Distracted driving and calling it in

@Ticomaya,

The moot point is all the studies and stats you continue to ignore.
There have been countless tests to test the levels of distractions on individuals.
The vast majority of road tests are still done on the road in N. America, as they should be. If you can't pass a test on the road, perhaps you shouldn't be driving.
I notice than none of the big tele-communication giants are pushing for such tests. They've read the reports.
You can continue to deny everything I've written. Then we can talk about blanket generalization.
Again, I've done my homework. Maybe you should do some instead of being the proverbial doubting thomas eh.

1 Reply

@roger,

No argument from me there. I'm not about to deny deaf people the right to drive, or walk down a street. You don't hear of great swaths of the deaf community dying in higher proportions than the rest of society. But you do hear of people wearing headphone and talking on phones doing so.. Law of averages.

1 Reply

@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

You don't hear of great swaths of the deaf community dying in higher proportions than the rest of society. But you do hear of people wearing headphone and talking on phones doing so..

I actually don't hear that at all.

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@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

There have been countless tests to test the levels of distractions on individuals.

There has been no test that shows that when I'm on the phone in my car I'm not capable of operating my vehicle safely.

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@Ticomaya,

You're in a different industry than Ceili and I are so it's likely you don't follow the stats on vehicle accidents the way we do (actually we don't even have to follow them, they kind of appear in front of us non-stop).

One of the things I'd never taken seriously as a possible factor in catastrophic injury/death in bodily injury/PIP claims is hoodies. I've seen a whack of them in the past 8 years - I slightly changed the part of the industry I was in and boom - hoodies as a factor.

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@chai2,

Quote:

Why would a song being played at top volume, or even a lower volume, be less distracting than a cell phone?

That seems easy to me, based on my own experience. A cell phone conversation requires a lot more concentration. A cell phone is even more attention grabbing than a conversation with a passenger. It seems to take you away from the moment of driving. It's hard to keep two 'conversations' going at the same time. You have to divide your attention. You could force yourself to keep the driving experience number one, but I doubt most people do that or even think about it.

Don't you find yourself 'lost' in the phone conversation at times?

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@Ticomaya,

Quote:

There has been no test that shows that when I'm on the phone in my car I'm not capable of operating my vehicle safely.

Change phone to drunk and I've heard that plenty of times from the drunk on the stool next to me.

1 Reply

@IRFRANK,

IRFRANK wrote:

Quote:
There has been no test that shows that when I'm on the phone in my car I'm not capable of operating my vehicle safely.

Change phone to drunk and I've heard that plenty of times from the drunk on the stool next to me.

Change drunk to listening to radio and we've all said it ourselves.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

... hoodies as a factor.

As in Bill Belichick hoodies?

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@IRFRANK,

IRFRANK wrote:

Don't you find yourself 'lost' in the phone conversation at times?

No.

1 Reply

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Change drunk to listening to radio and we've all said it ourselves.

the interesting thing is that radio listening doesn't seem to have the same effect on driving - there are whole journals on research on driving safety - worth googling to read the pdf's (in some cases you have to do it through libraries as they're paid subscription medical/scientific research journals)

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@Ticomaya,

? que?

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@IRFRANK,

That's a pretty good summary of a decade+ of research Very Happy

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@Ticomaya,

Ticomaya wrote:

Ceili wrote:
You don't hear of great swaths of the deaf community dying in higher proportions than the rest of society. But you do hear of people wearing headphone and talking on phones doing so..

I actually don't hear that at all.

I know... I've just spent the better part of week trying to show you that.
We know that when people walk on railway tracks with earbuds, they cant hear the train coming but a deaf person would probably feel it coming long before a collision. We also know it's probably not a great idea to walk on the tracks, and yet some people still take the risks.
We know the causation of most accidents on the road. We know why pedestrians, cyclists and vehicular accidents occur and why people die or are injured. We know that most of these deaths aren't 'accidents' but are preventable.

My cousin is in Thailand for a few months with his family. He sent me some info a two days ago, Thailand had 366 deaths and 3345 injured in 3174 separate accidents in 7 days over new years. As a rule they don't use seat belts, alcohol and cell phones are a huge problem and driving laws are almost non-existent. When I was there I was astounded at the chaos. Every single car had a war wound.
My point is, we have a choice. We can choose to make driving safer or we can choose to live like cowboys and think we know best and turn our roads into carnage.

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@Ticomaya,

Me with my already compromised peripheral vision, that luckily has never gotten worse, I'm very wary of hoodies for me - my parka with the button on parka hat with faux fur - I leave the hat part off and wear a wrapped long wooly scarf so I can see, even walking down the block.

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@chai2,

Really? How many conversations or tasks have you been unable to follow because you were distracted by the radio?

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@ehBeth,

Interesting. Hoodies are banned in most industries around here because of the strangulation potential.

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@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

Really? How many conversations or tasks have you been unable to follow because you were distracted by the radio?

A lot/many times. If I'm having a conversation with someone sitting with me in the car, I turn off the radio, because I find it very annoying to have to block it out in order to listen to what the other person is saying. Music particularly distracts me, as I've already said in a prior post. I find the radio playing music very distracting. I don't find talking to one person on a phone any more distracting than if they were sitting in the seat next to me.

If I have to concentrate on something on the road, I turn off the radio. In that case, as I've already said, I will hang up the phone, or tell the person I'm with to stop talking. Part of the reason I believe I'm a good driver is that I recognize what distracts me, and don't try to override it, but instead eliminate it when necessary.

When they give driving tests, they don't let you have the radio on, just like they wouldn't let you talk on a cell while taking the test, or even talking to the testor.

Without you having to resort to name calling yet again, I've been simply trying to make the point that I don't necessarily see cell phone usage as any more dangerous as being distracted by any number of things, and especially if you have 2, 3 or 4 of these things going on at the same time. I

ehBeth has said I'd be surprised at the number of times radio playing has been cited in police reports for accidents. It seems that hoodie wearing is also a problem.

What is your opinion on what I proposed before as far as testing people to see if they are capable of talking on a phone and driving at the same time?

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

... I've been simply trying to make the point that I don't necessarily see cell phone usage as any more dangerous as being distracted by any number of things, and especially if you have 2, 3 or 4 of these things going on at the same time.

Yes, exactly.

Quote:

ehBeth has said I'd be surprised at the number of times radio playing has been cited in police reports for accidents. It seems that hoodie wearing is also a problem.

I can't imagine wearing a hoodie while driving a vehicle. That's just stupid.

****

Bill Belichick is the coach of the New England Patriots, and he's known for wearing a hoodie while coaching.

(Not sure if he's distracted by it or not.)

1 Reply

@Ticomaya,

I think you are in denial.

1 Reply

Distracted driving and calling it in

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