving is dangerous.

[zach1990]

 

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