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Blame The Mobile Phone For Your Slow Commute?
from the how-about-a-mobile-phone-lane? dept
Yet another study has come out on people driving while talking on their mobile phones, and I doubt many people will quibble with the results of this one. The study found that people who talk on their mobile phones while driving tend to drive slower, helping to back up traffic. Considering how often the "slow driver" you see is on a mobile phone, this certainly sounds accurate. Of course, while this will push more folks to call for additional bans on driving while yakking, an equally effective (and just as realistic) solution might be to just add a "mobile phone lane" on highways, where people are expected to be talking on their phones, and therefore driving slower. Those folks can just go at their own pace, while everyone else knows to avoid that lane and go at a more appropriate speed. No, this isn't exactly practical, but neither is banning every driver distraction known to man.
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Reader Comments (rss)
(Flattened / Threaded)
License to Yak
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Ban the mobile in cars?
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Not necessarily
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Cell Phone Lane!?
No mobile phone use is not banned while driving. Phoenix recently passed a law where you can get a ticket if the law catches you texting while driving. I know in England they have pull-offs so that people can you use their phones. I think all phone use should be banned while driving.
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Re: Cell Phone Lane!?
Umm... was the post by Mike intented to be sarcasm?
... could it be?
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Re: Not necessarily
Yeah, the slower you go the faster you'll get there.
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It wouldn't bother me so much...
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Re: Cell Phone Lane!?
Er... AC, my suggestion was a *joke*. I think you need to get a browser that recognizes sarcasm tags...
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Wow..
I thought it was just good sensible driving. Oh, and the price of petrol has apparently just gone through the roof, again..
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Are you kidding me?
I pray to God that you are joking. Talking and driving is dangerous. Simple as that. Why should you reward these drivers with their own lane?
Is it April Fools already?
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talk and drive fine, but...
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Re: Ban the mobile in cars?
I think it works out ok. I mean, it's not like everybody respects it, but it's alot better than nothing. And since there is so much pressure on the infrastructure these days, and several people die each year as a direct cause of people not paying attention while driving, I think it's justifiable.
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Re: Wow..
Here in Denmark petrol prices averages 7.5$/Gallon, Car prices are around 2-3 times as high as in the US (Actually the highest in the world), and we signed the Kyoto protocol. And no, our economy is not about to crash.
Actually the unemployment rate is around 2%, which some would say is dangerously low.
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Re: License to Yak
You would get pulled over only to show you had the license.
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Re: Re: Wow..
1. A large part (most?) of that $7.50/gal is actually tax for which you receive govt services in return.
2. Denmark is somewhat smaller than the US and perhaps has somewhat better public transportation making cars less important to daily life.
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At what oil price does the USA lose it's infatuation with the SUV, bigger is better in cars and Car-centric city design? $10 per gallon? $20? $30?
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Re:
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Re: Ban the mobile in cars?
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Re: Re:
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A lane for cell users? Get real.
Even with laws, people are still going to talk on their cell phone. The REAL solution is to provide better education and offer people free (low cost) hands-free headsets (cheaper than creating a road) to use while driving.
I also don't believe cell phone usage causes traffic backups. Sorry, but these have been around long before the introduction of the Razr.
To go "1984", let's put in cell-phone signal scramblers in every car so they can't be used unless 911 is dialed.
Yeah, that's the ticket! ;)
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Re: Re:
Well that explains the population decline and all the illegal aliens needed to run the place now. It's the male and female doing it together that makes babies.
It may not be expensive gas that does in the SUV but $10/pound hamburger. The ethanol from corn guys have upped the price on what used to be cheap animal feed. Of course corn isn't anywhere near the best source for ethanol.
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(sniff, sniff) smells like more bs
I live in Atlanta, GA, a city with a NOTORIOUS reputation for traffic problems. This city has had a reputation for traffic ills long, long before most even knew what a cellphone is, so lets really spare the bs and put the blame where it belongs.. poor driving habits, period, not someone yakking on a phone.
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Driving while Yakking
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Re: Driving while Yakking
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Isn't it already illegal
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See for yourself if phone use is pervasive enough
Conduct a little experiment. Look for cars causing a traffic issue. Wandering lanes, driving slower than the general pace, whatever; they are easy to find. Keep a paper log in your car, and mark "Phone" or "Not Phone" every time you see one. You will soon be convinced that the quantity of issues being generated by this one single phenomena is quite sufficient to be affecting the overall quality of traffic flow.
Don't believe me, try it for yourself.
After doing this experiment, my conclusion: Ban driving while yakking. Enforce it.
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You can talk and drive
Most the problems I see with drivers and phones are because they have one hand on the phone and their head is tilted to keep the phone from falling, not from talking in general.
Talking on a hands free is no more distracting than talking to a passenger and arguably less distracting if that passenger is your mother in law.
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Re: (sniff, sniff) smells like more bs
Read the article. It didn't say cell phones were the sole cause of traffic congestion, but that they contributed.
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Re: Re: Driving while Yakking
You're right about that. It's called "speed variance" and has been shown to be more dangerous than moderate speeding.
Speed limits are a suggestion, not an absolute.
In the US they are usually absolute.
That's why when I pass a cop using radar and I'm going 5-7 mph over the limit, they don't stop me.
In the US they could but might not because they would simply rather wait for a bigger fish.
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Re: You can talk and drive
Studies have shown otherwise. Talking on a phone while driving is dangerous whether it is hands-free or not and impairs one's driving ability considerably more than a normal conversation with a passenger.
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Comments and a question
Comment #2: Most people seem to be too stupid to realize that they are no longer paying attention to the lines of people waiting behind them while no one is in front of them. This is what I can't understand - how can some people be so blatantly lost in their own world?
Question: For Australia and Denmark... Seriously, what prevents the local cell phone companies from legally paying off (we call it lobbying) the government to prevent them from making laws banning talking while driving?
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Re: Comments and a question
I have friends who are police officers and have ridden out with them on traffic patrols. When everyone is speeding, then the cop can indeed pull over whoever he wants. Since they are all speeding, he has reason to pull any of them over and it becomes something like shooting fish in a barrel. It that situation the cop usually looks for vehicles that he can pull over for more than one thing (like speeding AND windows too dark) or that his intuition tells him may lead to a DUI or drug arrest also. They naturally like to make each stop count for as much as it can.
Comment #2: Most people seem to be too stupid to realize that they are no longer paying attention to the lines of people waiting behind them while no one is in front of them. This is what I can't understand - how can some people be so blatantly lost in their own world?
I have observed (and had for students) a lot people that are just plain lazy drivers. They don't want to use proper steering technique. They don't want to use signals. They don't want to check their mirrors. In fact, they don't even want to have to pay attention to what's going on in right front of them. So to avoid that, they just get over in the fast lane and drive slow. That way all the other cars in their lane wind up way ahead of them and they can kind of pretend that they have the road all to themselves in their own little world (I've failed many on their driving test for that). Maintaining situational awareness (SA) in traffic requires work and many drivers are opposed to that. It is even more difficult to maintain SA when talking on a phone (almost impossible) and so yakking drivers pull the same stunt.
Question: For Australia and Denmark... Seriously, what prevents the local cell phone companies from legally paying off (we call it lobbying) the government to prevent them from making laws banning talking while driving?
I don't know about those places, but in the US (Texas specifically) there was some concern by the phone companies many years ago when cell phones were first being introduced that legislation might be passed limiting their use while driving. In Texas, the state traffic laws are basically written by the state police (Department of Public Safety), and then rubber stamped by the legislature and governor. So the first thing the phone companies did was to give free phones with virtually unlimited service (very, very expensive back then) to DPS officers to use in their cars for free as a "public service". You think those officers would then want driving while yakking outlawed? No way! So that is indeed how the phone companies in Texas paid off the government.
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BFH Big Frikkin' Horn
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They don't just dive slow! They are dangerous!
The author of the recent study, Dr. David Strayer, has a long list of other publications on this topic, and the papers are available online at: http://www.psych.utah.edu/AppliedCognitionLab/
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Re: Re: License to Yak
You would get pulled over only to show you had the license.
Works for a lot of other things. Like insurance, for example.
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Re: You can talk and drive
right, explain to me please how having only one hand on the steering wheel (instead of both), especially when driving an automatic, would cause me to drive slower? or would make me swerve or wander into another lane? All these things (unless you're in some dead man's curve) can be prevented with just one hand on the steering wheel...let's be honest, it's not being caused by holding the cell phone, but by the conversation itself.
I'll take a driver holding a (turned off) cell phone in one hand the entire ride over a hands-free yacker ANY DAY. Being engaged in a conversation distracts you much more and makes you much more a bad driver than having one hand on the wheel. If they were truly concerned with safety (and not just the appearance of safety), they would ban cell phone usage (by drivers) in cars period.
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Re: Ban the mobile in cars?
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