Quote:
Originally Posted by zuluking
Seriously, my point is not that I'm against this particular legislation. It is merely frustrating that many drivers do not possess the common sense required to determine the relative risk of their actions while driving. Talking on a cell phone while driving in some situations is not necessarily a statistically-significant risk. I agree that most people will not consider the situation and use their cell-phone in high risk situations putting others at risk. Thus, government has to legislate common sense which is situationally agnostic often resulting in poor application.
Highway #1 between Brooks and Medicine Hat is a double-lane highway predominately in a straight line with zero hills resulting in an unobstructed line of sight for miles. But go ahead and be a dick.
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Well explained. I appreciate you taking the time to do that. You're still wrong, though, in my opinion.
Absolutely your risk is lower driving on a road like that than on a busy, curvy road. Similarly, your risk is lower driving drunk on a road like that. The whole problem is that perceptions and reaction times in both cases are negatively affected. I'm not suggesting that driving while on the phone is as bad as drunk driving (although the study mentioned earlier seems to suggest that). The fact is, though, that bad things can still happen on such roads, and choosing to use your cell phone increases the risk of those things happen.
If drunk driving doesn't work for you as an example, what about speeding? Your risk of getting into an accident would be much lower on that road than certain other roads, but it is still higher for that road than it would be if you weren't speeding. Should you be allowed to go 130 on that road because it's safer? And yes...speed limits are different on different roads, but many highways are less "safe" than that one, but have the same speed limit.