"I'm going to have to call you back...."

[BSink42]

Other thing that would be simple is make the damn things cut out when the car's moving. Pretty much every new phone has a GPS chip in it.....rig it so the only thing that functions is 911 if they're moving over, say, 10mph.

Actually I think some of the newer models coming out soon are supposed to have tech that does cut the phones off when the car's moving. Whether or not the driver actually uses it is obviously another story altogether (as I would presume it would be an add - on at first before it eventually becomes standard)

[kham]

A lot of this can be attributed to driver ineptitude. Lets face it, there are people on the road who shouldn't be allowed to operate anything more fucking complex than a spoon. With hands free systems there is no reason to be distracted. And anyone texting needs to do time for the crime the same as if it was committed with a deadly weapon. I have the Ford setup in truck, and even there I tend to pull over if the phone is on and a call comes in. Think can count on fingers of one hand number of outgoing calls made.

[jagfiles]

What I think you should have done is taken that guys cell phone, threw it on the ground and stomp the bejebers out of it.

[jagfiles]

Also what gets me is this. One day I was out sitting at a three way signal. I was sitting at a red light (I was going straight) and the lane next to me was the left turn lane. That lane got the green arrow and get this. The first car in line the bone head driver was so obvlious to what was going on around him because he was on his cell phone he didn't even notice the green arrow. The other drivers behind him were blasting their horns and he just sat there. The light turned red after a bit. But get this. The first car behind him was, get this, a L.A. County Sheriff deputy vehicle. I didn't see what happened when I got the green light but if the cop wanted to make his ticket quota that day, prime opportunity.

[Billie Bonce]

Other thing that would be simple is make the damn things cut out when the car's moving. Pretty much every new phone has a GPS chip in it.....rig it so the only thing that functions is 911 if they're moving over, say, 10mph.

How would the phone distinguish if it is a driver or a passenger that uses it? How would it distinguish if it is in a car or in a bus? In a train? What do you mean by 911? In Europe this combination of digits has no meaning. The emergency phones are different all over the world.

[Fred588]

Talking on a hands free phone is not really any differet from talking to the person in the passenger seat unless, perhaps, the sound on the phone requires a greater degree of concentration. However, there is a good deal of research, including some done by myself and by my students, showing that any time one attempts to multi-task their reaction time slows measurably and, in the context of driving a care, meaningfully. Obviously we cannot, and should not, try to outlaw talking to the driver but doing so does add some additional risk if the driver is listening.

[Mynock]

^^Precisely. It's not your hands on the wheel that's the problem it's your brain.

[Fred588]

There is actually a mathematical description of this. Its called Hick's Law or sometimes the Hick-Hyman Law. While its aan approximation, and while the "number of things one must pay attention to" may often be difficult to really determine, it says that as the number of things one must pay attention to increases oinearly, the reaction time (that is the mental processing needed to determine the reaction) increases logarithmically.

[kham]

Aviate
Navigate
Communicate

think more like that and you stay out of trouble
note that communicate is LAST thing you do

[bbjohn]

As I have heard more than one cop tell a driver he saw using his cell phone while driving, "Hang up and drive!"

-Big Bad John