Posted on 12/14/2011 8:17:17 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
WASHINGTON — Texting, emailing or using a cellphone while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere, federal safety investigators declared Tuesday, recommending that all states impose a total ban except for emergencies.
Inspired by recent deadly crashes — including one in which a teen-ager sent or received 11 text messages in 11 minutes before an accident — the recommendation would apply even to hands-free devices, a much stricter rule than any current state law.
The unanimous recommendation by the five-member National Transportation Safety Board would make an exception for devices deemed to aid driver safety such as GPS navigation systems.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
“I’m a better driver than you. I’ve got over a million accident free miles under my belt to prove it.”
This is specious reasoning. I am sure that I am capable of driving 100 miles an hour on an interstate because I am also a proven safe, capable, and observant driver with a highly maintained car. I accept that I can’t do this legally because the facts are that most people and their cars are not capable of doing this safely, and I don’t want to be killed by them.
now losing your insurance would be a determent...I use a seat belt not becauase of law but its the first question insurances want to know. Those companies scare me the law doesn’t
I agree 100%. I couldn’t imagine myself texting or dialing while driving, I’m not that senile just yet. Even answering a phone call without Bluetooth is too dangerous IMO. But the Feds are way overreaching to outlaw hands free.
If you don't live in a high traffic area you can complain all you want!
But when you live in an area where there is always huge traffic, it is very dangerous with people on the phone or texting drifting lanes. I have enough to watch for on a hwy, than kids or stupid adults texting or talking and decide they need my lane to get off the hwy and I have to slam on breaks!
Just because people here are sane enough to drive and talk, does not compute with the rest of the idiot and kid drivers on the road!
I think there exist units that text with the spoken word and convert the received text into speech. Such will go down in price as technology comes up with cheaper production methods.
Mobil communications has been a blessing to all kinds of commerce. Banning such technology is insane. It is typical coming from the Obama Regime that is thinking of new ways to regulate our free enterprise system to its death. When we buy into the notion that it is to prevent needless deaths, we are buying into a thinking process that allows security over freedom.
Why not just cite those observed to be texting and driving for reckless driving?
Yes. I am more concerned about my personal rights.
Teach the kids not to text.
Brought to you by the same people who studied man-made climate change?
BS!!!! There are no statistics to back up a ban on mobile phones.
In fact, let's look at a REAL statistic.....highway fatalities.....a number that is dropping despite millions of mobile phones introduced into our society.
THERE IS NO PROBLEM HERE!!!!
I am sick and tired of these fabricated issues.
Only 11 messages? She must not be very popular?
“That would not be the problem, using the phone while driving would automatically put you a fault, someone hits you in the rear while you are driving, they get killed you go to jail. Think about it.”
Exactly! How many times are we stuck in a lane of traffic going well below the speed limit, and when we can finally pass the vehicle, see that he or she is on the phone, oblivious to the fact that they share the road with others.
It only makes sense that people selfish enough to tie up traffic would likewise not really care whether their behavior puts others lives at risk. After all, they have their “rights”!
“That would not be the problem, using the phone while driving would automatically put you a fault, someone hits you in the rear while you are driving, they get killed you go to jail. Think about it.”
Exactly! How many times are we stuck in a lane of traffic going well below the speed limit, and when we can finally pass the vehicle, see that he or she is on the phone, oblivious to the fact that they share the road with others.
It only makes sense that people selfish enough to tie up traffic would likewise not really care whether their behavior puts others lives at risk. After all, they have their “rights”!
I have notice thousands of time that many people cannot drive and talk at the same time, they pick up the phone and they get slower and slower. If you have a tall pickup you find the ladies with a droid in a leg holder texting on their leg I saw a women yesterday texting and she had a sign in the window that said baby on board. Any woman texting with a child needs someone to pick up the kid before she kills the little fellow.
A federal ban is stupid. Besides, texting is fast becoming a voice controlled activity.
It was not a she it was a he and he is very, very dead. And he killed a fifteen year on one school bus.
The states license drivers and have both the responsibility and the authority to regulate driving. I’d rather see the state police, highway patrol, whatever patrolling the roads and watching for reckless driving, rather than sitting in their usual overlook to collect revenue from comparatively safe drivers who are speeding (no, I don’t speed, and yes, I do think reckless speeders should be ticketed). Those who weave while texting should be spotted and ticketed and would be seen if the state police spent more time on the road instead of in their speed traps.
Ban texting while driving? That might not be necessary. If the police do their job and observe erratic or distracted driving, instead of watching their radar displays, the reckless driving should be the offense rather than the texting that caused the distraction. Otherwise, with this law, they’ll write tickets for texting at a red light - a friend on mine got one, in front of Dunkin Donuts, of course.
Oh no!! Was that you I sideswiped yesterday?
If you feel there should be a law, work with your state to impose one. We have a no texting law in MA. It is practically useless.
The Federal government is not the place for such a law.
And while I am empathetic to the families of those hurt in that horrible accident in MO, we have to stop legislating by feeling. That is getting us deeper and deeper in trouble.
I’ve thought about it. The govt has no business trying to regulate everything we do. When you are driving its your personal responsibility to avoid getting into an accident. You are supposed to be in control of your own vehicle. As long as you are its nobody’s business if you are talking on your cell phone or drinking a latte or eating a cheeseburger. If somebody rear ends you that is their fault. Seriously, no offense but you need to think about these things before you start nodding your head and cheering on more govt control of our lives. A free country is supposed to be just that; free. You take responsibility for your own actions.
Honestly for a conservative freedom loving website I observe a lot of bobble heads when it comes to the govt enacting one law after another to regulate and control us. I had a guy giving me grief yesterday on a thread because he agrees with Obama’s admin that we don’t “Need” to have large pickup trucks so we should make the manufacturers stop producing them.
>Mobil communications has been a blessing to all kinds of commerce. Banning such technology is insane. It is typical coming from the Obama Regime that is thinking of new ways to regulate our free enterprise system to its death. When we buy into the notion that it is to prevent needless deaths, we are buying into a thinking process that allows security over freedom.<
Absolutely. Note the government toadies will condescend to allow the use of those cell phones that come installed in your Prius. There is no difference, none, between the amount of effort to use those and the amount of effort to use a hands free bluetooth device. I consider that one exception to be a sop to their union bosses. Additionally, that one exception would require the individual to own and maintain service on 2 cell devices, would it not?
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