Forgive the difference in scale.
Posted on 11/16/2011 12:15:28 PM PST by QT3.14
Oh! Well sh*t! “Studies show...” I guess that settles it then.
It’s a revenue generator plain and simple. Government shouldn’t be in the business of making laws that are patently unenforceable.
California was one of the first states in the nation to pass the stupid hands free laws (which do nothing to deter talking on the phone) and guess what? It does next to nothing to deter people from HOLDING a phone either.
All this BS should be between me and my insurance company. Get the nannies out of it.
It is settled, even if you can’t understand it. They’re a massive distraction, and distracted people can’t drive for sh*t.
Except the accidents caused don’t just involve you and your insurance company. If nobody else was getting killed you’d have a point, but they are, so you you’ve got nothing.
Which part of “the law does not prohibit talking on a cellphone” don’t you understand?
Just because the law is incomplete doesn’t mean it should go away. Yapping on the cellphone causes a driver to be a danger to those around them. Yes the CA law is flawed because it allows hands free, half a solution is better than none.
The law doesn’t address even the supposed issue so it’s a joke, and roundly mocked as such.
Just google “drivers ignore cellphone ban”
Just because drivers ignore it doesn’t make it bad. It just means people are stupid. If they’re willing to risk the money of the ticket as well as the danger they present that’s their fault, not the law. Drivers ignore drunk driving laws too, according to your “logic” we should get rid of them too. And I guess the speed limit, lane laws, turn signalling laws... there’s lots of stuff drivers ignore.
It not only means they have zero fear of getting caught, but they don’t think much of the law or its effectiveness, anyhow. But, hey, lets pass a law to make idiot politicians feel like they’re are doing something, and the idiot voters that vote them, because of feel like they’re doing something. After all at worst we can try to use it to bridge the yawning deficits most municipalities have created incurred through their other misguided efforts.
That’s the basic math of life though, you do have almost zero chance of getting caught for any road violation. But again that doesn’t make the law wrong, it’s just how things work, most days I do all my driving without seeing a single cop so I could break every law on the book the whole trip and be “safe” (at least from the law). But I don’t break most of them because the once a week I do see a cop that would turn into an expensive hobby.
Your problem is you’re looking at it backwards, which is handy if you want to make stupid rude comments that you think are funny and insightful, but completely useless in the real world. Your way means get rid of all traffic laws and have a free for all, which might make for a good Rodger Corman movie but doesn’t really cut it in the real world where people want to use the roads to get somewhere with a better than even chance of not getting killed. Out here in reality traffic laws are necessary even if it’s not possible for them to be constantly enforced on all drivers all the time. Random enforcement is the best we can hope for on all laws, not just traffic, because all enforcement revolves around catching people.
“Not to argue with you Wobbly Bob.. but I thought the ignition key had to be in the ignition. The car didn’t have to be running; however, DUI cases could be made if the car was turned off (but the ignition key was inserted).”
It likely depends on the state and the pig. In my case, I was ripped, but in a parking lot of a public facility (during an event with an open bar), sitting in the passenger seat with the engine off (trying to recover). The pig was about to run in me in and didn’t believe that the Mrs. was inside. Thankfully a friend got her out. Only when the pig compared our licenses did he let me off (same address). I’m still angry about that because I wasn’t a threat to anyone, yet I almost got run-in.
Give this guy a break. Only when he supports GPS tracking of every car, and then tolling based on what is being driven, when it is being driven, and where it is being driven, will he match Ray LaHood (or Rick Perry, for that matter).
Ah the slippery slope fallacy. ;-) No one is arguing we should get rid of all traffic laws. Just this one, because it’s ineffective and unenforceable. If you made a law banning talking on cellphones, period, rather then just holding one, maybe there would be some argument, but of course that law would be even more unenforceable.
Except the accidents caused don’t just involve you and your insurance company. If nobody else was getting killed you’d have a point, but they are, so you you’ve got nothing.
They have better-informed incentives than do nanny-pandering politicians.
For instance, they could have different rules for different classes of people, or based on personal history. They could permit phones while stopped. They could exclude accidents while on the phone. And in a free market, we’d soon learn what made most sense.
No, reducing the nanny state won’t solve every problem, but it will reduce most of them.
Next up: Why Making Speed Limits up to Insurance Companies makes more sense for public safety.
Forgive the difference in scale.
Note that as of 2009, the fatality rate had dropped to 1.14, below the bottom line of the graph.
How about the fact that the call may require me to alter my route? If I'm driving home and will pass by a grocery store 10 minutes before I get to my house, and while I'm en route my wife discovers she needs something, would anyone other than the oil companies really benefit from my driving home, finding out my wife needs something, and then making a round trip to the store? Or should I always pull into the grocery store parking lot every time I drive home, so I can call my wife and find out if she needs anything?
How about, just after I start driving to a meeting which is two hours away, a decision is made to cancel, reschedule, or move the meeting because of bad weather? Would it be better for me to struggle through bad weather in a heroic effort to reach an empty meeting place? Or would it be better that I discover that the meeting was not going to happen as originally scheduled, and thus save myself unnecessary driving?
I have “trained” my wife to prepare a written list before I head out to the grocery store. If it is something really important, she will remember to jot it down. For example she can’t live without diet Pepsi, and she never forgets to write that down. Then again she can always text me for a missing item, which takes a few seconds to read on the cell. I never pull off the road for that. Just reading text is ok in my book. I never try to send a text while driving, and never answer my phone while driving. Nothing in my life is that urgent.
As for the meeting scenario, it is a very unusual situation, and if your caller ID tells you it is about the meeting 2 hours drive away, by all means you need to pull off the road. I hope that does not happen often, for gosh sake. If it does, someone is being inconsiderate of others.
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