Posted on 12/28/2011 6:39:34 AM PST by Kaslin
National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman has called for states to mandate a total ban on cellphone usage while driving. She has also encouraged electronics manufacturers -- via recommendations to the CTIA-The Wireless Association and the Consumer Electronics Association -- to develop features that "disable the functions of portable electronic devices within reach of the driver when a vehicle is in motion." That means she wants to be able to turn off your cellphone while you're driving.
With very little evidence, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration claims that there were some 3,092 roadway fatalities last year that involved distracted drivers. Americans ought to totally reject Hersman's agenda. It's the camel's nose into the tent. Down the road, we might expect mandates against talking to passengers while driving or putting on lipstick. They may even mandate the shutdown of drive-in restaurants as a contributory factor to driver distraction through eating while driving. You say, "Come on, Williams, you're paranoid. There are already laws against distracted driving, and it would never come to that!" Let's look at some other camels' noses into tents.
During the legislative debate before enactment of the 16th Amendment, Republican President William Taft and congressional supporters argued that only the rich would ever pay federal income taxes. In fact, in 1913, only one-half of 1 percent of income earners were affected. Those earning $250,000 a year in today's dollars paid 1 percent, and those earning $6 million in today's dollars paid 7 percent. The 16th Amendment never would have been enacted had Americans not been duped into believing that only the rich would pay income taxes. It was simply a lie to exploit American gullibility and envy.
The fact of the matter is that the founders of our nation so feared the imposition of direct taxes, such as an income tax, that Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution says, "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken." It was not until the Abraham Lincoln administration that an income tax was imposed on Americans. Its stated purpose was to finance the war, but it took until 1872 for it to be repealed. During the Grover Cleveland administration, Congress enacted the Income Tax Act of 1894. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1895. It took the 16th Amendment (1913) to make permanent what the founders feared.
Another camel's nose in the tent lie that's threatening the economic collapse of our country is the Medicare lie. At its beginning, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Lyndon Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That's nine times Congress' prediction. Today's Medicare tab comes to $523 billion and shows no signs of leveling off. The 2009 Medicare trustees report put the unfunded Medicare liability at $89 trillion. The 1966 Medicare cost estimate was simply a congressional and White House lie to get the American people to buy into their agenda. But not to worry; the real Medicare crisis won't hit the nation until today's beneficiaries and political supporters are dead. It's today's children who'll bear the burden of our profligacy.
But back to the proposed cellphone ban. NTSB Chairwoman Hersman said: "It's going to be very unpopular with some people. We're not here to win a popularity contest. We're here to do the right thing." C.S. Lewis warned us about people like Hersman, saying: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
Those who have any brains at all know that the greatest danger to the motorist is drowsiness.
So how many people have been kept awake by a call to or from their cell?
Obviously there are no numbers on accident prevention.
How about an election to terminate government over reaching?!?!?!
The upstanding citizens appointed to positions in our government always said their power was not abused. That is why we must not trust them.
I rarely use the phone in the first place. When I was driving 2hrs to work everyday, it was nice to talk to my wife while commuting, it did help keep me more alert. That being said I don't see a reason to be on the phone every time the car is in motion, how did people survive before everyone had a cell phone?
Every time I hear Walter Williams on Rush or read his articles I cannot help to think what a better position this country would be in had he been our first black president
I would like to see a study of how much driving is impared when consuming a big mack or putting on makeup.
These idiots act like the only two things that can distract a driver are alcohol and phones.
What about other distractions:
Putting on makeup
Eating
Annoying spouse and children
Shaving
Reading
etc,etc, etc.....
The more criminals we can manufacture, the easier it is for the government to treat us all like criminals.
I’ve posted on a couple other CELL PHONES MUST BE BANNED threads the following point:
Over the prior 15 years, the gross amount of accidents in the US have DECLINED. This has occurred in the time frame that cell phones have gone from rarely in driver’s possession to being predominantly in cars.
If cell phone use was a major factor causing vehicle accidents, then there is no way we’d have experienced a decline in crashes with more than 5 times the number of cell phone subscribers in 2011 versus 1996.
It’s simply not possible. People who believe otherwise (and they usually cite how they were in an accident where someone else was on the phone) are like people who tell me there’s man-made global warming because it was hot in Cedar Rapids yesterday. The facts/statistics don’t support their anecdotal opinions.
That's because they got away with the whole cigarettes and asbestos cause cancer thing, as if nothing else did.
Williams calls says the government estimate of cell-phone-related deaths has “very little evidence.” How I wish he would let us know how the evidence is insufficient.
Williams calls says the government estimate of cell-phone-related deaths has “very little evidence.” How I wish he would let us know how the evidence is insufficient.
The ruling elites are in a constant battle with any technology that gives the middle class capabilities that only they once enjoyed.
Communicating while in a vehicle is to be reserved for political big wigs in state-owned SUVs and rich folks being driven around in limos (the vehicles that the peasants aren’t supposed to own). Oh, and of course law enforcement officers who don’t seem to be distracted by their cell phones and radios are OK.
They can can spin it how they want, but their objective is to keep you and I from treading on the turf of the elites.
Know your place and stay in it!
The vast majority of traffic accidents involve cars and trucks. They should be disable when in the vicinity of a human.
“The facts/statistics don’t support their anecdotal opinions.”
You say anecdote, I say personal experience.
Do we ignore personal experience and judgement because somebody else’s stats say we should?
Personal experience: On my freeway commute home, somebody in the middle lane drifts, drifts, drifts over the line into the next lane, then yanks back the wheel at the last second. All the hallmarks of a drunk driver.
You pass that guy, and he’s either texting, holding a phone to his ear, or talking into a headset.
But still I should ignore what I see every day on the freeway?
I’ve never seen or experienced an accident caused by drinking coffee, eating a Big Mac, putting on make-up, etc.
I’ve seen and experienced accidents caused by cell phone users.
Try and muddy the waters again about how accidents are down in the US, without pointing out that A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF THEM are caused by cell phone use.
Show me the stats that show a higher percentage of accidents are caused cell phone use. The only thing we have are "studies" that show distracted driving causes accidents. And with this catch-all, we're supposed to now ban cell phone use in cars.
As you pass all the drivers, are you making note of all the drivers who are plodding along quite nicely while they're on their phones? Probably not. Are you making note of the person who's making a signal-less lane change or who curbs it as they make a turn in a parking lot, yet who don't seem to be on the phone? What should be enforced is poor driving, whatever the cause. But no, we get the easy path and a call to ban cell phones for everyone.
I'd like to ban (or at least enforce) bad driving. Your solution is the very embodiment of throwing out the baby with bathwater.
All automotive accidents have one common trait among them all... that there was a human being involved to make it happen.
All we need to do it outlaw human beings and the accident rate will drop dramatically.
Think of the children!!!
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