The AM Forum

Here we go again being tossed into another "gray" area:

NTSB recommends states ban all nonemergency driver cell phone, electronic use device use:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- States should ban all driver use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices, except in emergencies, the National Transportation Board said Tuesday.

Read at:  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ntsb-recommends-ban-driver-cell-172442234.html

I heard about this idiotcracy . Whether or not it becomes law amateur radio MUST be exempt. As much as I have not been too much of a fan of the ARRL it is time to mobilize and let those in power know that any limitation on the use of mobile amateur radio is unacceptable,
De Tim WA1HnyLR

I'm sure there will have to considerations for Amateurs, but chances are slim, as that can be another device that distracts the driver.
It's about time something happens to these crazy, careless drivers.
It never fails, when I'm behind someone yapping on a cell phone, they cease driving and become a menace on the road. Driving below the speed limit (there are laws called impeding traffic!!!) or going through red lights.

Sorry to join the idiotcracy group!!!

Fred

Go ahead, legislate my Dairy Aire!

Another stupid law by control freak politicians.
An excuse to pull people over and collect MONEY.
That is ALL that this is.
Its a form of TAXATION.

Grrrrr...

                _-_-

As much as it is an inconvenience for myself, I'm all for it!!

With the invincable soccer moms in their SUVs gossiping with other soccer moms, paying attention to their driving is the lowest importance to them.
To the dunb-assed kids texting while driving down the road.

This is getting to be a real issue. I have had so many near misses that I have lost count. It is getting to be a real issue and safety hazard.

It would be a shame for all to lose the privelige due to some, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do just to survive.

Unfortunately, like so many other laws allready on the books, this is no different. The cure is NOT to pass more laws. (we allready have enough)
but to better enforce the ones we allready have....................

Can you say "Nationwide Trucking Strike"? :o

The best use of 11m.......

Time to update the gov't lexicon defining "wireless" and "radio".

73DG

I travel the highway every day. I'm all for it.

With the appropriate exceptions, it's not a bad idea. I'm sure the truck drivers would weigh in on this since a vaque writing of such a ban could include CB as well as amateur radios.

Me too. In this case, wireless is radio. Like it or not, a cellphone is still a 2-way radio and lawyers would get rich arguing the point.

And though many/most/some amateurs are more responsible than the average teenager or distracted adult using a phone, they are well in the minority and certainly not worth tossing the whole bill and compromising safety over. I'm sick of dodging idiots nearly every time I'm on the road.

Perhaps the only way around it would be to permit "licensed" users or services to be exempt, though this still leaves the truckers out. The ARRL could start a Truckers on Two program to address that and help populate the VHF regions better.  :D

How would the cops know if you were talking on a handsfree cellphone?   "Just talking to myself officer"

We had an ordnance proposed here in town (Stephenville, TX) to prohibit all wireless communications devices for mobile use. When that came up in City Council meeting, we had about 18 hams there, several of us spoke on the subject and it ended up with just a texting ban. Which, of course, doesn't work either because there are more eejits that text while driving than there are cops to catch them. Our goal, and one which has acceptance at the state level here in TX, is for an exemption for licensed operators on any of these ordnances.

I'm hoping that the ARRL will jump in quickly on this latest NTSB idiocy, but I'm not sure they're as effective as they used to be, so we need to keep our ears on what's happening in our individual states. Have to be prepared to stand up for ourselves and not leave it all to Newington.

I heard this NTSB thing is motivated by the MO crash where the texting kid rear-ended a truck and two school busses crashed into him. It's easy to blame the texting kid, but is there a possibility that the two school busses were also following too closely? I've always believed that if you hit someone from the rear, it's your fault.

I don't think we need any more laws. There are already plenty of distracted driving laws on the books. Just enforce the ones we've got.

In Australia it is an offence to use a mobile phone while driving and has been for a few years now and it is policed vigourously. The law does not include the use of a microphone but I wouldn't like to try my luck.

Bob

By checking your cell records after the crash if it wasn't otherwise obvious.

Be pretty hard to spot a trucker using a CB up in the cab by a cop in a patrol car.

The police now have devices to 'suck the data' out of your cellphone on demand at the scene.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/state-police-can-suck-data-out-cell-phones-un
 (http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/state-police-can-suck-data-out-cell-phones-un)

This would just give them the legal opening to routinely download all the data from your cellphone at each traffic stop. "I thought I saw you on the phone as I passed you"  Call records, contacts list (might be terrorists in there you know), emails, etc. That way they can get whatever data the Carrier IQ system hasn't already sent them.  :o  Want to bet that doesn't get abused?

All headed in the wrong direction.

The push has been "Any communication is a distraction" for the last couple of years. You have heard them bleat on the tube how hands free isn't any better than regular cell usage, all as a prelude to this. Now they have an ugly crash to capitalize on, I think they call that 'dancing in the blood of innocents', to use to press forward some legislation that no doubt has already been written and just waiting for a launching point. It will have some poor kids name attached to it - it's for the children after all. Under the 'any communication is a distraction' banner, why would there be any exemption for licensed services or ham radio? Of course the police and fire will get exemptions. I guess they come from a better gene pool?

I've certainly seen some clowns talking when they should be driving, but not that many and I live in a college town. I think the cure here is much worse than the disease, and it won't stop with that. Soon it will be no computers (I use a computer for a better, larger screen for GPS mapping), no food, nothing that takes both hands off the wheel. They already tell drivers under a certain age how many folks they can have in the car.

And yes, it won't make driving any safer, it will just chip away another freedom, let the nose of the government camel further into the tent, and feed the budgets as the mobile taxation units pull em over and rack em up.

How many Tea Party folks do I have to elect to make the NTSB go away?  ;D

Oh don't worry, some enterprising fellow will offer all the police agencies a new $5,000 box to mount on the dash of the patrol cars to sense near field RF and light up a warning light. It won't be any more accurate than the speed guns that can't tell a close in sedan from a speeding 18 wheeler a half mile behind it, but that hasn't stopped them from using those either.

The cop will see a red light and warning buzzer come on, look around for the nearest car with an extra antenna, and apply the taxation right there on the spot. Won't matter if it was you transmitting or not, just like it doesn't matter if you are actually speeding when the speedgun says you are or not. All it takes is officer testimony and the box being certified as prima facie evidence. Bang, done.

Hey, I think I just figured out my backup gig in case of layoffs! Now with the 'expert testimony' fees added in .....

WB2EMS, I applied for a patent for this at work over a year ago and the company didn't want to do it. They thought it may have big brother issues.

Right on. More laws mean less freedom. You can't pass enough laws to eliminate stupidity. If you cannot drive and operate a cell phone at the same time, you should be smart enough to know and stop.

This proposed law, like all the other laws intended to "protect" us (usually from our own stupidity), is a bad idea.

As a night dispatcher of a large towtruck fleet (60 plus), I wonder how my company will be affected.  We use VHF-FM radio only occasionally now.  The company expanded beyond the range of those (simplex) to 4 yards across south Louisiana.  Our main method of communication with drivers is now Nextel 2-way "walkie talkie" mode on the Nextel cellphones.

This should be interesting.  Sometimes towtrucks can be considered "emergency" when clearing out a wreck or recovering an overturned vehicle.  I wouldn't classify every call as an emergency however.  Towing someone from their garage to a repair garage is not really an emergency nor is towing off of private property.  Interpretations can vary.

This should be very interesting to watch develop.  HOW are you going to persuade millions of people who are ingrained in the behavior of talking on cellphones while driving to change?

Half of the problem is that they will give a drivers lisence to anyone that can look over top of the counter and sign a name! ! ! ! ! !

You take a blithering idiot that has the IQ of a potted plant, put him behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, and then hand him a phone to talk on while he is attempting to drive, and you have literally created "an accident waiting to happen!"

I am really totally against any laws that inpinge on our freedoms, BUT............
this has gotten to be real issue and something is going to have to be done for the safety of those of us that CAN operate a motor vehicle. I really dont care if the stupid idiots get killed because of their own stupidity. It DOES make the world a better place to live. However, the innocent ones that DON'T deserve it usually bear the brunt of other peoples stupidity and lack of common sense.

It is really a shame to have to give up some of your freedom to preserve your safety. But in this situation, what in the hell can you do. We DO have enough laws on the books concerning this matter allready. They do not need to write more bogus laws, they just need to better enforce the ones we allready have! ! ! ! !

In this day and world of everything being "extreme" and the one-upsmanship of it all, It really shows how stupid some people are. I dont want them on the road anywhere near me! ! 

(my rant for the day.....)

I disagree with the premise. We don't HAVE to....


I'd bet most, if not all states already have a law on the books that your must operate your vehicle in a safe manner/keep it under control, etc. Just enforce that law.

Yea, but law enforcement and the local politicians would frown on you if we started shooting out the tires on everyone that we saw operating a motor vehicle like an idiot.
(But it WOULD be fun! ! ! )  :o  ;D  ;D

Yup. Your last sentence is the only solution needed to resolve this problem. In spite of having an elaborate "lawyer crafted law" to prohibit hand-held cellular use in moving vehicles, at this point, here in CT the police simply look the other way.

Rob W1AEX

Outlaw coffee and donuts so they will have nothing to look at.
Problem solved.

No way Dave. I like sipping my coffee on the way back from the coffee shop each morning!

cell phones should weigh about 10lbs or so  like the old brick size phones from 2 decades ago.  Maybe make them hollow state.

All:

For your reading edification:

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/MobileAmateurRadioPolicyStatement.pdf

ARRL has been faced with this issue in the past.  They have written this document as a guide to lawmakers.  Since this newest threat is on the federal level, perhaps the FCC could step in during any law-framing process and come to bat for us.  One thing for sure, we need to make some noise about this - not wait until it becomes law and then say "go ahead, make my day" to the law enforcment people

Al

I guess one could ask, what's the difference between a person talking on a cell phone in a car versus a ham talking on his amateur radio mobile rig or tapping out CW with a key strapped to his leg operating his mobile rig. Whether it's cell phone use or mobile radio use (Amateur or whatever), the user's attention is not 100% on operating their vehicle. Maybe 90% or 80% might be good, but do you want to be in this driver's headlights when his/her driving attention span is only 80%.

I don't know about making it a law. I agree using common sense is best. But here's my observations:

From personal experience, I KNOW I can be a space-shot when using my cell phone and driving.  Most of the time I am focused on driving, but there are times on the cell when I tune out and barely remember the last few minutes of driving.   I think we 've all been there.

Driving on an open road or highway is not TOO bad - but try using a cellphone while driving thru a crowded parking lot with people walking from behind cars or when crossing through a busy intersection, etc.  When is the last time anyone has said, "hold on - I can't talk for the next 16 seconds cuz there is busy traffic coming up." Not too often I would think.

I stay off the cell phone when driving... period.  It's EZ enuff to pull over if needed.

Many of us think we can multi-task while driving and using a cell phone or even text, but we are all serial-brained creatures and can really do only one thing 100% of the time. I feel 100% is needed for driving. After all, here we are, fallible carbon units using chemical reactions to control a 3,000+ pound  machine moving at god knows what speed. It's surprising there are not more accidents than there are.

Couple that with young folks in a rush, maybe taking a few tokes, music blaring, texting, etc. I don't want someone like that near me.

And this thing about Blue Tooth "hands-free" operation being safer. Pleaassse...  It's nothing to do with holding the phone with one hand. I drive one-handed all the time. It's about the mind's attention being split up. Talking VOX or PTT or holding a phone is all the same.


But mobile amateur radio should be permitted cuz we are vital public servants...  caw mawn  ;D

T

Coffee and donuts are known to be bad for the public health. They must be banned comrade.

/on soapbox

In my experience, and I've been operating car mobile, motorcycle mobile, aviation mobile, and bicycle mobile since the early 70's, there is a considerable difference. I find my attention is much more disrupted by the cellphone than it is by operating any of the varieties of amateur radio, including mobile cw.

I think there are two things at work. One mechanical, and one cultural.

With a cellphone, either handheld or with a bluetooth earpiece, the audio is generally in one ear and not all that loud. I find that in that case, I have to invest more of my consciousness or attention into listening to hear what is happening and parse the sounds into a conversation. When I'm operating my ham gear, generally I have a speaker filling the vehicle cabin and hear binaurally. Something about that makes it a lot easier to both hear and participate in the conversation without having to pay a lot of attention to it.

Think about standing around having a conversation with your friends. You've always got pretty ample attention left to look around at what is happening in the space where you might be, people watching or whatever without losing the thread of the conversation or being connected to it. Most of us multitask all the time while having conversations, it's the norm.

There are two parts I think to the cultural issue. One is that historically, although it may not be as true for the current youth, a telephone was something that you stepped aside and focused your attention on, shutting out the outside world. Again, it was only in one ear, and not all that loud. How many of us have stood by a phone with a finger in the other ear to block out noises, or shusshed our family members to "be quiet, I'm on the phone".

You invested yourself in a phone call, focused yourself on the person on the far end of the line and consciously blocked out the other things in your environment. We trained ourselves to do that, call after call, and I think we bring some of that habit with us to our use of cellphones. When we're on a phone call, we focus inward on the call, not outward to what's happening externally. That's fine if you're standing in the downstairs hall by the phone on the wall, not so good if you're bopping along at 55 mph in traffic.

The other half of the cultural difference between ham radio operations and cell calls is the content. When I'm talking with friends on the radio, either on 2 meters or 75 AM, it's a casual conversation. My investment in it is low. But when the cellphone rings, it's usually not so casual. It may be my boss, forwarded through from my work phone when I'm away from my desk in the field. Or a family member with an urgent need to communicate, even if it's something simple like "bring home milk". Again, my investment in the call is much higher than it is for a casual conversation on the radio. Who hasn't had a friend buzzarding along on the 2 meter CB and when you get to your destination he's still going along and you just turn it off and walk away to do your business - you'd never do that to someone on a phone call, because the perceived importance of the call is generally much higher.

So in my experience, there is a large difference between cell phone use and ham operation. I noticed it right away when I was issued a cell phone and started having occasion to use it in the car.

The other thing is that I think the hype about how dangerous it is is just that, hype. Here's a study saying that the risks are overblown, and may have very little impact.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/researcher-using-cell-phones-while-driving-not-as-risky-as-previously-thought-64777/ (http://www.christianpost.com/news/researcher-using-cell-phones-while-driving-not-as-risky-as-previously-thought-64777/)

We have 4 times as many phones as we did a decade ago in use, but we don't have 4 times as many car crashes. Can an undisciplined driver get too distracted by the shiny toy and cause an accident - of course, we see it too often. But that same undisciplined driver might have an accident at the same rates without that shiny toy, just be distracted by something else in their environment. It's not the phone, it's the driver.

And I also have issue with folks that say "you need to be 100% focused on driving, both hands on the wheel, or else!". Dude, I'm *never* 100 percent focused on driving. It just doesn't take that much CPU to keep a car between the white lines and stay away from those red lights in front of you. Toss in a little navigation and random collision avoidance, and we're still running 80% idle CPU on your task manager for most folks. So we'll talk to others in the car, or listen to the radio, or day dream, or design new rigs in our head, or whatever, but the idea that we need 100 percent of our capacity to execute the safe pilotage of our vehicle is bogus. *Try* driving without any external stimulus like a radio. Your mind will wander. There just isn't that much to the task of driving (in good conditions) to keep it solidly occupied.

I used to fly a fair bit. While committing aviation, it wasn't unusual to be running or supervising 6 or more radios. Dual nav-comm. Two radios being tuned around to get navigation information, checking bearings on maps, listening to the ID's in cw. While this was going on, I'd be listening to the local area controller to build up a picture in my head of what traffic was moving into and around the area, and simultaneously having an intermittent conversation with the local tower on yet another frequency. Plus managing a transponder, and sometimes dealing with TACAN or GPS or ADF. All of this while hand flying and maintaining course and altitude and speed and watching for random conflicting traffic. It took concentration to handle the communications tasks, and yet even with that level of investment, there was plenty of attention left to deal with managing a vehicle going 2-3 times as fast as a car and moving in 3 dimensions.

Some of the studies I've read have beat their chest about how using a cell phone slows your reaction time "to that of a 75 year old". But then when they quantified that, the numbers showed the truth - it took a healthy 18 year old like 350 milliseconds to react to a stimulus and start braking. It took a cell distracted or 75 year old, 425 milliseconds, a 22% increase!! Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Yes it went up 22 percent. Do you think 75 milliseconds is the difference between life and death? That's 6.6 feet at 60 mph.

So, to conclude my thesis  ;D

I think we pay more attention to a cell phone than we do to a radio, and they should be treated differently by the rules.

I think we could re-engineer cell phones and maybe make some cultural changes to make them more like the radios we're used to so that we would focus less inward on the phone call. I think the cabin speaker bluetooth systems built into some cars are a step in the right direction. I think bluetooth headsets, even though I use one, are not as much of a step because of the single ear hearing.

I think they are playing with the numbers, and looking for control and revenue.

And I think undisciplined drivers have and always will have accidents. We would do better trying to identify them and keep them off the road until they come up to speed. But that would be profiling, can't have that, even if it would be a more effective solution. Not politically correct.

/off soapbox. Thanks for your time.  ;)

This crap came up before, and as I subscribe to the "ARLI" newsletter/group, I got wind of it. I replied that CB should also be exempt because its part of the trucking safety infrastructure, and that the ARRL could align with the trucking lobbyists and other civillian radio users (business, MURS and GMRS manufacturers, etc) on this one matter to increase the clout factor.

Oh, the high and mighty hams that lead that group came back with the usual puffed up ham anti-CB hogwash and said the ARRL has no business defending CB to the government, which, is NOT a real reply to the statement or suggestion I made.

The pooh-pooh reply also said CB is unlicensed, when, in the FCC's own words, it is "licensed by rule".

Sometimes those ARRL folks are stuck up and twist things. Other times they are straight. They frequently do not want to play nice with others that don't share a narrow borg-minded view and when that happens they make foolish decisions and disregard allies. Forget it.

Geez, if the city decided to outlaw 2-way radios, you bet I would side -with- my CB-using neighbor against it, because we have a common cause - the 'right' to communicate.

That's good to hear because a couple years ago the city of Irving TX proposed such idiocy, and I suggested here in this forum that the town club appoint some members to show up at the meeting (sans vests and radios of course).

This was instantly ridiculed by a person who mocked a club he didn't know (ascribing to them the caricature or stereotype of the evil orange vests, many radios strapped on, and big guts), and was cocksure it was a very bad idea. I don't remember who, its not important and there are no recriminations but to point out that the opinion was expressed very aggressively, which gives us evidence that the bad vision or bad opinion of ham clubs is out there, perhaps more prevalent in the ham ranks themselves than expected.

Your post shows it was a great idea, and seconds the evidence from Irving that it was a great idea, and worked.

The point is that it is a great idea for a club to properly show up and argue against such fascism.

So, did they have orange vests and six radios strapped on? I would guess no. Good job on squashing the city's idiocy.

One can't. Any more than the anti-pot or anti-speeding or anti-smoking or anti-alcohol commercials an education have worked.

The only way is to force the issue by means such as bluetooth, where the phone won't do anything but dial 911 if it the car tells it that its moving. In phone software, the bluetooth and GPS is currently able to be turned off by the user to save power, but that may have to change to where every few minutes, the phone listens on BT for the car. GPS is less practical for this since it has to find its location and speed and that takes time and power. There are other wireless 'automotive' protocols that the vehicle could use to accomplish the same thing with the user never knowing how it is done.

Cellphone calls while in a moving vehicle will become the province of the hardware or software hacker.

The main benefit for some people would be peace and quiet on the bus. The system would talk over BT to stop the driver's phone, and this would also stop all the obnoxious calls among the passengers. Not that I care, but my friend uses the bus a lot and reports that there are bling-encrusted ne'er-do-wells that have 2 or 3 phones and use them in loud voices to transmit a constant stream of threats and curses. He thinks they do it to show off their 'juice'. whatever that means, I see only evil clowns. Maybe having "juice" means a mastery of public transportation. ??

Anyway, just like the FCC put their hobnail boot on the linear and scanner industry, they can do it to the cellphone industry and no doubt the automakers will push 'safety' features, like they already do with black boxes that record not only the speed at impact, but steering wheel position and angular velocity, gas and brake pedal actions, etc. The government needs a court order to plug into the car and 'search' the box, but the insurance company agents frequently violate this right of privacy when a destroyed vehicle is in a shop.

Having a cellphone disabled while driving is but the smallest part of the overall scheme of control and surveillance.

Nah, Patrick, there wasn't a single orange vest or HT in sight -- except on the police chief who had his HT on his duty belt. Our club VP is a deputy sheriff, our Sec/Treas was at the time a VFD chief, pres is a former Lions club pres, PIO (me) works at the local university and on local BC radio and in papers a lot publicizing planetarium events and star parties. Most of our club is active, in one way or another, in the community; and, of course, we do the bike races, marathons and all that. Pretty well known and, I think, respected. It worked out well for us.

Kevin, I agree entirely about the difference in cell phone and radio conversations. I will not originate a call on my cell while I'm driving. If I have to dial I pull off the road. I answer calls only grudgingly and won't talk long. "I'm driving, I'll get back to you." Texting is out of the question. No damn way. Pull off to either read or send. Usually ignore until I'm at my destination. If I have a passenger with me, I'll have them handle it for me.

However, I feel very at ease talking on the radio. I think, as you said, part of it is because the received audio surrounds me in the cabin. Another part is knowing that I can easily drop the mic if I need both hands on the wheel, and it won't be damaged. Can't make that guarantee for the iPhone.

Very often on our local 2m repeater, you'll hear, "Stand by, I gotta drive for a minute" or "Back in a minute, I gotta put both hands on the wheel". I think that radio lends itself much better to a more relaxed and less distracting mode of operation. I feel much safer talking on the radio while driving than I do talking on the iPhone. If this NTSB recommendation begins to threaten us, I believe that there's a very clear-cut case for an exemption for amateur radio and also CB.

Just yesterday, I was in my F-550 exiting off the highway and a guy in some little car had apparently missed the exit and swooped across 3 lanes from the hammer lane onto the exit median and stopped with the front half of his little car sticking dead into the exit ramp's lane. It was raining lightly and the pavement was wet. I realize an F-550 4x4 flatbed is not -that- big of a truck but compared to a car it is very heavy and has a cast iron 6.4 diesel and a real frame and all the rest of that old-school stuff, and so it does not slow down or change directions very well (and is real bad at trying to do both at the same time) and I hope he filled his britches from both ports when I flew across his bow inches to spare with horn blaring. All I could do was juke it a few inches and lay on the horn. Braking might have meant a loss of control so I did not. If I'd a smacked him, i'da been awful unhappy about the damage to a fairly new $50K truck. As I passed, in horror myself for fear of killing his stupid butt, I saw the chrome on the big fat phone against his ear. I wonder now if he ever saw me. He must have stopped for a reason. His call must have been very important.

There are laws against a lot of things.  Doesn't mean that they do not happen.  Illegal drugs are, obviously, illegal; but I see overdoses and people too impaired to walk, much less drive, regularly.  There is a law here against texting by certain drivers, don't remember specifics off the top of my head.  As far as I can see, nothing has changed.  We still see people who drive like drunks due to texting.  It still could be reckless driving, but don't see that being filed much.  Bottom line:  Laws are fine, but many times they don't change much of what they are supposed to change.

From the political end, how many politicians will risk making the big cell companies mad?  Not many, I think, at state level and above.  Too much money to be had.  And, it's a major election year.

Like WB2EMS [nice call] said:  end of soap box.

Several weeks ago when working 10 meters AM, I worked a mobile in England. It was his first 10 meter AM contact in the mobile. As he was talking, his signal suddenly disappeared. It came back several seconds later. He said he almost missed a stop sign and dropped the hand-held mike as he quickly applied his brakes. So hams, at least this one, can get excited, involved, less attentive to driving, etc. when driving and operating a mobile rig at the same time. So how many more are out there on the roads. Do you really think that guy with a 16 pill radio shooting skip to far-away countries, doing 70 miles an hour down the highway and dragging 20,000 pounds of cargo behind him, has a 100% attention span on his driving?





no soap in my box

So what's next?  No more radios/cd players in the vehicles?

Wow - just saw this discussion!  

Warning: Soapbox alert  ;)

First, it is absolutely unbelievable that anyone (here) would be for this  :P ???

"Distracted Driving" is already against the law.  Let's have have Big Brother outlaw children in the car, and spouses with whom you are having a "discussion" or - oh I know - GPS units, because you have to type in an address - AND - it talks to you.

Better make deer illegal except in fenced preserves,too.  Hmmmmmm... how about hornets/yellow jackets in the car.

FOOD (eating) in the car? Gee I don't ever eat in my car - so I want it made illegal.  Plenty of accidents caused by people eating while driving.  

How about women putting on their makeup while driving?  Yup, better make a law for that, too.  I have actually been in a car while the [woman] driver was applying *EYE* makeup while looking in the rear view (yes, we were under way - she was steering with her knee!).

Arm around the girlfriend? (or for that matter, girlfriends at all in the car!).  Better stop that.

Yes, absolutely - I don't do any of those things so of course they should all be illegal.

CD players?  These should be illegal in cars because people change CDs while driving.  Maybe radios, too.

See the point?

Eventually, they will come for YOU!

This creeping government control over more and more of our individual freedoms is the worst part of big government.

Is there anyone here who is FOR the banning of the 100 watt incandescent bulb?  Lots of talk about stocking up, but what about the law itself??? Who passed this?  Who wrote this?  Who signed this into law?  Is this really a good thing?  NO NO NO.  Let common sense prevail.  We don't need or want the Big Brother nanny controlling more and more of what we [can't] do.

There is a good book out called "Control Freaks".  I have not personally read it, but I do know several people who have, and apparently it is right on the money about this sort of thing.  Maybe I'll pick it up.

 ::)  Ok, the soapbox is now available for the next speaker [writer].

I have no disagreement that there are many "distraction events" in vehicles outside of cell phones.  But these have provided the impetus for additional control both because of the number of devices in usage combined with the potential for virtually continuous distraction.

Prior to the growth of cell phones there were accidents attributable to ham, CB, and other two way radio operators but only a very small percentage of vehicles had a user in one of these groups.  At its peak in the 70s CB appeared huge compared to amateur radio but it was still used only in a fairly small percentage of moving vehicles.  Contrast that to virtually every vehicle having an owner with some sort of cell phone or smart communication device.

Entertainment radios, kids, etc. are distractions but rarely do you continuously interact with these "devices" like you do with a cell phone.  Even traditional two way radio is a series of time sequenced one-way transmissions which is less cognitively taxing than cell or involve more demanding input like texting.

From risk management, once risk outcome (basically probability times cost) becomes sufficiently large actions will be taken to manage the risk and actual/potential accidents at least partly attributable to modern technological devices have reached this threshold.  It is going to be very difficult for amateur radio to separate itself from this regulation.

Of course if it does it will be Christmas in July for the league as the number of new hams skyrockets at a rate that will leave the emcom types in the dust :)

It is just another government knee JERK reaction so they can say they are in touch and care about people. We surely have enough laws. If they really wanted to address driver distraction, then:

Ban Fast food drive through windows.
Ban broadcast receivers, satellite radio, CD/DVD players, and of course Eight Track players.
Duck tape all passengers mouths shut....or have voice activated ignition shut off.
Ban Farding
Car colors other than black or silver,...pick just one.
Police sitting on side of road with lights on....maybe this should be "Police on road," or "Police in cars."
Ban Billboards
Outlaw driving in rain, snow, fog, or during a full moon.
Ban sex while driving.
Heck, ban driving all together and also save the planet...had to add this as it solves all of the above.



 

As I said at the top - it is an EXCUSE to pull you over, search you and your car (if they want, or don't like ur "attitude"), issue a ticket, and then COLLECT $$$MONEY$$$.

It's a TAX to create revenue. Period.

Look at the $$ that FLOW like water at your local traffic court every WEEK!!
Average fine is $100-300, small towns get 100+ "patrons". That's $10,000 to $30,000 per week! Multiply by 52. That's minimum $520,000/yr in a small town.

One time some years back I was up in a prosperous suburb to pay my road tax, there were more like 1,000 people for traffic court! DO THE NUMBERS!!

And, fwiw, and btw, in NYS "video" or "TV" in the front seat is banned!
But, they sell GPS screens that people pop into the field of view on the windshield all the time, and the "fancy" cars have pop up or in the dash GPS and radio displays.

But they banned "computers" in the front too!

I smell a rat, decomposed, smelly dead rat.

The age of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY is gone, to be replaced by the parental state caring for you and telling you what you can an can not do about anything and everything.

Sorry, this stuff in the name of "safety" or in the name of "security" provides neither safety nor security.

                             _-_-bear

Don't laugh - look at some of the proposals put forth in recent months.  That is exactly what is going on.

The insurance companies are firmly behind this because the ticket is for "OPERATING WHILE . . .", which means the insurance company gets to charge you a surcharge for (in Massachusetts) 7 years for using your phone.  Follow the money, and usually there is a lawyer, banker or insurance company at the other end.

Wow, I really see that this has opened up a Pandora's box of comments. What is needed here is common sense.when and when not to use a cell phone in a moving vehicle I have had a cellphone with me when I have driven before and had it go off. Dealing with it was a definite distraction of which I felt very uncomfortable dealing with driving and talking at the same time. I believe that a totally hand free cell system with external antenna on roof as part of the on board vehicles electronic devices should be the only system permitted while in motion. The cellphone audio would emminate from the vehicles speaker system. I am curious what percentage of accidents

 have been caused by distraction from cell phone use or texting versus use of mobile ham radio. I have been thinking of a hands free setup in the car where the microphonium is mounted on a flexible goose neck boom like I have in the Caddaverllac.The PTT function could be by a foot switch or a switch mounted in a very accessible place in the drivers cockpit. Any way I am not going to give up my mobile operation because some yahoos decide to lump use of a cellular telephonium and amateur radio into the same category. I will be Henry Nyellar Mobile until the day I crash and burn.

And the same argument can be used for the aforementioned laws already on the books for Distracted Driving.

I'd be in favor of a larger penalty for those causing accidents due to distracted driving along with higher insurance rates. Unfortunately this does nothing to help the poor individuals minding their business who get impacted by the poor choices of the nit wits.

Operating a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a God-given right. With such privileges come certain restrictions for the good of all. Basically, this is just a further clarification of the laws that already exist, since we live in a society dominated by idiots who put themselves above all else. Common sense isn't all that common these days.

Seems pretty simple: we're being treated like immature children because that's how an increasing number choose to conduct themselves. These same people vote in other idiots who find it easier to create new laws for our benefit since collectively we're not bright enough to conduct ourselves intelligently. No different than when we were kids and a certain few made trouble, so everyone got penalized for it. I mean, c'mon - we keep bank robbers in jail longer than murderers.

It all makes sense, in a warped kinda way....  ::)

as one who drives the highway every day not sitting home.
It is a proven fact the average american is too stupid to drive and use a phone at the same time.
Not about rights it is about public safety

Figures released in April show a continuing downward trend in traffic deaths, now reaching low levels not seen since 1949, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Nevertheless, over 10 times more people were killed in auto accidents in 2010 than died in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 or in the 9/11 massacre in 2001.

The Pearl Harbor death toll was 2403, including civilians. The 9/11 death toll was 2,977, excluding the 19 hijackers. The 2010 highway death toll in the US was 32,885, down from a peak high of 54,589 in 1972.

In each case, the year's highway death toll has been roughly a degree of magnitude larger than that of the suicide attack that triggered WW2, or of the one that triggered our current state of perpetual war.

If someone to-day released a new product on the market that caused over 30,000 deaths in the US alone in just the first year, you can be sure it would be immediately recalled and banned, and the people running the company that sold it would likely end up doing prison time, not to mention all the lawsuits that would abound.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/08/travel/traffic-deaths/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29 (http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/08/travel/traffic-deaths/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29)

The shame of it all is that you just have too many idiots out there that cant drive, much less drive while talking on the phone! ! ! It is getting to be a real challenge around here to get to work in the morning and get home in the evening in one piece!
The idiots on 95 are just really starting to become unbearable.

Seldom a day goes by that I dont get cut off by some idiot not paying attention to what he is doing. Many times I have seen them talking on the phone while cutting me off! When you blow the horn at them, they set the phone down to give you the finger!

4 times in my own development I have had near misses on my motorcycle because of a "soccer mom" talking on the phone while she was driving! This is a bit ridiculous that they didn't even hear my loud pipes because they were more interested in the phone.

The gene for common sense is no longer part of the human DNA chain! I guess we can attribute it to evolution!! And most feel that "it is only illegal if you get caught."

As far as laws, rules, and regulations go, they are ALL absolutely worthless unless there is someone to answer to for disobeying them, short, sweet, and simple. Kinda like when I was a kid, I knew that if I screwed up I was going to get the tar beat out of me.

That can be partly attributed to the proliferation of laws, regulations, legal actions and involvement of lawyers.  Nowadays, there is hardly any normal human activity that isn't illegal, a violation of some rule or subject to regulations and restrictions somewhere.  For example, the simple act of putting up on one's own property an outdoor antenna that isn't "stealth", or going to the local pub and ordering a beer.  With all these regulations and restrictions affecting nearly every trivial aspect of daily living, people have become numbed and no longer take any of them seriously, even the ones that do make sense and impact public safety.

Kinda like car intrusion alarms.  So many of those things so often are set off accidentally that no-one pays attention when they hear one beeping.

Well, I see a lot of bad drivers on the road every day (I also drive for my job pretty much daily) and usually on the highway.  I used to commute to Boston and also to Westboro every day.  SCARY !  Particularly in the afternoon. Literally, these people drive 80mph (yes, 80!) on a 3 lane highway - all hyped up on their coffee - passing and weaving in and out.

Anyway, back to the proposed law:

The problem with this proposed law is that it is unreasonable.  An outright ban is way, way too much.  Requiring hands free is a very reasonable regulation.  I *ALWAYS* use hands free - it is much safer (and sounds better, too).

All too many times we've all seen a (usually younger) driver holding a cell phone in one hand and trying to drive with the other.  It is not good, but an outright ban is probably worse.

Hands free is reasonable, and will solve the problem without killing the patient.

I do a lot of highway driving during the summer (like, 8,000 to 10,000 miles of it this past summer alone).  You get to see some pretty amazing stuff!  

3 weeks ago, my 20 year old and I were driving up to Portland Maine from Townsend (about 130 miles) and had a VERY near miss and witnessed a pile up.  A *WHEEL* (not just a tire) came flying off a car, which put that car out of control; another car hit that one, etc.  There were 7 vehicles involved.  THANKFULLY no roll-overs, and everyone appeared to be able to walk away.  Looking at the wheel, it seems as if the ball joints let go, and the whole assembly just fell off!  That could have been very, very bad.  We were cruising along at around 70 at the time.

I actually saw this happen on Rt 93 just north of Derry quite a while ago - - - a woman was STOPPED in the right travel lane applying makeup!!!!!!  I did lay on my horn as I passed her. She gave me that "Yea, Sooo?" look.  Wouldn't have believed it possible except I saw it myself

Al

A few good men agree with you Don:

Plato - "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
Winston Churchill - "If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law."
Benjamin Franklin - "Necessity knows no law; I know some attorneys of the same."

I'm not sure where the next one fits in, but fortunately there were no cellular phones when Richard was out and about:
Richard Nixon - "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."

I don't know who said this one (V for Vendetta perhaps?) but it sounds Orwellian:  "Bad laws make good men criminals."

At any rate, all too frequently when I come to a stop at a red light and glance in the rear view mirror, I see the driver in the car that's approaching my rear bumper looking down instead of "driving". When you have nowhere to go, this is fairly terrifying, but they usually manage to lock 'em up and stop in time. About a month ago I could clearly see that the car approaching behind me was not going to stop, so I made an illegal "right on red" turn and saved my life. That car sailed right through the red light, totally oblivious. I don't have a solution for this problem, I only know that it's a good idea to watch every other driver on the road while I'm driving because a lot of them aren't watching anything but their friggin' texting session.

There should be some kind of intelligence test or common sense test plus a 'road rage' personality test as a prerequisite for a driver license.

If the gummint ever heads in that direction, the masses will come screaming out of the woodwork claiming 23 kinds of unfairness and probably find a way to play it off as discrimination of one sort or another. - And that's before anyone is actually asked to take the tests.

About half the people (only my opinion) on the road should not ever be allowed to drive or to operate any kind of powered equipment in public. They are too stupid to do it right.

Discrimination, usually thought to be only against some minority or another, can also be against the majority- we are sort of discussing that, where government employees are permitted to do things but it wants want to ban the public from those same benefits, strip the public of any advantage. Almost no one apparently sees that as discrimination though.

I don't -need- to use the cellphone in my vehicle but I will usually take calls, say I'm driving and will call back, and then I hang up. Its only the contact (service/duty) that matters, the call content can always wait for a safe time (and I need to have a notepad handy anyway). I don't care if others want to use the cellphone (or fix their face or shave or eat or watch the GPS) but I want them to PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD first and continuously.

A friend of mine had something similar to Rob. Only he saw a distracted teen heading for him head-on. He stopped his truck. He had no where to go get out of the way. BAM!! Head-on collision. The teen was very apologetic, my friend was very angry. My friend has a large pick up truck and the teen's vehicle had a lot of damage.
The roadways are much much busier now than the 60's. And people are driving much faster. Basic rules of the road are options. I'm waiting for people to start driving through red lights. They do in the Philippines, but the driving speeds from the tremendous congestion is less than 20MPH, here people are going 55 through town.
Story and I'll move on.
I drive a school bus. I was first vehicle stopped at an intersection and the crossing guard stops ALL traffic to allow the buses loaded with students to exit the school and make their wide turns on these small town roads.
Someone several cars behind me cannot see why we are stopped and is honking his/her horn. They decide to break on through and pass all this stopped traffic and creates quite a mess in the intersection. The school crossing guard can't do anything but throw up his hands. No one was hit but that driver looked really foolish in the wrong lane almost tangling with 10 ton school buses. Now there is a local cop there and another cop to control that intersection at school dismissal to give out nice big tickets to impatient drivers.
And this is Tiny City USA!!! I imagine in bigger cities it is chaos.
Fred

When I first started driving, my father used to tell me to always assume the other driver is either drunk, or a damn fool.  I guess now you could add "or texting".

This falls in the damn fool category.

Then there is the A.H. that no amount of laws can control....like the two who cut me off last night. one used an exit ramp as a passing lane and missed me at 70 by about 5 feet. Oh to have a hook mounted cannon 

Lots of people now can't hear a siren operating at the audio level that causes physical pain at about 10 feet away.  See it every day.  Of course the level of sound-proofing in some of the cars doesn't help that problem.

Yeh, I think the common sense gene starting leaving in the early 1960's.  Mostly extinct now.  Even if you get caught, with the right attorney it still may not be illegal by the time it gets through the current court system.

If you don't watch it, the highway patrol will get you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zEzHPsi87w&feature=related

"That hat makes me want a taco."

 ;D ;D

Hey....were you on the same ramp as I was?   Exactly the same thing happened to me two nights ago.  As soon as the fool passed me on the left, he swerved right, cut me off (I had to hit the brakes..HARD), almost got rear ended, and the idiot almost got a couple of others as he cut sharply across the left two lanes to pull off the exit ramp about 300 feet farther up.

I think all kinds of "get even" thoughts at those times.  I have considered a pipe with a gasoline pump and sparkplug to spit "super backfires" out to someone who tailgates.  Or hooking up a windshield washer nozzle to spray the tailgaters.   I thought about mounting a flash camera strobe light in a taillight, but that could get someone killed.  I was thinking of a "mudball cannon" just behind the grill, that you could launch at the imbecile who passed you and cut you off, and he'd hear a good "thunk", but no real damage.

A couple of decades ago I read somewhere in an ad in the back of a Popular Science (or similar) magazine, of someone offering a kit, that when set off, released an extremely foul smelling aroma to the tailgater's cabin air intake.  I should have ordered that.

I did have some fun last summer when some nut case kid was sitting beside me at a light, with his 5000 watt bass system pounding away.  Just to see what would happen, I fired up the mobile with 50 watts at 440mHz, and something happened to his system.  I looked over at him as he was frantically fiddling with some of the knobs in his dash a couple of seconds after I fired up. 

I don't want anyone to get hurt, but I really would like to find a good way to "annoy back".

73
Ted  W8IXY

I drive a F-550 4x4 flatbed truck now, quite a bit larger and much heavier than the 1/2 ton pickup, and I do not care about tailgaters any more. I don't think I get them much as they don't want to eat that piece of metal. Let me be clear I never brake for tailgaters, the only thing I ever will do is:
slow lane: run the speed limit or in some cases take my foot off the fuel to make them go away.  
fast lane: move over safely, after I decide it is clear, or temporarily speed up and then move over when clear.
If I aint passing, I'm not in the fast lane.

I am amazed at how those in sports cars will tailgate things that their vehicles could never safely withstand a bump with.

I am only still concerned with those many non-turn-signal-using drivers who daily try to wedge themselves in between the front of my truck and the vehicle in front of me during rush hour traffic when there is not enough space and clearly plenty of room behind me. So far I've refused (in the absence of turn signals and politeness) as I did when I had a small truck, but they still always get mad. But they seem to be more pushy towards me now that my truck is much larger than before. That is backwards.

It is not my fault if they do not know how to drive, use a turn signal, or stay out of the immediate and dangerous space in the lane I am controlling. The way to enter that space is to use a turn signal and wait for the space to be safely enlarged. The way to cause an accident and have to pay for all kinds of damage is to come on over into where the 2-ton truck is.

Some woman in an SUV wanted on the interstate, there was a mile of space behind me, and she tried to run full-tilt up to the end of the entrance ramp and come over right beside me, expecting me to change lanes or brake to accommodate that.

Don't take me wrong, the truck is no slouch on the road and is not what most people would consider "slow" if they'd ever driven it, unlike much older or heavily laden trucks of this class. I was running 60 with the cruise control and she used the entrance ramp as a drag strip. There was no space for me to move over, it couldn't safely happen. At the very last moment she slammed on the brakes and entered the highway behind me.

I could sense her "me-first entitlement attitude" and see her mouth cursing and she came zooming out from behind me (where she should have been due to yielding properly) and her passenger, a man, rolled down the window and shot the finger. I suppose that was at her bidding. Then they went up a couple cars and cut someone else off forcing them to hit their brakes, so that they were then 'in front' of me.

I called the highway patrol and reported an aggressive angry driver and passenger and gave them the plate and description. The trooper called me back, asked me what I was driving and where I was, confirmed her location in traffic (mile marker), number and description of people in the vehicle, asked about weapons, etc., and then after a couple minutes two HiPo passed me up and pulled her over as by now she was some 1/2 mile down range. As I passed by at reduced speed (in TX it is required to go 15 below when passing a stopped emerg. vehicle) in the right lane I had my passenger roll down the window and stick his face out the window and wave and smile. He said he'd never seen anyone drop their jaw and bug their eyes out like that before! Also said she looked like a Klingon with bad makeup. Wish there was a picture.

These front-cutter-offer-people did not act out their fantasies like this when I had the 1/2 ton pickup truck. I think it was because of the massive wrap around Ranch Hand bumper on the front of it.

Therefore I will soon be getting a wrap-around ranch hand or cattlemen front bumper on the F550 appropriate to its size for my own safety in deterring these occurrences. There are many costly heat exchangers in the front of the F-550 and I do not want any of them damaged in case the really stupid and mean driver comes along.

Isn't it best to gear up for safety and keep a cool temper? Let all these other people be crazy and stupid and do what they want, and not be affected by it.

Reminds me of Alan Dean Foster's short story "Why Johnny can't speed."  ;D

Makes you want to take one of those cheap HD video recorders and run it routinely in the car to catch those antics. Be nice to be able to download a video of the bad driving and hand it off to the trooper via email.

Maybe that's the cure. If there are enough people out there recording bad behavior, and if the enforcement agencies would act on such input, maybe folks would behave better - never knowing who is watching. Sort of like the Tru-Vue glasses in David Brin's "Earth" novel.

Either that, or bring back dueling. Historically that was a limiting factor on bad public behavior.  :o

Gee, I thought people in Texas drove pretty well. I was in the DFW area a few times and never had any problrms. I just drove in Ma. Monday, now there is real talent on the road. Ct. is catching up though.
I love those people who come down a ramp and think the sea should part for them.  You would think if you drove an over priced yuppie mobile there would be a bit more care taken to not fold it into a smaller HOS.
I really miss my 1972 camper special with the oak flat bed and homebrew 350+.03. The jethro mobile.
A buddy in LA set up his windshield washers to shoot over the car and hit the tail gater behind him. I think he had to refill twice a week.
I've ofter dreamed of a radiator dart gun for tail gaters, and a 30mm AH64 chain gun for the hood.

 ;D

(http://www.energyburrito.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/beverly_hillbillies.jpg)

(http://thatcarguy.typepad.com/.a/6a0105355ab3fc970b011168fe5fd6970c-pi)

I remember reading about an author, I think it might have been Jack London, who was said to have rigged out his automobile with a demilled 30 caliber machine gun on a tripod in the trunk facing rearward and an arrangement to remotely raise the trunk lid while driving. Bet that got tailgaters attention.  ;D

The ones I hate the most are when I'm riding a motorcycle and some jerk is right on my butt. If I get unhorsed in any fashion, it's clear I'm going under his wheels. What they think they are doing is beyond me, unless it's deliberate intimidation. I usually just slow down and urge them to pass. It's handy to have a fast stalking horse out front to trip the radar traps before I get there.

Back in 2001 a clown from Canada rear ended me while I was stopped for a school bus. He was on his cell phone going almost 40. He hit me so hard in his little rice burner that the whole front end of the car went under my truck up to the fire wall. My head went through the back window. He bent the frame of my 88 3/4 ton truck that I had just installed a new radiator and timing chain. I drove home his car required a flat bed. I was not hurt but the truck was totaled. I could have had it fixed but the transmission sounded very funky.
The car slammed against the rear end so figured there was a bunch of hidden damage. Even the adjuster was bummed when he saw how clean the truck was.