Can we please do something about this?

[The Bluzmn]

This was a classmate of our part-time employee. This is my soapbox issue. I just wonder how many people are going to have to die before we do something serious about the growing texting/cell phone problem. My solution has always been to use the GPS technology already in the phones to shut them off at anything above walking speed. As a biker, I am pretty sure that this is what will kill me if I do not die of old age or something.

chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2010-05-27/late-night-wreck-kills-new-hephzibah-grad

[NOTTHOR]

Call me crazy, but the 17 year old gal texting is 100x more dangerous than your average 40 year old male driving at .082 BAC. Yet one is hit with thousands of dollars of fines, jail time and 6 months sans license and the other isn't even a criminal in some states. I don't think they need to shut phones off, but maybe disable the texting function. But even at that, you're hurting people who do it responsibly. For instance if I go on a long trip, I always get emails and crap, if I'm driving, I don't check them until I stop, but if my old lady is with me, I make her read them to me and I dictate responses. But I don't take my eyes off the road because shit changes too fast.

Speaking of motorcycles, the idiots are back out again. Some fucktard was going over 100 up the Dan Ryan the other day and bit it and fell from the elevated part of the road down to the road below. He was still alive when he got to the hospital, but I haven't heard anything else. They ought to put fucking governors on those god damned crotch rockets - no reason for other people to have pay for that idiot's healthcare when he has a deathwish.

[twine]

I think that it should be okay to air ads like this one to help curb the problem. Teenage drivers do tend to think they are invincible behind the wheel.

[The Bluzmn]

Stopping texting is not going far enough. I agree with your initial sentence, BTW. The University of Utah did a study that demonstrated use of cell phones is equivalent to being intoxicated while driving. I have a lot more personal issues from drivers talking on their cell phones that I do texting. Everything from varying speeds to wandering back and forth between lanes to blowing through lights, etc. A woman killed a biker in Ohio and admitted that she saw him and stopped, then got caught up in her conversation and forget why she stopped. She pulled right out into him.

As for the convenience of being able to work - we made do before the technology was available and we can again. That's not justification for endangering the public, in my not-so-humble opinion.

[twine]

The thing that really chaps my ass is that pretty much every time I see someone driving like an idiot they are on their cell phone. That is one of the most rage inducing things for me personally. When I see someone driving like they have an extra chromosome they are on the phone pretty much 95% of the time.

I kind of hope somebody texting away hits me and puts me in the hospital for a few days so I can sue the shit out of them and make an example. In the great state of Iowa a ban on texting while driving goes into effect in June, btw.

[101]

It's gotten completely out of hand, that's for sure. It's not just texting, it's yapping on the phone, texting, checking facebook, and everything else. It's really the same as people driving and working on a laptop because that's what hand-held devices now allow people to do.

Why the hell people feel the need that the minute they put there car in drive, they fucking need to call someone is beyond me. I drive all the time, even long distances and I don't have the need to cal someone just for the hell of it, but most people don't seem to be able to do that anymore.

Fucktards.

[Saggitariutt Jefferspin (ith)]

We need a lot of these:

[thunderhawk]

May 28, 2010 8:59:07 GMT -6 NOTTHOR said:

Call me crazy, but the 17 year old gal texting is 100x more dangerous than your average 40 year old male driving at .082 BAC. Yet one is hit with thousands of dollars of fines, jail time and 6 months sans license and the other isn't even a criminal in some states. I don't think they need to shut phones off, but maybe disable the texting function. But even at that, you're hurting people who do it responsibly. For instance if I go on a long trip, I always get emails and crap, if I'm driving, I don't check them until I stop, but if my old lady is with me, I make her read them to me and I dictate responses. But I don't take my eyes off the road because shit changes too fast.

Speaking of motorcycles, the idiots are back out again. Some fucktard was going over 100 up the Dan Ryan the other day and bit it and fell from the elevated part of the road down to the road below. He was still alive when he got to the hospital, but I haven't heard anything else. They ought to put fucking governors on those god damned crotch rockets - no reason for other people to have pay for that idiot's healthcare when he has a deathwish.

Easy there, hoss. Those crotch rockets are a godsend for people in need of donated organs.

You remember Sheldon Kurtz from UI Law? He used to call those things "Donor Bikes." There are some pretty impressive stats on the number of organs the operators of those machines offer up.