Originally Posted by Barefoot

You are so right Ladydoc. And why do people on cell phones speak so loudly that everyone in the vicinity is forced to hear their private conversations? Cell phones are like an addiction that people can't live without. I often see groups of young people having lunch, and most aren't talking to each other, they're talking or texting on a cell phone!

I object to the loud calls made in public which disturb other people and lets face it, most of those conversations are certainly not crucial. I did not say do away with cell phones or even comment on using it while you drive...my comment was about how intrusive they can be to others who do not want to hear it. My other comment was a social commentary question...which is why do people feel they need to be available to everyone at all times? I give my cell phone number to about 6 people who might need to reach me in an emergency. Others can just leave a message at the home phone.

Originally Posted by billethkid

it is not a bad thing at all. Just scares the heebiejeebies out of those who can't live without a cell phone glued to their head.

Next I vote for banning them in restaurants!!! Got the hots to make a call? Leave the room like the old days. Somehow we made it through many years that way.

btk

Originally Posted by Barefoot

You are so right Ladydoc. And why do people on cell phones speak so loudly that everyone in the vicinity is forced to hear their private conversations? Cell phones are like an addiction that people can't live without. I often see groups of young people having lunch, and most aren't talking to each other, they're talking or texting on a cell phone!

Now THAT issue, I have some sympathy with. That's simple common courtesy which seems to be less and less common with every passing year.

The fact is that we, as human beings, are VERY social creatures. Anything that taps into that is tapping into a basic need to feel connected. From oral traditions to papyrus to Gutenberg to Bell and Edison - communication improvements have always been a boom industry.

Originally Posted by ladydoc

The idea of a ban on cell phone usage while driving while in a restaurant is just another example of trying to legislate common sense. It didn't work when municipalities passed laws requiring every care traveling at night to be preceded by a man carrying a lantern, and it will not work now.

Technology moves faster than we can react to it with laws. My GPS and my cell both respond to voice commands and I can send and receive messages/email without ever looking at my phone. As djplong has said the roads are safer now than they have ever been. Cars can now park themselves, stop you in an emergency, notify you if you start to drift off, etc. In the not too distant future your gps will not only determine the best route, but drive you there.

Very seldom is one more law a solution to anything and they often create more problems than they solve. Use your common sense and basic courtesy when you drive, eat in a restaurant, go to a movie theater or drive your golf cart. Hope others will do the same.

I fail to understand why my life should be put in danger because you feel the need to use technology while you are driving?? Please explain.

I believe that you me in greater danger when to talk to your wife, yell at the kids, etc. Technology allows me to keep my eyes on the road and makes my driving better. My cruise control prevents me from rear ending another car while the distraction from your kids endangers me while you look to the back seat. Technology has continually made us safer. The invention of head lights, the invention of turn signals and horns (remember when you had to use hand signals?), the invention of non-skid brakes, disk brakes, horns, safety belts, then shoulder belts and continuing on to airbags.

Luddism has never led to greater safety or a better life.

Originally Posted by ladydoc

I just do not understand this infatuation with being available to all times to everyone. When did this become necessary? Is it vital for you to really have to have that conversation in the middle of a restaurant, in a doctor's waiting room, in the bathroom, while you are driving? We don't want to listen to it and have no interest in it.

I agree. I conclude from my friends "back home" who are constantly on the cell phone that it is the Conduit of Co-Dependency. Here in TV I don't see it so much. Our neighbors and friends here have moved beyond monitoring and micromanaging every minute detail of their "adult" children's lives.

Whenever I hear somebody "managing" somebody else or some situation over the cell phone in public, it's like they purposely talk much louder....like they are so important that everyone else needs to hear them. Professionals are guilty of it too....have heard social workers and business people broadcasting their conversation to an entire store or restaurant.

It reminds me of this saying:

Best Stress Relief: Resign as General Manager of the Universe!

You folks really have missed the whole point of my post. We need to stop the loss of our freedoms. Again create a crisis and the people will buy in to any thing. Next who knows you can only drive on certain days because of the amount of traffic.

probably at some point one needs to ascertain freedoms or rights being infringed upon.

Use of cell phones I do not think of as a freedom being infringed. I view it as a right....you have the right to drive a car....you do not have the right to speed and cause accidents and kill people....you should not have the right to use a cell phone if it is determined to cause accidents and kill people.

That is my take on it.

btk

Originally Posted by army one

I fail to understand why my life should be put in danger because you feel the need to use technology while you are driving?? Please explain.

I am not putting your life in danger. YOU are putting your life in danger by leaving the house (though I don't know, offhand, the statistics for in-hous accidents versus on-the-road accidents).

I do not text while I drive. I pay little attention to my GPS and now wish I could upgrade to the one my wife has which has much better voice directions. I have NEVER been ticketed for distracted driving. I have never been involved in anything more than a fender-bender and have never been sued for being 'at fault' of anything. *All* the accidents I've been involved in since I started driving in 1978 were condition-related (I believe I outlined the 3 I had earlier). My 'record' now consists of having ONE ticket (for driving on an incomplete inspection sticker) in the last 23 years.

In other words, you don't have to worry about me.

You have to worry about the drunk. You have to worry about the people who can't handle driving to begin with. When the NTSB says there are a little over 3000 accident where cell phone usage was a *factor* (and please note that multiple factors can be listed for any accident - like 'speed and alcohol'), understand that is an incredibly small percentage when compare to everything else.

A few months ago, an elderly woman rammed her car through a storefront window. Despite the overwhelming evidence of how much more dangerous it is to leave the elderly untested, cell phones get the news headlines.

I wonder why that is...

Army - you are proceeding from a false assumption. You believe that my talking to my wife is endangering your life. Even on my worst day (like when I was driving myself to the hospital with debilitating chest pains) I'm hardly a threat to you because:

- I don't drive impaired (drunk)
- I keep my car well-maintained (brakes, lights, windshied wipers, etc)
- I don't do drugs
- I don't take/make calls when the circumstances demand more attention from me.
- I've taken my car into a parking lot to test it's limits so I know what it can and can't do if I find myself in exceptional circumstances.
- I *have* pulled over when the driving has been so boring that I'm lulled into fatigue.

In other words - you're looking at the wrong boogeyman.

djplong

It sounds like you are one of the few who takes driving seriously. My response wasn't intended to insult you personally and if it did, I apologize. My response was intended to raise the awareness to all on this forum that any distraction is and could be disruptive. The use of cell phones and texting while operating a motor vehicle is in the least one distraction and needs to be dealt with. I have been in an accident where a distraction caused a death, and because of this I make the statement "Cell phone usage while driving is a distraction that at the very least should be illegal" Trying to rationalize that distractions aren't dangerous when driving is a falsehood.

No offense taken.

It's been my position that it doesn't matter WHY you are distracted. If you're weaving over all the lanes on the road you should be PULLED OVER. I don't care if the problem was that you had an itch! Distracted driving is distracted driving.

By the same token, if your brain works differently and you can be eating a sandwich, talking to your spouse on a blutooth while plotting your course with the latest traffic updates on the radio - and you're rock-steady in your lane and maintaining proper spacing, etc - then you are ovbiously NOT distracted.