Transportation Secretary pressures states on distracted driving.

How about laws making failure to use common sense while driving, walking or breathing against the law.
Would pretty much cover everything.

The law against using cellphone is just an excuse to reduce penalty. The affect on using cell phone or texting is just as bad as DUI. We should treat them as equal.

I mailed a letter to Governor Quinn in response to a bill prohibiting cell phone use near an ambulance or fire truck. I asked him to also prohibit chewing gum near an ambulance because I saw a young woman nearly hit a paramedic. I know she was chewing gum because she had just passed me. I haven't heard back from him yet.

She could have been chewing tobacco, smuff, or even candy! Just the other day I saw a guy picking his nose while driving!! There needs to be laws against such behavior! Several years ago, I saw a woman driving naked. That might be ok, as long as she isnt distracted.

There probably is a law about distracting other drivers though.

I would be...

I think the call would be if the exposure was decent or not.

Main reason I’m for gridlock and love do nothing congress

The incident is permanently etched into my brain, sortof like it happened yesterdy. Yes, it only took a glimpse of her lightly tanned skin for me to realize, yes, the exposure was fairly decent. I did ask myself some questions as to why, and what for? And yes, she was by all by herself.

RIGBY, Idaho (AP) ― Police say a 22-year-old eastern Idaho driver was looking at a text message on his phone when he hit a sheriff deputy’s parked patrol car.

I wonder if there were alot of accidents from drivers being distracted when radios were first put in autos?

I ride a motorcycle. That makes me quite vulnerable to distracted driving. I was recently behind a driver that I thought was drunk, crossing over the double-yellow line, then checking that and crossing over the white line on the right. When I finally got a chance to get around him, sure enough he was on the cellphone.

Another driver in front of me on a 4-lane road in the left lane that I could see had a cell phone in his right hand and talking. He started changing lanes and almost sideswiped the car next to him that he couldn't see with his phone up to his face. That could have been serious for me, a legal distance behind him.

Maybe you are more proficient that these two numbskulls, but does anyone need to chatter away while driving and not use a hands free solution. Give the rest of us a fighting chance.

I believe they are. A gentleman I know (he was a scientist at the Manhattan Project) goes on a verbal tirade on the subject. He want's radios in cars made illegal.

The government now want to control people just like the communist party. My personal opinion though...

I believe the issue is that people can't control themselves, so the govt feels they need to step in and do it for us. If people could drive safely, there would be no need for govt intervention.

Agree with shrifty

Have you seen the news reports on the young man who was convicted of vehicular homicide because the accident was caused by his multiple texting while driving as the accident occurred?

Imagine that the person killed was your mother, sister or daughter!

How would you feel?

Would you not want laws that would prevent other families from suffering such a loss with such a small penalty to the young man who caused it?

If not the government, then who?

The most distracted I've been has been from kids in the back seat of the car...

This is yet another knee-jerk reaction by bureaucrats to look like they are "doing something" to address a problem.

The problem isn't cellphones or texting.

The problem is drivers not paying attention to driving.

Drivers can also be distracted leaning over to fiddle with a cassette tape (one of those killed a number of cyclists out here in California a few years ago), reaching for a soft drink (sideswiped a number of cars), reaching for lipstick in her purse (pedestrians on a sidewalk!), and the list goes on.

Pay attention while you're driving. When you are driving, you should be driving, and not talking on the phone, texting, putting on makeup, shaving, brushing your teeth, reading a book, newspaper, or map, trying to peel a banana, trying to throttle a youngster in the back seat, or doing anything else that takes your attention off the task of piloting a ton of murdering metal down the roadway.

Sounds simple.

Legislating against random things does NOT help, and only generates unintended consequences.

But those idiots want to be "responsive" and look like they are "doing something."

One of them could find some cojones and say, "Rather than issue simple proclaimations which do not address the root causes of the problem, we are going to study the issue and see if we can come up with recommendations to address the underlying problem, which is that people do not pay attention while they are driving."

(grumble grumble grumble)

Where do we go from here? What can be done to make the roads safer? We know people don't care about paying attention while driving. If we don't create laws and enforce them (fines, take away license, etc...) what can be done to improve the situation?

I am at a loss on this one. I can't see any way to force people to take driving seriously. Even the threat of death from inattentive driving doesn't seem to be enough of an incentive to improve one's driving skills.

When you said:
"Pay attention while you're driving"
I certainly have to agree.

You gave a pretty good set of examples of distracted driving.

I do not agree that "texting" is a "random" event as you seem to imply.

When previous "idiots" (as you characterize them) made it a crime to drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, were you also then opposed to their actions?

+1

I do not think there is anyone on this forum that is more for personal freedom than I am.

When one is driving and either texting or using a hand held cell phone it is imposable to be as skilled in your driving abilities as when you are not on the phone. Therefore you are placing others life in great danger. If the accidents that resulted from texting or using the hand held resulted in the death of only the driver I would not care. However when your irresponsible actions cause death or serious injury to an innocent party then the most severe punishment is called for. VERY long prison incarceration and major financial sacrifice for the perpetrator.

One thing that can be done, but most would never admit to needing or allowing, is enact tougher standards for drivers licenses. (And by most, I mean the regular masses who don't see distracted driving as a problem.)

As it is now, the current standard for obtaining a license is a joke. If it wasn't simply for a persons age, I'm sure even a 12 year old or younger could pass the current test, both written and on the road, with ease. That right there is the problem.

The current standards pretty much just give a license to anyone and everyone who wants one, whether they understand, or care about the responsibility of being behind the wheel carries. Driving is seen now as a right, and not as a privilege as it always has been.

Stop giving out licenses to anyone, make the testing more difficult and stringent, remove those who can't pass from the roads, make the penalties for being on the road unlicensed much more severe (confiscated vehicle and heavy fines would be a good start), and then the road would be much more safer for all.

Put four monitors on the roof of every car, pointing the four cardinal directions. Attach them to a camera pointed at the driver, so that everyone can see what they are doing.

We can also see if the driver is hot.

We here in N.B. Canada have both laws, make any difference?, do not think so. I would like to know if the first ticket has been given for texting. I back N.J. give tickets for texting while walking and using cellphones in public places. I am currently reliving a female discussing her first date with a new beau, boring, please SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Any body know where to buy a jamming device

I wonder when they're going to require sound-proof compartments around each seat in the car to prevent talking while driving since the speech center of the brain is distracted equally by talking to passengers as it is by talking on the cell phone.

Your foot?

This is just one of several knee jerk responses to what Sec'y Lahood announced. I would guess that most of the sardonic responses come from people who did not follow the link provided in the OP.

So, here is what the link said:

LaHood is asking for a study of each of the two states to determine what is effective.

Anonymous surveys are not to be trusted.

David, why would you say this? What is it about the word "anonymous" that invalidates a survey.

It would seem that one would get more honest answers if there was not a possibility that the person answering the survey could be identified. I do not know this, but I would think that most "surveys" and/or "polls" wind up as being "anonymous" because the name of the individual being survey is not asked.

Do you think that the results of the "anonymous" survey mentioned in the link are significantly different from the actual facts?

Anonymous as in who did the survey. Of course the people polled are not identified. This is standard practice. Why say it was 'anonymous' unless the surveyors don't want to be identified? It's oxymoronic.

No, but in order for results to be believed, the survey must be able to be re-created.

I believe it is the participants of the survey that are anonymous. According to the article, the survey was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a government agency.

David, alandb got there before me.

Then it is an oxymoron, and distracting to us that are familiar with statistics and surveys.

I've driven in a number of states that prohibit driving while on the cell-phone, but the laws are ignored left and right.

I do not think "anonymous" and "survey" are contradictory terms.

I frequently see police officers talking on their cell phones while speeding in their cruisers.

Why should we worry about breaking the laws when they do not? Aren't we supposed to look up to them as an example of correct behaviour? (Rhetorical)

I don't trust surveys conducted by a government agency either. If they don't agree with a survey, they will fund another survey and publish the one that agrees with their purpose.
The difference between a government paid consultant and a shopping cart with a loose wheel is...
The shopping cart has a mind of its own.

but this practice isn't limited to government agencies. Usually you can find a study to support almost any opinion you want to represent. I don't know about this particular study other than what was stated in the article. It could have been done by an independent research firm, but I don't know.

This is really my point. If the survey had been done by a reputable agency, I would feel better about it.

But to say an 'anonymous' survey is asking for trouble.

What makes the CDC not reputable, in your opinion?

Because the results support what they wanted it to. Independent and reputable survey vendors have no vested interest in particular results.

The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control??????
Do you really consider them to be self serving?

This was not a study relating to texting but to "Youth Risk Behavior"

find it here
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss6104.pdf

I have emailed while driving before but I don't think anybody should. I somewhat regularly drive for 350 miles each way on an interstate with little traffic most of the way. I only did this when nobody was around me but it still takes my attention off the road too much and I regularly stray out of my lane. I'm OK with banning it. Young drivers who only think they are experts are a particularly bad risk.

Cell phones, on the other hand, should not be banned IMHO. There are circumstances where they are too much of a distraction but when I am on cruise control on the highway without traffic, the phone is not too much of a distraction. It is up to me to make this judgement. I have called a halt on the call before when traffic was too much or to otherwise concentrate on my driving. The problem is not everybody does. But you cannot legislate away supidity (mine or others). Clearly wrong behavior I am OK with a ban. Sometimes OK behavior should be left up to the individual (possibly giving kids a couple years experience first). I use a hands free phone, by-the-way and I think other should. But with the vast majority of cars having an automatic transmission all the soccer moms have a free hand for their phone.

I wish I knew what all those calls were about, however. Maybe it's just me but I am not on the phone that much. I do think it should be for a reasonable purpose if you're going to drive and talk on the phone. Not chit-chat with your friend. Risking an accident for a nothing important phone call is another case of bad judgement to me.

Jim