US Agency Blocked Cellphone / Driving Safety Study 464
By now you've probably seen the NY Times's long piece on distracted driving — about how most drivers and most legislators willfully ignore the evidence of the dangers of talking on a cellphone, texting, and other electronic distractions while behind the wheel. According to this article, cellphone use while driving causes over 1,000 fatalities a year in the US. Another shoe has now dropped: it seems that the US National Highway Safety Administration blocked a proposed definitive study of the risks. The NHSA now cites concerns about angering Congress. Two consumer safety groups had filed a FOIA request for documents about the aborted study, and the Times has now made the documents public — including the research behind the request for a study of 10,000 drivers.
First Po (Score:5, Funny)
*SCREEEECH* *KABOOM*
Stop being such pussies. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What about... (Score:3, Funny)
Heh, I can drink an iced coffee, roll a cigarette,
and smoke pot at the same time whilst driving. Would that count as multi tasking?
Re:What about... (Score:3, Funny)
"I can drink an iced coffee, roll a cigarette, and smoke pot at the same time whilst driving."
Tobacco is bad for you.
Re:Stop being such pussies. (Score:5, Funny)
"What happened to the can-do, damn-the-torpedoes attitude that got us to the moon?"
It got outsourced to China?
C.
And so it was... (Score:5, Funny)
Shocked and dismayed... (Score:5, Funny)
I was shocked and dismayed as I read this article on my iPhone while headed into work on the turnpike this morning.
Ban Ban Ban, I wanna be sedated (Score:5, Funny)
Driving while arguing with a woman is also dangerous. I ran 2 stop-signs because of such. Are they going to ban that too?
Re:scary thing (Score:5, Funny)
Closed captioning sponsored by Apple.
Re:how does it compare to lightening? (Score:5, Funny)
Electrocuting the cattle was a very minor consideration, but herding them was a huge one.
Re:scary thing (Score:5, Funny)
Mod lives in parents' basement
Re:Stop being such pussies. (Score:1, Funny)
And what if I want to break those eggs while I'm driving? I'm much more productive if I can make and eat a Denver omelette while I'm driving. Stop being such pussies.
Re:scary thing (Score:3, Funny)
This message was sent from my iPhone.
Re:Are cell phones really a big deal? (Score:3, Funny)
Wah, wah, wah, the nanny state won't let me use my heavily-subsidized three-ton piece of heavy machinery without basic safety precautions, and just because it's a leading cause of early death and injuries. WHERE IS MY FREEDOM?
The solution (Score:1, Funny)
What we need are portable MRIs for driving, to determine if people are paying attention. Once a baseline for people is established, it should be easy to determine if they're drunk, too tired, zoned out, or otherwise impaired.
If this was already in use, I know some people who would never be given a license. Some people suck at driving, even without distractions.
On the plus side, some people are going to be better at driving with impairments than others. So, if somebody can truely handle smoking, drinking, eating or talking while driving, then they could go right ahead.
Re:Stop being such pussies. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:scary thing (Score:3, Funny)
So all we need to do is replace all the drivers out there with professional racecar drivers! Brilliant!
Re:scary thing (Score:4, Funny)
Your discussion reminds me of the registers at JCPenney. The old machines were from the 1980s and they were slow as heck, but predictable so you could type 1 - scan - TOTAL - 1 - 1 - $100.00 - ENTER and just wait for the machine to catch-up (the cash drawer would pop open about 60 seconds later).
The new 2005-era registers are "smart" and try to predict what you desire, and most of the time they guess wrong. So instead of a fast automatic interface, everything operates more slowly as the clerk has to type one key at a time, and then doublecheck to make sure the machine did the right thing.
Instead of a fast 1-2 minute transaction, now it drags-on for 10 minutes.