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We see it everyday on Los Angeles roads. Drivers eating, reading, illegally talking on a cell phone, checking Google Maps on their iPhone, painting nails, etc. So much for paying attention, not to mention the lack of turn signals used in by L.A. drivers (annoying!).
The U.S. Department of Transportation hosted a two-day summit yesterday and today on district driving, announcing that 5,870 people were killed and 515,000 were injured last year in crashes involving at least one form of driver distraction, according to the Associated Press. That's 16% of crash fatalities in 2008.
California is one of the 18 states with a ban on texting while driving as well as one of the seven that bans driving while talking on a hand-held phone. Does that mean the streets are safer? Our laws are probably too new for any comprehensive results, but California's ban on texting and phone calls does not prohibit dialing numbers or checking sites like Google Maps.
"I think it's important that we recognize that hands free is not risk free," said Dr. John Lee, a University of Wisconsin researcher, to the news agency.
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If only the bans kept people from talking and texting while driving. Plenty of people seem to be completely unmotivated by those laws.
Laws are a start but obviously we don't have the man power to go after it with the coverage needed to make change. However it does add validity to social shaming to have the law on your side. My girlfriend and I will point out cell phone talkers/texters and do hand gesture of phone and shake head or call out. Never underestimate the power of public shame. Some will not give a shit no matter what, but some will sheepishly start to put the phone down realizing they were doing something bad.
Yea, I did that to someone, yacking away on a cell phone, cut me and several other pedestrians off in a crosswalk. She kept turning away trying to ingnore me, I kept walking to where she was looking.
The other pedestrians had a good laugh. She was clearly embarassed.
5,800+ dead! If they are died at one time the President would make prime time news talking about it and the pain he feels for the people, tens of thousands of people would be trying to help out, and the government would have planes flying in relief supplies. Nope none of that,we just pass a law and say it's a no-no. How about passing a law that says if you are caught uses your phone while driving you lose you license!
As far as pointing at someone who is a Nimrod for using their phone while driving, no, I honk the horn at them a lot, it bothers the hell out of them.
When I started to get into transportation issues some of the statistics blew me away. Yet 40,000 people dieing on the roads every year has generally been considered unremarkable in the news, it's always been that way. The biggest killer of anyone 30 or younger, the biggest killer of our children, is automobile crashes. There are big campaigns for drunk driving, but even if you completely eliminated DUI deaths, 80% of the under 30 deaths would remain.
It's really a losing battle. I yell and lay on the horn when I see people driving and celling, but it doesn't do any good.
Plus you get inept human waste like the one guy I saw last week while stuck in slow moving (10-15MPH) traffic on the freeway. He was reading a newspaper that was resting against his steering wheel, and when I saw him further down, he had put the paper away but now had his cell phone on top of the steering wheel, texting away with both hands. Brilliant.
SO much money could be made from ticketing yet I guess there simply isn't enough manpower, like Gary mentioned above.
I find horns to be a pretty ineffective form of communication. You'd be surprised what you can get from some hand gestures and a cold stare. I'm typically on foot or on a bike, so it's easier to use body language to communicate than from within a car. If the window is rolled down I might plainly say get off the phone.
I want an old Checker Marathon, solid steel push-bumpers, doors filled with cement,
just an out and out TANK.
I would gleefully RRRRRAM into those inattentive drivers, just to get their attention.
Then apologize and slowly drive away from their jumbled wreckage.... giggling.