States try to ban driver distractions

May as well ban the radio, too. Music is a distraction. Gets your mind off of the road and on the melody.

Other driver distractions:
  • auto accidents on the road. Man, people turn their necks far to see what all the commotion is. This backs up traffic and sometimes cause more accidents!
  • Billboards. I often find myself reading the billboards and when my eyes finally look back to the road, I'm in the next lane!
  • car washes ... people waving towels and holding posters about their fundraiser car wash. I ran a light once because I was too busy reading which high school hosted the latest carwash!
  • People collecting money at street corners for whatever charity it might be. Too distracting
  • My nose. I sneeze and my damned eyes close!! Then I open my eyes and woh! There's a car stopped in front of me.
 
car phones + driving is a double-edged sword. even if celling while driving is outlawed, i mean, what happens if you have a medical emergency or life & death matter, or you have to call your boss to say you're running late because of traffic (if your job depends on it- the call, that is)-- and you get stopped & fined for it....? then you have to sit there and explain to the cop that it's an emergency. what are they going to ask, "on a scale of 1 to 50, how much of an emergncy is it?" i mean, can you imagine the courts getting even more clogged up with all these cases??
sheesh.. i'm ready to go back to the stone age myself.
 
Just DRIVING is a distraction. Maybe we should all walk, ride bicycles or use the bus - we'd be really safe then.

GMAB - cell phones ARE a distraction but so is life. I don't like to drive around people who are talking on their phone, but this is taking it about 50 steps too far. Require people to use a hands free phone and move on. Playing a FLUTE - that tells me right there somebody is trying to yank everyone's chain. I think loud stereos are a distraction - like if I can hear it in MY car from their car it's TOO LOUD. Are they gonna issue tickets for that to? Stand on street corners with a decibal meter? This MUST be some small town with a lot of bored cops or it would never have gotten past the "hey I have a great idea" stage.
 
PrayersForMaura said:
May as well ban the radio, too. Music is a distraction. Gets your mind off of the road and on the melody.

Other driver distractions:
  • auto accidents on the road. Man, people turn their necks far to see what all the commotion is. This backs up traffic and sometimes cause more accidents!
  • Billboards. I often find myself reading the billboards and when my eyes finally look back to the road, I'm in the next lane!
  • car washes ... people waving towels and holding posters about their fundraiser car wash. I ran a light once because I was too busy reading which high school hosted the latest carwash!
  • People collecting money at street corners for whatever charity it might be. Too distracting
  • My nose. I sneeze and my damned eyes close!! Then I open my eyes and woh! There's a car stopped in front of me.
LOL. Better ban toddlers trying to get out of their car seats and older children fussing and fighting. That's my biggest distraction.
 
White Rain said:
LOL. Better ban toddlers trying to get out of their car seats and older children fussing and fighting. That's my biggest distraction.
LOL, I feel for you. I don't have kids but I sometimes take my dogs with me for a ride. They LOVE the car, and the windows rolled down with the wind blowing their flappy ears!! My one dog likes to walk all over the car while I drive... occasionally plopping his cute but big butt on my lap! He's so cute! :p

I remember when I was a kid! My poor mother!! I was always saying things like "Mom, are we there yet, I'm hungry!" and then my brother and I would start hitting each other!! I'd see her looking at us in her rear view mirror! That HAD to be distracting!!

Oh, the things you appreciate when you get older.
My mother sure is a gem of a lady!!
 
PrayersForMaura said:
LOL, If feel for you. I don't have kids but I sometimes take my dogs with me for a ride. They LOVE the car, and the windows rolled down with the wind bowing their flappy ears!! My one dog likes to walk all over the car while I drive... occasionally plopping his cute but big butt on my lap! He's so cute! :p

I remember when I was a kid! My poor mother!! I was always saying things like "Mom, are we there yet, I'm hungry!" and then my brother and I would start hitting each other!! I'd see her looking t us in her rear view mirror! That HAD to be distracting!!

Oh, the things you appreciate when you get older.
My mother sure is a gem of a lady!!
Imagine this: "NO, I WANT TO SIT BEHIND MOMMA", "MOMMA, SHE KEEPS PUTTING HER HAND ON MY SIDE OF THE CAR", "MAMA TELL HER TO LEAVE ME ALONE", "MOMMA TELL HER TO BE QUIET." I tell you what...some mornings I just couldn't get to the daycare fast enough.
Now though, we have a portable dvd player and my two girls both have gameboys. They still argue and fight, but not too much.
 
how about this- banning people talking! conversations are also quite distracting.
and also, that naughty thing that perverts (or just ordinary men) do in cars when they're alone... LOL

OK wait a minute.. now we have to ban tinted windows too- how are the police going to see if you're breaking the law in your car?
 
From the original link:

Vermont lawmakers are considering a measure that would ban eating, drinking, smoking, reading, writing, personal grooming, playing an instrument, "interacting with pets or cargo," talking on a cell phone or using any other personal communication device while driving.

absolutely right, IMO.

***


reb said:
car phones + driving is a double-edged sword. even if celling while driving is outlawed, i mean, what happens if you have a medical emergency or life & death matter, or you have to call your boss to say you're running late because of traffic (if your job depends on it- the call, that is)-- and you get stopped & fined for it....? then you have to sit there and explain to the cop that it's an emergency. what are they going to ask, "on a scale of 1 to 50, how much of an emergncy is it?" i mean, can you imagine the courts getting even more clogged up with all these cases??
sheesh.. i'm ready to go back to the stone age myself.


find a suitable place to park to take/make the call. rather than creating another emergency involving someone else who has nothing to do with others' phone calls.

and, also IMO: turn the radio/cd player OFF while driving for gawd's sake!

this goes way beyond people's 'rights' and 'freedoms', i believe as it can infringe on others' rights and freedoms to keep their lives. end of story. :)

ETA: mobile phone usage by drivers has been banned here in Germany for some years now unless on a hands-free set. i never even use the hands-free set when driving.

and on my car the radio/CD player is operated on the steering wheel. there will come a time when that, also, becomes law. don't know when.

as it happens, i choose not to play music while driving as i wish to concentrate fully on the road when driving. i seldom have passengers while driving so the talking to others while driving doesn't arise for me 90% of the time, but when it does, i'm usually not listening to a passenger talking. :)

Another ETA: i don't fiddle around with a cup of coffee, bottle of pop, a sandwich or anything edible while trying to drive either.

or put on make-up, while trying to drive.

i just drive the freakin' car!

what's sooo difficult about concentrating entirely on where you are aiming a potential lethal weapon and not causing harm to others? :doh:
 
reb said:
how about this- banning people talking! conversations are also quite distracting.
and also, that naughty thing that perverts (or just ordinary men) do in cars when they're alone... LOL

OK wait a minute.. now we have to ban tinted windows too- how are the police going to see if you're breaking the law in your car?
Here in GA tinted windows have to be very very lightly tinted, and they are very strict about it. My ex-husband got a window tint ticket in our own yard. I kid you not.
 
No one should be putting on make-up or shaving or talking on a phone while they are driving. Not only does that put them and their passengers in danger, it puts the lives of others in jeopardy also. My best friend, her pregnant mom, the baby and her father were all killed by a semi-truck driver when he bent down to pick up his phone/ change the radio or whatever his story was and took his eyes off the road for a minute. He dragged their car 500 ft before stopping. I was devastated when I found out and I am so terrified of semi-trucks that I can barely drive because I have panic attacks if I get boxed in.
 
I get really riled up about these issues. I'm still pissed that my government thinks they can MAKE me wear my seatbelt in the car. Yes, I know it's a good idea to do it and it's safer, but come on.....don't infringe on my personal space.

We need to fight giving up all these personal rights that we have. I absolutely blast my radio when I'm driving (by myself). However, if I get in a situation where I need to really be alert, I turn it down. Anything can distract anyone at anytime. I bout break my neck every time I see a nice car on the road or a good looking guy on a good lookin Harley. But, for heavens sake, let's not outlaw those too.

All this BS is sprouting from the petty lawsuit lives most people lead. I swear, I people (not friend, BTW) that lawsuits are their career.

Another issue, how the hell is LE going to have time to enforce this crap? Don't we have enough real crime out there that we don't need to give them busy work?

Sorry, guys and gals, this is one of my soapboxes. We're spending bazillions of dollars "creating" freedom for Irag while we're losing ours - by the same hands!!!!!
 
LisainWV said:
I get really riled up about these issues. I'm still pissed that my government thinks they can MAKE me wear my seatbelt in the car. Yes, I know it's a good idea to do it and it's safer, but come on.....don't infringe on my personal space.

We need to fight giving up all these personal rights that we have. I absolutely blast my radio when I'm driving (by myself). However, if I get in a situation where I need to really be alert, I turn it down. Anything can distract anyone at anytime. I bout break my neck every time I see a nice car on the road or a good looking guy on a good lookin Harley. But, for heavens sake, let's not outlaw those too.

All this BS is sprouting from the petty lawsuit lives most people lead. I swear, I people (not friend, BTW) that lawsuits are their career.

Another issue, how the hell is LE going to have time to enforce this crap? Don't we have enough real crime out there that we don't need to give them busy work?

Sorry, guys and gals, this is one of my soapboxes. We're spending bazillions of dollars "creating" freedom for Irag while we're losing ours - by the same hands!!!!!

I hear ya, Lisa. I think it was Robin Williams, when talking about Iraq said: Let 'em take our Constitution, we're not using it anymore!"
 
White Rain said:
LOL. Better ban toddlers trying to get out of their car seats and older children fussing and fighting. That's my biggest distraction.
No doubt - they would also have to ban my entire brain, which suffers from constant distractions!:dance:
 
I'd like to see real statistics on crashes that are caused by these so-called distractions. They didn't even mention sexual activites while driving. :dance:
 
paladin- exactly. like i said, they better include j*rking off while driving too!

floh-- i have to say even though i made the previous posts, i am pretty mixed about this whole issue. first of all, how can you ban drinking coffee? i mean the freaking cars come with cup holders for crissakes. starbucks has drive-through for a reason. and what if you are dehydrated and drinking water? they're telling us we can't drink water...??
and the point about the radio/tape/CD player is a great one of course. they should ban those too if they're banning everything else-- and cars have been made with those for decades now. but they are a major form of distraction. and you can't interact with your pets? so, you are saying i can't pet my dog? or talk to them? what does interact mean, exactly? it just seems like an impossible thing to enforce.
on the other hand... i too am sick of so many idiots driving around doing everything under the sun but concentrating on driving. if we could keep cell phone calls just to VERY important stuff, and SHORT-- it would be great. but that is impossible- everyone is so dependent on them now- and they're gonna talk about what they wanna talk about. every conversation is important, to them. heck- some people do major amounts of business while they are stuck in traffic. so, all of sudden nw they can't?
here's another thing-- can you imagine all the accidents that will be caused by people trying to turn off the road quickly while their cell phone is ringing, and trying to get back into traffic while they're done? that could even be a worse problem, in terms of accidents. plus, there's no way i pull over to the side of the road anymore. too many cars getting rear-ended by people who veer off the road. also-- people are going to be sneaking cell phone conversations anyway, which means they will be putting their head lower in an effort to hide, thus decreasing their visibility.

but- the facts are that all these things increase accidents. so what are lawmakers to do?
 
oh and here's another thing we REALLY need to enforce-- DRIVING WHILE ILLEGAL!!! illegals often get fake driver's licenses (or, they have none) and have no insurance.. and are a MAJOR cause of the increase in accidents- especially hit & runs-- and injuries. HA- yeah, you think they really are trained at a good driving school? or ANY driving school? of course not. it should be mandatory that EVERYONE n the road be trained at an accredited, thorough driving school before getting a license. i get the impression a lot of folks don't even do that anymore- and the DMV just rushes everyone through. again, another problem that just stems from overpopulation.
and a huge part of the overpopulation problem we are dealing with now is the out-of-control explosion of illegals.
 
reb said:
how about this- banning people talking! conversations are also quite distracting.
and also, that naughty thing that perverts (or just ordinary men) do in cars when they're alone... LOL

OK wait a minute.. now we have to ban tinted windows too- how are the police going to see if you're breaking the law in your car?
LOL... I like the ban on tinted windows!!

Conversations ARE quite distracting. My boyfriend makes me nervous because he likes to look at me when we're talking ... I always say, keep your eyes on the road, eye contact can happen later!! :doh:
 
Paladin said:
I'd like to see real statistics on crashes that are caused by these so-called distractions. They didn't even mention sexual activites while driving. :dance:

ooooh, you reminded me of something that I can't post at the moment!! LOL.
Let's just say, it was not very pleasant for the gentleman driving the car!!!
 
and while they are banning people from drinking coffee or chewing gum while driving... i am wondering, when are they going to ban the drug dealers & thugs from zooming past everyone going 100 MPH, weaving in & out of traffic using NO turn signals, with black windows and boom box blaring and rattling everything within 10 miles, with a license plate that says "4_DA_SNO"??* somehow, these guys always get to do that and NOT ONCE have i ever seen one get pulled over.

(* i really did see such a plate, on a car like this, on the DC beltway once. i don't think he was a skiier. LOL)
 

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