show me a someone who is a bad driver while talking on a cell phone, and I will show you a bad driver even when not talking on the cell phone. People are just bad drivers, its just a matter of degrees. How many people do you see not using turn signals?

Bingo! The people getting into accidents because of a cell phone are the same people that, pre-cell phone, would get into accidents because they were eating, or changing the radio station, or simply not paying attention.

I live and work in the city, and i’ve seen people almost get mowed down by a car or a SEPTA bus because they were yakking on their phone while WALKING down the street and weren’t paying attention and just started crossing the street, apparently so engrossed in their conversation they didn’t notice the big red light right in front of them. It’s pretty much a common sense issue.

Although, in honor of my fellow alumnus from Roman Catholic here in Philly (Eddie Griffin), allow me to say that driving while watching porn and beating off is a bad idea.

I don’t get lifts with her anymore. But if any of you live in Birmingham, look out: she just moved there.

I have heard of pople shaving and applying makeup while driving and they want to blame SUVs and GM,FORD and CHRYSLER/PLYMOUTH for traffic accedents

I’ve heard people say that it was Bill Clinton’s fault that people are shaving and putting on makeup.

Maybe it’s insurance which has caused people to be so stupid? They think that it won’t matter, insurance will pay for their fuckups.

Playing on a digital screen, and eliciting alarm from a crowd of experts here for a conference on auto telematics, were some of the 82 crashes — and almost 10 times as many near misses — recorded during a yearlong research project by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute in Blacksburg, Va. The goal of the study was to collect the kind of information that does not usually turn up in accident reports, insurance claims or other types of after-the-fact data gathering. It found that driver inattention was the overwhelming cause of the crashes in the study.

...

Known as the 100-car study, the project tracked 241 drivers — 60 percent male, 40 percent female — in the Washington metropolitan area for 13 months. The study was co-sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virginia Transportation Research Council.

Each of the 100 cars was equipped with video cameras, radar antennas, traffic lane trackers, satellite navigation and a sensor system to monitor the drivers, what they saw, their driving environment and the actions they took. The participants volunteered to have the equipment installed in their vehicles.

Cameras were positioned to record images of the driver’s face, an over-the-shoulder view looking toward the steering wheel, a view of the road ahead and a view to the rear. The radar units, mounted at the license plates, captured distance data while other instruments measured forces on brakes and other car components. The data were stored on a computer in the trunk.

...

Dr. Hankey has seen the videos so often that he no longer reacts like first-time viewers, who have been known to tense their muscles or shout advice at onscreen drivers making mistakes. Among the incidents recorded was a middle-aged man who kept gazing down and to the right, apparently sorting through papers in stop-and-go driving — until he slammed into an S.U.V. stopped in front of him.

In another video segment, a woman eating a hamburger dipped her head forward and below the instrument panel, unaware of traffic in the lane ahead until she hit the car in front of her.

The incidents in the study include 761 near crashes recorded in nearly two million miles of driving. “A near crash is just like a crash except that somebody did something to avoid it,” Dr. Hankey said.

...

In all, in the data collected over 42,300 hours of driving, there were 15 crashes reported to police and 67 crashes that went unreported.

The study also found that leased cars were driven more carelessly than personally owned vehicles — a situation that Dr. Klauer calls “rental car phenomenon.” She said that drivers using leased cars took more risks than drivers in cars they owned outright.

In some cases, drivers who had ample warning to take evasive and preventive action failed to do so because they were distracted or drowsy. Analysis of the data found that in nearly 80 percent of actual crashes and 65 percent of near crashes, the driver was inattentive in some way within three seconds beforehand. In rear-end collisions, the drivers were distracted 93 percent of the time.

...

One of the distracting activities noted most often was what Dr. Hankey called a “complex multistep, multiglance secondary task,” like pushing buttons on a cellphone or similar device. More than 22 percent of the crashes and near crashes involved that kind of distraction. Young drivers in the study were far more likely to be distracted by such tasks.

Fatigued drivers were even more dangerous to themselves and others, the study found. Roughly 46 percent of accidents and incidents recorded during the study involved some form of fatigue, with a surprisingly high number occurring during morning commutes.

I’d be bummed if I couldn’t listen to my cds, but the only radio I use in my car is the weather band. I could live with it though, if it came down like that.

Suppose I did have numbers. Would you be calling for a law outlawing car radios and cup holders or mandating a six-month safety course for all drivers?

While driving or riding in a motor vehicle is the most dangerous thing most Americans will do in their lifetimes, it is still pretty safe. If you want to be perfectly safe on the road, don’t go on the road.

VidaLoca, wristwatches are fashion accessories as well. That might mean that Rolex wearers are lemmings, but it doesn’t mean that all watch wearers are.

All I know, as I have said above, is that TWICE in the past year, I’ve been hit by cell phone users while driving. In 30 years of driving…two drunks and two talkers. Might not be scientific, but I’m convinced.

Hell, you’re saying people who use cell phones are “consumer lemmings”.

Well, much more than the microwave oven (but only slightly more than the laptop and about as much as an iPod) they’ve become a fashion accessory—so that does lend some support to the “consumer lemmings” label.

On the other hand, I think you’re right in arguing that it’s necessary to show proof (rather than just a strong hypothesis) that they’re a hazard to the public when misued rather than just an annoyance to luddites such as myself.

Laws? I’m not eager to go there. I’ve had enough of the nanny state to last me for a few years.

Capelza, I didn’t say that cell phones were only to avoid being bored—I was reacting to the comments that people who use cell phones are somehow wannabe bigshots or wheeler-dealers. I think those comments say more about the commenters than about the cell phone users. And the comments haven’t been restricted to people who phone while driving. Hell, you’re saying people who use cell phones are “consumer lemmings”. Did you feel the same way about the answering machine or the microwave oven or the VCR or the personal computer? Are new technologies only okay (rather than “silly”) if they were introduced before you were a certain age? If so, what year is the cutoff?