Cellphone companies call for ban while driving

[WarlockNZ]

But lo and behold, the government is resisting!! .. who here is surprised by that?

Source: 3 News, today

[Subike]

simple solution to this world wide problem.
Fit all new phones with a cut out switch.
Im sure they can have a sensor like a gps , that can tell how fast its ground speed is, once it reaches say 10kph Phone switches off!
Yeah I know , passengers in buses, trains and planes use them,
Just a simple solution even if it is a silly idea. :shutup:

[enigma51]

So you want the goverment to actualy make a real law other than speeding
you must be fucking joking

if they where serious about road safety they would have taken a serious stance on drink driving years ago.

Or like a explained to someone this morning the drunk drivers is not the problem its the speed he was traveling at

[orangeback]

We should addopt the same as in oze <:argue: instant $500 fine :clap::clap::2thumbsup

[xwhatsit]

if they where serious about road safety they would have taken a serious stance on drink driving years ago.
They haven't?

[Usarka]

cellphone companies are calling for the ban so they can make more money by selling hands free kits. unfortunately research shows that handsfree doesn't make much difference.....

[Skunk]

I like Lazy Larry's explanation of the Government thinking. 'We would like to educate people to the harm rather than penalise them with fines'. Sounds OK - txters only kill other road users.

But what about the other road rules? Would they do the same thing with speeding then? Just educate rather than fine?

[Hitcher]

There is little point introducing laws that cannot be enforced, although that hasn't stopped this Government before. Rather than calling on the Government to ban the practice, why don't people just do this voluntarily?

[The Stranger]

Of course they don't want the practice banned.
The old folk would forget sixpack's rego before they got to report it then.

[Dargor]

Im sure they can have a sensor like a gps

Im sure alot of people dont want to have their whereabouts monitored 24/7.

[Subike]

Im sure alot of people dont want to have their whereabouts monitored 24/7.


does that mean that as soon as I turn on my GPS that somebody some where knows exactly where I am and who I am? I think not
A gps in a phone set for recieve not transmit, so that it could read the land speed? How would that be big brother?
anyways
as I said,
a silly idea

[scumdog]

They haven't?

No, the penalties dished out are PATHETIC.

[Dafe]

Im sure alot of people dont want to have their whereabouts monitored 24/7.

With your cellphone on, you are registered to every tower you pass by and the relevant sector of the tower that you are in. They know where you are day and night...... 24/7!!!!

[CookMySock]

naw you have to allow cellphones to work while moving... its a safety thing..

DB

[Subike]

With your cellphone on, you are registered to every tower you pass by and the relevant sector of the tower that you are in. They know where you are day and night...... 24/7!!!!

oh true dafe true!
so they could in fact, moniter you and see what speed you were traveling at because of the sectors you move across...... bugger lol
put a printer in you phone and text you a ticket .

I an curious as to how a working cell phone would be a saftey item whilst your moving DD?

All NZ penalties are pathetic SD, or there would be less crime

Courts have too many wet bus tickets to hand out!

[homer]

simple solution to this world wide problem.
Fit all new phones with a cut out switch.
Im sure they can have a sensor like a gps , that can tell how fast its ground speed is, once it reaches say 10kph Phone switches off!
Yeah I know , passengers in buses, trains and planes use them,
Just a simple solution even if it is a silly idea. :shutup:

some new phones do have a gps

[swbarnett]

All NZ penalties are pathetic SD, or there would be less crime
The penalties aren't the problem.

I agree that, once a crime is committed, the consequences should be more severe but this is just punitive and has little value as a deterrent.

The way to reduce crime is to dig in for the long haul (several generations) and raise the level of respect that the average Kiwi has for the next average Kiwi.

[scumdog]

The penalties aren't the problem.

No penalties?
No consequences?

No bloody worries!!!

[Dargor]

does that mean that as soon as I turn on my GPS that somebody some where knows exactly where I am and who I am? I think not
A gps in a phone set for recieve not transmit, so that it could read the land speed? How would that be big brother?
anyways
as I said,
a silly idea

The gps part might be set to only recieve, but the rest of your phone knows how to transmit and knows what the gps says. Phones are becoming more and more like computers and how many people can honestly say they know exactly what there computer is doing (open source FTW). Theres nothing stopping phones becoming the same.

Dont doubt how usefull realtime population gps data could be, there will be many benifical reasons(population/traffic studying) many compelling arguments, but to create big brother... The cost is too high.

[sefer]

A lot of phones have GPS transmitters (though not necessarily GPS recivers as well) , though generally there will be an option to turn it off. However my 5+ year old phone has a transmitter with no off option.

[madandy]

Hands free kits would at least reduce text & drive offenses.
The airlines insist that we refrain from using cell phones during take off and landing so spreading some propaganda that cell phone usage may interfere with a car's airbags/tractioncontrol/ABS etc. might prevent a few suckers from driving through intersections and round-a-bouts without indicating/looking/caring due to important phone call activities...

[rwh]

A lot of phones have GPS transmitters (though not necessarily GPS recivers as well) , though generally there will be an option to turn it off. However my 5+ year old phone has a transmitter with no off option.

What is a GPS transmitter, other than the thing built into the satellite? And if you mean a device that transmits your location as provided by a GPS receiver, what use is that without the receiver?

Richard

[swbarnett]

No penalties?
No consequences?

No bloody worries!!!
If you'd bothered to read further I did say that "I agree that, once a crime is committed, the consequences should be more severe".

My point is that I don't think penalties are much of a deterrent.

[insane1]

well why dont they ban cellphone use when a veichle is moving and make such offences very expensive . if conrtibuting to a accident while using a cell phone car taken off you +huge fine more than $1000.didnt some insurance company say phone records can be used if this sort of thing happens ie causing a crash while on the cell phone .

[MaxB]

According to the retail sector there are less than 10,000 current model radar detectors in the country. Worldwide there is no refereed research that says RDs make you more likely to have an accident, in fact some research shows that RD users make slightly safer road users. And yet the Governmant wants to ban them.

There is plenty of research worldwide that cellphone use while driving increases the risk of a serious accident. And yet the Governmant does not want to ban them.

Tell us all we need to know about how this Govt. really thinks about our safety.

[Bikernereid]

Having laws that require you to use legal hands free equipment for mobiles whilst driving and imposing fines for those who don't has had bugger all effect over here!!

[WarlockNZ]

I would have agree.

Nothing less than a total ban should be inforced, not on RD's tho ... we love them .. LOL

It's more about the distraction of talking on a phone while driving.

A quick google provides the following results
Drivers on Cell Phones Are as Bad as Drunks (http://unews.utah.edu/p/?r=062206-1)
Hands-Free Cell Phone Use in Cars Not Much Protection (http://www.cio.com/article/194851/Study_Hands_Free_Cell_Phone_Use_in_Cars_Not_Much_P rotection_)
and even some cool graphs from NZ no less (http://www.fastandsafe.org.nz/Pages/Facts/CellPhones/index.htm), notice that Radar Detectors don't even appear on the list... hmm

After 10 mins of Google, i can't find one study on RD's ..

I feel a letter to my local MP (http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/HvYrSay/Contact/2/9/d/00PlibHvYrSayContact1-Contact-an-MP.htm) coming on.

[sefer]

What is a GPS transmitter, other than the thing built into the satellite? And if you mean a device that transmits your location as provided by a GPS receiver, what use is that without the receiver?

Richard

Yeah sorry I'm using the terms incorrectly in an attempt to make it easier to understand.

When I say transmitter I mean that your phone will have a basic GPS receiver that will, if activated by your phone company, show your location. I imagine these are very cheap receivers that are not very accurate, but since they're (apparently) designed as a sort of emergency locator it's probably not that important to have 100% accuracy. All the phones I've seen with this so far do not display your location on your phone in anyway (i guess some might), and you have to be on the network for it to work (they transmit your location via the phone network).

When I say receiver I'm talking about an actual GPS function on the phone itself, either a plain-jane location reading or with maps.

[scumdog]

If you'd bothered to read further I did say that "I agree that, once a crime is committed, the consequences should be more severe".

My point is that I don't think penalties are much of a deterrent.

Part of the deterent aspect of any punishment IS the severity (or in NZs case, lack-of) of the penalty.

But as mentioned by you and in my agreement: Penalties in NZ are sweet f.a. of a deterent for many crimes/offences.

[Hitcher]

Yeah sorry I'm using the terms incorrectly in an attempt to make it easier to understand.

When I say transmitter I mean that your phone will have a basic GPS receiver that will, if activated by your phone company, show your location. I imagine these are very cheap receivers that are not very accurate, but since they're (apparently) designed as a sort of emergency locator it's probably not that important to have 100% accuracy. All the phones I've seen with this so far do not display your location on your phone in anyway (i guess some might), and you have to be on the network for it to work (they transmit your location via the phone network).

When I say receiver I'm talking about an actual GPS function on the phone itself, either a plain-jane location reading or with maps.

What you're attempting to describe isn't GPS. It's a system where the phone triangulates itself in relation to the known location of fixed cellphone transmitters. There are no satellites involved, nor any "GPS" technology.

[Ixion]

Google maps uses it to display current location on phones and pdas. It's pretty inaccurate, up to 5 km out in some cases. Never closer than about 1 km, except once when it got it with a few metres.

[rwh]

Google maps uses it to display current location on phones and pdas. It's pretty inaccurate, up to 5 km out in some cases. Never closer than about 1 km, except once when it got it with a few metres.

I'm not about to test this since I've switched to prepay and data is expensive.

But are you suggesting that vodafone or telecom will happily hand over my location to google? Or does it require some active software on my phone to get the data from the telco and pass it on?

I thought it took them some time to work it out, anyway, once asked by the police or whoever.

Richard

[Ixion]

Well, it requires Google Maps! Which requires a cell connection. That's it. I don't think the phone companies are handing anything over, it's just triangulation. I doubt that the location info goes back to Google, why would they care?

You just press '0' with the map app open and it thinks for about 5 to 10 seconds and says 'You are about hereish'. Handy to get the right map centred, not accurate enough for much else, unless you are really totally Disco Dan grade lost, I guess.

(You can also plug a true GPS receiver into the map app, but that's a different matter)

[Squiggles]

cellphone companies are calling for the ban so they can make more money by selling hands free kits. unfortunately research shows that handsfree doesn't make much difference.....

Less chance of a blindspot accident though.

[scumdog]

Less chance of a blindspot accident though.

Oh?
Have you never been in a car when somebody has been using a 'hands-free' - and seen the driver staring at the sun-visor where the mike is or at the lower dash where their phone is clipped on while they are driving/talking.?

[candor]

As enigma said - we'd know they were interested in road safety if they got serious about drink driving rather than the speed of drinkers... eg heres a novel idea; penalties...
and if like all other countries we got a dept with primary responsibility for road safety... dreams are free.

But no... we are different... unique... isolationist in our experiment. No body exists to specialise and target road safety. With the formula there is no need.

Treasury ttransport division is hands on with this one. The memorandum of understanding between all road safey interested depts essentially states that "thou shalt not stray from using this formula (below) penned by an evil economist". The whodunnit and how of NZs high level road toll is found in a formula believe it or not.

The formula for road policing resource allocation model - specified as NZs total road safety package (and prolly reason why noone wants to be road police manager for longer than 6 mths), was just acquired by a road safety group affiliated to Candor Trust under official information Act 16 April.

The mathematical formula dictates ALL significant road safety action under the intensive enforcement experimental model and forbids anything else. Even significant road safety education is banned except where it is required to "legitimise in the mind of the public the current selected enforcement policies" - based on economists advice education doesn't work. By which logic we'd close schools next???? Sorry some characters within formula eg cosine etc are not avail on my keyboard so will do best I can and to explain the boffins murder equation.

S1 = (Ej@jVij) - (EjHijBjVij0jLij-Gj) - (EkHjkBkVik0kLik-Sk)
Formula addresses 3 of 19 crash factors, has an "Auckland dummy factor" to capture the 16 unattended causes (nb. attended in all other countries!)

In longhand minus numeric values - social cost of road crashes = (summation operator of district police speed / alcohol quotas x coefficient of them x vehicle kms travelled minus summation operator of district police speed / alcohol quotas x numbers of road policing hours for speed / lcohol exponent x exponent of vehicle kms travelled by local authority and police district delivered activity (speed / alcohol fishing) x road length in area minus exponent of police district delivered activity) - summation operator of the select road policing activities x number of speed / alcohol / belt hours (tickets per hour) x exponent of road policing activity in local authority cluster group x vehicle kms x exponent of roadplicing activity x length of road by authoriy and police activity level - exponent of road policing activity).

Plain English - NZ Road deaths and injuries equal risk on a roads length minus speed and alcohol policing impact.

The formula was found to be fatally flawed (no pun intended) in 3 recent reviews by MOT - it has increased weekday and daytime fatality risk, but remains operational according to senior Police's correspondence. Though the Ministry of transport which collates data weekly to test the formula say the project is not operational pending better primary data provision.

This might sound like boring academic stuff. But it is key to Govts paralysis on cellphonesand so many other road safety issues. Interest in revenue - high, interest in reduced carnage - zero. The Ministers are not aware of their boffins and economists grotesque activities and have been lied to re impacts (well known since 2005).

It seems to me ridiculous to indirectly fund the ?entire Police force by ticket fines. To my mind there should be no dependency and Police shouldn't be told - no attending burgs or major homicide investigations unless you pull your weight with scalp hunting of boy racers etc (who incidentally cause tiny proportion of the toll). Isn't basic service what income tax ought cover?

[rwh]

Well, it requires Google Maps! Which requires a cell connection. That's it. I don't think the phone companies are handing anything over, it's just triangulation. I doubt that the location info goes back to Google, why would they care?

You just press '0' with the map app open and it thinks for about 5 to 10 seconds and says 'You are about hereish'. Handy to get the right map centred, not accurate enough for much else, unless you are really totally Disco Dan grade lost, I guess.

Ok, so you have to have an app installed. Google Earth rather than Google Maps perhaps?

I can't even use that on my laptop, since they don't do a 64-bit linux version yet (last I checked).

Richard

[Ixion]

No, definately google maps.

[rwh]

"Sorry, Google Maps does not work on your Nokia 6820."

Oh well - will have to leave that investigation for another day.

Richard

[Hitcher]

Google Maps works on my Palm Treo. It's just brilliant. But OMIGOD! Have you seen what Telecom charges for cellular internet access? Gahh! Thud.

[Dodger]

I think it's time we installed that spike in the centre of all steering wheels. ;)

[sefer]

What you're attempting to describe isn't GPS. It's a system where the phone triangulates itself in relation to the known location of fixed cellphone transmitters. There are no satellites involved, nor any "GPS" technology.

Nope I'm talking about GPS.

[Genestho]

No not surprised at all to the initial question.


If you'd bothered to read further I did say that "I agree that, once a crime is committed, the consequences should be more severe".

My point is that I don't think penalties are much of a deterrent.

Agreed our penalties are not much of a deterrent, but NZ'ers need to stop thinking in terms of deterrents, there are no deterrents to people that dont care for others. Its a big viscious cycle.

Respect for others whether it be on the road or not is not like it was in our quaint country, responsibilty for ones own actions seem to be out the door.

Early intervention, and plucking the dangers out of our midst is not about deterrents, but for our safety on the roads and in our community.
Prevention before cost, we are always paying the cost (monetry and loss of life) yet seem to have no money for prevention, Im probably just a simple practical thinker but seems topsy turvy to me...
check out the statistical cost of road fatalities:

http://www.transport.govt.nz/socialcost/


I remember cellphones while driving were banned in Aus ten years ago when I lived there, the catalyst being when a model - Nicky Taylor crashed, I cant quite remember if she was on the cell or someone else was using the cell.

Theres a witty wee email/cartoon doing the rounds in regards to Harrys inaction to banning cell phones on our roads (amongst other things!)
Seems very reflective to all things transport and roading right now..

[candor]

Agreed our penalties are not much of a deterrent, but NZ'ers need to stop thinking in terms of deterrents,

Theres a witty wee email/cartoon doing the rounds... .

Yup second that. Road safety is not all about deterrents. And while the word "penalties" may not be PC in a responsibility less country penalties actually do many good things. Smacking not excluded.

In the words of someone I think highly of - no-one ever committed a second murder while in jail.

Likewise no-one ever killed another road user while behind bars, or after their car got crushed..... Not suggesting we jail cellphone users, but no penalty or deterrent does not seem like a great message either. Its about careless ness which can lead to culpability (serious victimising culpability).

Would that be the cartoon in which :spanking:Harry features in his new role - minister of gravedigging?