ASH8

The Vids are from CNNN an AUSTRALIAN "Comedy" Show that was born here a few years back and commissioned through our ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission), Government Owned.

You can go to ANY country and get the "Dumb" response to push questions, just edit out the correct answers...just happened to be the USA.

Like Italy, Russia, England, Australia....ANYwhere..

But it is funny.

Flashwing

The problem is the public transportation systems don't survive on their own...most of the major ones must be heavily subsidized by government funds because rates charged to cover the cost would push people away.

The other issue is that no matter how great public transportation is you will still be left with a sizable amount of population that won't be able to use it. There are still plenty of small towns and cities that will require vehicles.

America is built around the car and that isn't anything that will change within the next few decades. Even high fuel prices.

The ultimate solution is a better licensing system. The two issues with that would be the inability to apply the system retroactively. While I would be fine with snagging millions of drivers who cannot properly operate a car now after years of experience the fact remains the US would face a revolt. Second, because getting a license is seen as a right of passage in our culture there would be a revolt from the younger generations as well.

All I can say is if you are a parent and have kids of driving age please enroll them in every kind of driving school you can get your hands on. Defensive driving, high performance, race school, whatever. Yeah it might cost a lot but it could very well save your child's life.

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

True . But the rest of the world generally has a better idea on what is going on outside of their own country ....

kvndoom

I find myself agreeing with you. Sadly there will always be something to distract us, though. But cell phones really annoy me. Now I am forced to carry one because of my job... ugh.

The argument that having one could save lives in emergencies is pretty lame, since misuse of the things causes far more accidents than the number of lives they might save.

8 Maniac

iTrader: (1)

I would seriously doubt that. A few minutes can often be the determining factor. The thing about cell phones is that they're more convenient. Less people are going to be willing to go out of their way to find a place to call an accident in. When that happens, people will assume someone else is doing it and it may be a lot longer before something finally gets done.

I was a witness of an accident recently and I was able to call it in, check on people and report that there were injuries within a minute of it happening. The next exit was a good 2-3 minutes away, followed by the minute or 2 of finding a place and getting to call. That assumes you didn't stop to check on people... so you're unable to report if there are known injuries. If you stop to check for injuries, add another few minutes for stopping to check. I'd say it saves 5-10 minutes in a lot of incidences which can be very significant depending on severity.

Actually, passengers have been shown to help in driving. Most passengers are also aware of traffic around the vehicle and will adapt their speech patterns based on traffic. Even if they don't specifically say anything, we naturally will make pauses if there seems to be something that would demand the attention of the driver.

The most likely problem of cell phone use would be the attention dedicated to the conversation. Cell phone conversations are proposed to take more attention without the benefit of the other person being able to pay attention to traffic. I didn't feel like posting this earlier, because most people automatically disagree because of what they believe or have heard in the past... but the idea that cell phones significantly affect driving hasn't been completely conclusive. There have been quite a few studies that seem to go either way. That is to say, they definitely impair reaction times, but whether or not it's significant enough to impact accident rates.

Accident rates have been going down for quite a while now. At pretty significant rates. Rates started to decline before the average person had a cell phone, so if cell phones do increase accident rates, we've seen a huge change in driver ability as well.

Forgot to comment on this earlier... radios don't seem to make a large impact on driving in general. Messing with them might have an effect, but simply having it on has not shown any benefits (such as keeping people awake) or problems (such as distracting the driver). Bluetooth is probably not much better than cell phones at all. It's just a matter of finding which studies are most accurate to everyday situations.

DocBeech

iTrader: (1)

I have a cell phone jammer in my car. Its a newer model that blocks 4g but does not block GPS. I love it, and run it 90% of the time unless im using my cell phone gps.

Flashwing

Well, I think we can all agree the jammer won't fly. They won't be able to mandate it on older vehicles and it will simply be a form of electronics on newer cars that people will find a way to deactivate.

Perhaps one way to influence people would be to mandate it via accident fault. If you're involved in an accident and it can be proven you were on the phone then the accident is your fault and the insurance can handle it accordingly.

Even outlawing phone use behind the wheel won't stop people. We have laws against speeding and people do it all the time. It only becomes an issue after an accident has happened and by then it's too late.

DocBeech

iTrader: (1)

They outlawed it on military bases and people still figured it out. They found new and better ways to hide it like speaker phone and putting it under the seat belt. I know they have been experimenting with data boxes that record data before a crash. They wont be able to enforce putting jammers in all cars, plus it will increase the risk of cancer for some people. If you do however want to put this into your own accord then you can buy one yourself. Mine is good to about 50m or 150feet.

On base it was illegal to text and drive, or even to walk while talking on a cell phone on base. It was also illegal to jog or run with two headphones on, you were only allowed one ear bud, and you had to have one open ear and run against traffic with a reflective belt on. A lot of good things could come from rules like this.

8 Maniac

iTrader: (1)

The problem with the plan to find out if they were using the phone when involved in an accident is that they aren't necessarily the ones at fault. If a guy runs a red light and T-bones someone who was using the phone but in the right of way, I definitely want the guy who ran the light to be at fault.

Cell phones don't guarantee a wreck and definitely are not in all wrecks (maybe even a majority of wrecks... not sure we have the data to support either way on that). If we want to tack on an extra charge for those found to be at fault AND using a cell phone, that would be fine.