Hand-held cellphones to be banned while driving

[Usarka]

What a silly comparison. You know better than that Hitcher.

Banning food will kill everyone.
Banning handheld cellphones while driving may just save a few lives.

Banning cellphones while driving might hurt the economy, causing people to lose jobs, beat their wives and kids and turn to crime......

made sense to me...shrug...

[1 Free Man]

What about the one that rear ends you because her baby is crying, and she's not paying attention?

Pity there's no law against that.

Sounds like an idea. Contact your MP and run it by him/her. I'm sure he/she could make that one fly after all it's election year. That Sue Prattford got her crap legislation past them perhaps she might be the one to deal with. Mum's could put their sproggs in the boot that way the little shits wont interfere with the cell phone calls. There are controllable situations and uncontrollable situations. you can turn off a cell phone (controllable) but not a sprogg (uncontrollable).

[1 Free Man]

You are confusing legislation with compliance and enforcement. They are completely different things.

Yep Ya right. There's a book full of them called the road code.
LEGISLATION to which, when driving, we must be COMPLIANT. fail at any of them badly enough and you incure the wroth of the ENFORCEMENT.
they are there to hopefully help to keep us all alive while on the road so what's wrong with another rule,code, legislation???
For fuck sake we all got by without cell phone before so why cant we get by without them for the duration of a journey in a car. You are not allowed to use them on an aircraft. Why???? Do we comply with this rule???? YES. Why do we comply??? Because we don't want the plane to crash.
Last time I looked death by plane is just the same as death by car. Your just as dead either way. Death tends to be terminal how ever it comes.

[Jiminy]

It's about time. You won't get all distractions out of the car, but that one is fairly easy to judge. Plus, it's easy for people who want to use a phone in the car to get a hands-free kit, so it doesn't really affect the user but makes the road safer.

Govt gives it with one hand (Tax Relief), applies a multiplier, and takes it back with the other (Traffic Fines for Yapping on ya phone).

I don't use the phone in the car (in fact, I have no car), so I choose the tax relief and phone in car ban any day.

[Dave Lobster]

Yep Ya right. There's a book full of them called the road code.

Putting in said code Have a f*cking look to see your way is clear before changing your position in the road would save more lives. Those lives would be ten times as many if it was in in Mandarin too.

LEGISLATION to which, when driving, we must be COMPLIANT. fail at any of them badly enough and you incure the wrath of the ENFORCEMENT.

Only if it is convenient for the enforcers to do so at the time.

they are there to hopefully help to keep us all alive while on the road so what's wrong with another rule,code, legislation???

There is already an existing (unenforced) law to cover it.

For fuck sake we all got by without cell phone before so why cant we get by without them for the duration of a journey in a car.

You got by without a car before. Why not now?

You are not allowed to use them on an aircraft. Why???? Do we comply with this rule???? YES. Why do we comply??? Because we don't want the plane to crash.

Nonsense. You comply because the cell sites down point upwards. They're all tilted downwards. Just look at the guy who crashed his helicopter the other week because he dropped the call on his blackberry..

[Owl]

Yup. There's no end of cars now with their little TV on, stuck to the windscreen. Obviously that doesn't distract them, at all..

Yeah. Like fuck.

It's already illegal for the driver to be able to see a television screen while driving.

[Banesto John]

Gosh, what an enlightened thread.

I see revenue collecting has already been mentioned by several. That's what usually gets trotted out when there isn't actually a logical argument against something.

Then there are those that relate that the cops do nothing about seatbelts or red lights. Contrast that view with the whinging that comes from those who get seatbelt or red light tickets, who usually resort to the revenue collecting argument, see above.

One enlightened poster advises that's there's no law against a mother, distracted by her baby, running up yer arse from behind. Actually there are. Careless Driving and Failing To Stop Short are the two most used, and get used very frequently.

Without knowing it, that poster raised the big issue. It's not the actual running up your arse that is the problem, it was the distraction caused by the baby, or the newspaper, or the whatever. The cellphone is just one of the list of things that causes distraction.

I personally muse that an offence of Driving While Distracted would be good. Then that would cover the spilled coffee, the map book on the steering wheel, the cellphone, the baby.

One day we'll all be awesome drivers, then there will be no need for enforcement. Has anyone noticed that any time someone talks about crap drivers they are always talking about other people, not the person they see in the mirror each morning?

And please don't think it will not be enforced. Ironically the best placed traffic cop to enforce it would be a motorbike officer, with a better viewing position from being higher, and greater ability to stop a driver in heavy traffic.

It's always good to read the bollocks people think though, it gives context to the common sense most people possess. Keep posting the bollocks, it makes me smile.

That's all. Off the soap box now.

[portokiwi]

About time.... I thought it was in place years ago lol

[Hitcher]

For all you police-state Pollyannas I have a prediction:

"In two years' time banning the use of cellphones by drivers will not have made one jot of difference to either motorists' behaviour or to the alleged death count attributable to the use of cellphones."

[scumdog]

Only 27? That's less than a tenth of those who died from food-borne illnesses.

I know, let's ban food!

Ya gotta eat.

Ya don't gotta txt/phone. (despite what the under 25s think)

[Usarka]

For all the pro-banners:

Do you think hands-free should also be banned considering studies have shown very little safety difference? (it's the conversation that takes the concentration, not the holding of the phone)..... If not, then why ignore the evidence and allow people to still partake in dangerous activities while driving?

pseduo sources, do your own research:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar.../me-distract25
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1412283.htm
http://www.innovations-report.com/ht...ort-39637.html

Quote from the last one:

The eight driver distraction special section papers show that

• Cell phone conversations alone, without dialing or answering, change the way drivers see the world and make them more likely to miss traffic signs and other important information.
• Using a speech recognition system to reduce distraction, such as speaking an address into a navigation system, can make the task easier, but it can still disrupt driving, particularly the driver’s ability to control the vehicle’s speed. Drivers slow down when entering information manually or by voice.
• Information (such as telephone numbers) presented by voice competes for drivers’ attention to a far greater extent than when the driver sees the same information presented on a display. Horrey and Wickens found that auditory information led to poorer speed control than was the case with visual displays of the same information.
• The effect of distractions depends on when they occur. Interruptions to driving, such as answering a cell phone, are likely to be more dangerous if they occur during maneuvers like merging to exit a freeway.

Until they ban handsfree also OR come up with a better strategy then IMHO the law is entirely an electioneering waste of space aimed to placate the morons in our society.

[Badjelly]

Only 27? That's less than a tenth of those who died from food-borne illnesses.

Is that true, or just something you made up to score points on an Internet forum?

Not that it's relevant in either case, mind you, but I'm curious: do ~ 300 people in NZ die each year from food-borne illnesses?

[Badjelly]

One day we'll all be awesome drivers, then there will be no need for enforcement. Has anyone noticed that any time someone talks about crap drivers they are always talking about other people, not the person they see in the mirror each morning?

...

It's always good to read the bollocks people think though, it gives context to the common sense most people possess. Keep posting the bollocks, it makes me smile.

That would be the bollocks posted by the people you don't see in the mirror each morning?

[Hitcher]

Not that it's relevant in either case, mind you, but I'm curious: do ~ 300 people in NZ die each year from food-borne illnesses?

I'll dig out a definitive source. Suffice it to say annual deaths from food-borne illnesses in New Zealand are about the same as the road toll.

[Hitcher]

Here's the second-hand smoke death toll:

http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagesmh/1470

And some other interesting stuff, which says that "microbes" account for 6.5% of all deaths. Food-borne illnesses resulting in death will be a subset of that:

http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagesmh/2956?Open

Here's a schedule of food-borne illnesses:

http://www.nzfsa.govt.nz/consumers/f...bugs/index.htm