Posted on 12/16/2011 11:28:37 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The National Transportation Safety Board wants a complete ban on cellphone use while driving, even on hands-free calls. Some will protest this as yet another government encroachment on freedom, but we should think twice before rocking the boat here.
After all, have you considered how lucky we are that the government lets us drive cars at all?
Imagine if cars hadn’t been around for a century, but instead were just invented today. Is there any way they’d be approved for individual use? It’s an era of bans on incandescent bulbs; if you suggested putting millions of internal-combustion engines out there, you’d get looks like you were Hitler proposing the Final Solution.
Even aside from pollution, the government wouldn’t allow the risks to safety.
“So you’re proposing that people speed around in tons of metal? You must mean only really smart, well-trained people?”
“No. Everyone. Even stupid people.”
“Won’t millions be killed?”
“Oh, no. Not that many. Just a little more than 40,000 a year.”
“And injuries?”
“Oh . . . millions.”
There’s no way that would get approved today.
Driving is basically a grandfathered freedom from back when people cared less about pollution and danger and valued progress and liberty over safety. They had different equations related to human life then: We could lose 10,000 men in a single battle in a war and call it a victory....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
2d, I have to laugh to avoid being so furious my head explodes.
The Feral bureaucracy has to go.
They’re so stupid really, thinking they can stop or control anything. When governments do that, throughout history (oh, I guess they’d have to have honestly studied it to know), everything just goes underground. Everything.
Hey... ban smoking,city bus fumes, ban kitchen knives, gasoline and lawn mowers, swimming pools and diving from rocks.
Eff a nanny state.
A surprising number of FReepers were on board for an FCC mandate controlling the volume of commercials. As I recall, you're a ham. The power of the FCC should be limited to the very narrow area of ensuring that harmful interference doesn't occur between operators. Period. Dictating content in any way is far beyond the scope of why the commission exists.
“I just wish the government would stop trying to save my life. I don't want to live forever!” Jim from C-town
The long-term goal of the left is to outlaw the automobile and force people onto various mass-transit systems. Buses, subways, high-speed rail, etc., all of which can be used to control free movement.
All one need do is build a simple limiting amp that cuts off the commercials should they hit a certain decibel.
BTW I was listening to WBCQ tonight on short wave and apparently there are like 750,000 HAM operators in the US today.
The numbers are on the rise, rather than the wane.
People want autonomy.
The right thing is watch less TV or cancel.
If we had actual competition, we’d have other TV options where the volume was not increased.
Try reading the Executive Summary of the FCC budget.
JOKE. COMPLETE FARCE. The biggest reasons they were claiming for their existence (budget), i.e., things that they actually DO - ..... “modernize their technology”.
If the Executive summary sounds like my 9th grade paper where I just put in fluff - how fluffy are the details behind the summary ?
It’s really stealing from the taxpayer and laughing in the taxpayer’s face. Disgusting.
You are correct, it’s all social engineering.
You know what the monkey said that got his tail caught in the lawnmower?
“It won’t be long now”
That is an excellent & somewhat horrifying thought experiment. Kudos!
No, I don’t text ever, and I’m not on the phone much at all.
We should be held accountable for our own auto accidents, though, not pulled over and ticketed for talking on the phone, any more than we should be pulled over for singing while we listen to the radio, or get in an argument with a passenger.
Auto insurance removes the financial consequences of causing an accident, so many people just don’t care any more.
The law has always covered civil and criminal penalties for damages we cause.
Cell phone laws get into a new area: you haven’t swerved out of your lane, you have complete control of your car, but you have a cup of coffee in your hand, and we don’t think you can handle it, so we’re charging you with a crime.
If I’m drinking coffee or talking and I swerve out of my lane - THAT already is a crime, swerving out of my lane. Doesn’t matter why I did, I did.
Town governments love to hire more LE, though the taxpayers don’t like to pay the bill. So more traffic stops !
Hey, the government will decide when you die. They will have a program, an agency, and a staff to make such decisions.
I keep reading about this ban, and I have to wonder about the hands-free portion. My car has the hands-free built in. One push of a button, and the rest is voice activated. So how are they going to enforce this in this situation? I mean, I have no earpiece, so for all they know I could be singing to the radio or speaking to someone in the backseat. Am I going to get pulled over simply because I’m speaking at all? Besides, no one even bothers to enforce most of the traffic laws already in existence. I was at a light yesterday when a guy blew the red like a big dog, and there was a sheriff’s care on the other side, and he did nothing. So why even bother at this point with more arbitrary and ridiculous nanny state laws?
I see the cell phone restrictions as another attempt to invade the privacy of citizens, by letting LE pull you over and get their eyes (and nose) inside your vehicle on the "suspicion" that you were using the device. In order to get the necessary proof of the offense, they will then have to download all information from your phone using one of those portable devices that were in the news recently and are already being used. EVERY automobile accident will result in the phones being downloaded, to determine whether either of the parties was illegally using their phone.
...And they will download EVERYTHING.
“All one need do is build a simple limiting amp that cuts off the commercials should they hit a certain decibel.”
Limiters are the problem. The way they make the commercials louder is by pushing the tape or file harder into the limiter. TV makers today include compressors and limiters in their TV’s but they don;t really work as effectively as their audio industry counterparts. I have a cheap (250.00)limiter I run the TV audio through. I NAIL the input, as a way of overcoming the varying degrees that program producers do, then I set the output volume and forget it. It’s the only way the idea will work.
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