32 dies texting she's HAPPY

[Flabbibulin]

While most people read this and say "phew, that could never happen to me because I don 't text and drive", the reality is anyone can become a victim of someone else's poor decisions at the wheel. It is awful that she died, but it is a good thing she didn't injure or kill someone else.

[calgarywinning]

Time for a cell phone blocker jammer at speeds above 30 km/h built into cars.

[CalgaryFan1988]

I wonder how many people on here, that are complaining about her texting and driving (pretending to be all high and mighty) change the radio station while driving, snack or drink pop/water/juice while driving? Cause, you know, it's all illegal.

Too bad something so unimportant took a young girls life.

[CrunchBite]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

I wonder how many people on here, that are complaining about her texting and driving (pretending to be all high and mighty) change the radio station while driving, snack or drink pop/water/juice while driving? Cause, you know, it's all illegal.

Too bad something so unimportant took a young girls life.

Cause, you know, those things aren't illegal.

http://www.transportation.alberta.ca...teddriving.htm

[CalgaryFan1988]

Originally Posted by CrunchBite

Cause, you know, those things aren't illegal.

http://www.transportation.alberta.ca...teddriving.htm

Hmm, touché. Funny, when the law came into effect they said they were illegal.

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by calgarywinning

Time for a cell phone blocker jammer at speeds above 30 km/h built into cars.

Yeah, can just imagine coming across a horrific accident and trying to call 911 while your phone is jammed.

Jeez, some of you remind me of Bashar Assad.

[Nage Waza]

I know the urge is always there to drive by an erratic car to 'confirm' the driver is texting, but the rule is the same as drunk drivers - you are safer if they are in front of you, not behind you or next to you. Stay a safe distance back and relax - no need to put yourself at risk by pulling up next to them or speeding past them.

[CalgaryFan1988]

http://distracteddriving.caa.ca/educ...stractions.php

Should be illegal.


And it is, sorta....

http://www.wheels.ca/guides/can-you-...while-driving/

[spetch]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

Hmm, touché. Funny, when the law came into effect they said they were illegal.

It is to a point.

example: eating a breakfast burrito with one hand- ok

eating a bowl of fruit loops with both hands with using your knees to hold to wheel - distracted driving

[4X4]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

I wonder how many people on here, that are complaining about her texting and driving (pretending to be all high and mighty) change the radio station while driving, snack or drink pop/water/juice while driving? Cause, you know, it's all illegal.

Too bad something so unimportant took a young girls life.

What's your angle here? Are you going to try to argue that changing the radio station or taking a sip of something in your cup holder is anywhere close to the same as writing out a text message?

[CalgaryFan1988]

Originally Posted by 4X4

What's your angle here? Are you going to try to argue that changing the radio station or taking a sip of something in your cup holder is anywhere close to the same as writing out a text message?

I don't have an angle.

I was trying to say that nobody drives without breaking a law at some point. Nobody is perfect and it's terrible that something as stupid as a text ends up taking someone's life.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

I don't have an angle.

I was trying to say that nobody drives without breaking a law at some point. Nobody is perfect and it's terrible that something as stupid as a text ends up taking someone's life.

Nobody drives without breaking the law at some point. Right. But there are varying degrees of it. My mother thinks she's badass when she goes 104 on Deerfoot. Other people drive home completely wasted. Both illegal, except one of those has little to no reason to be mentioned in this thread. Just like taking a sip of water or changing the radio station.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by calgarywinning

Time for a cell phone blocker jammer at speeds above 30 km/h built into cars.

Pretty sure jamming communications is incredibly illegal, part of the reason they haven't tried to do it in movie theatres.

[CalgaryFan1988]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Nobody drives without breaking the law at some point. Right. But there are varying degrees of it. My mother thinks she's badass when she goes 104 on Deerfoot. Other people drive home completely wasted. Both illegal, except one of those has little to no reason to be mentioned in this thread. Just like taking a sip of water or changing the radio station.

I'm not going to argue that eating/drinking while driving is more dangerous than texting and driving, but please don't try and down play it either.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...ticle-1.427796

http://www.leftlanenews.com/eating-w...k-driving.html

http://www.examiner.com/article/new-...-while-driving

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/...ing-phone.html

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Nobody drives without breaking the law at some point. Right. But there are varying degrees of it. My mother thinks she's badass when she goes 104 on Deerfoot. Other people drive home completely wasted. Both illegal, except one of those has little to no reason to be mentioned in this thread. Just like taking a sip of water or changing the radio station.

Just a couple weeks ago, a woman almost took out my kid and my dog in a parking lot as she was staring down at the drink she was sucking on.

I have driven with people flipping through radio stations on an old school radio who I swear don't look up at the road for 30 seconds at a time.

Whatever people are doing in the car they have to just realize that they can't take their eyes off the road for more than a second or so. And need to be paying attention to what they are doing. 95 percent of the time when I see a car doing something stupid, it will be with someone with a phone in their ear who looks like they are looking, but are obviously lost in their conversation and paying no attention to driving.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by puckluck2

Yeah, can just imagine coming across a horrific accident and trying to call 911 while your phone is jammed.

Jeez, some of you remind me of Bashar Assad.

Why would you still be driving (over 30km) while trying to report an accident. I imagine you would pull over no? Or are you also too busy for that?

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

Should be a requirement that when GPS detects a phone is moving more than a few miles per hour along a roadway it automatically shuts down. Can't imagine that kind of a killswitch would be terribly difficult to develop.

So, as someone who is on-call every second week, I'd have to never leave my home those weeks?

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Delgar

While we're at it, lets make it illegal for nice looking ladies (or men, I suppose) to walk down 17th avenue in shorts or a skirt. Because that causes driver-distracted accidents every year.

Of course, we could also force people to install blinders on their cars, kind of like horses wear in a race so they aren't distracted by the crowd.

If that doesn't work, we could always try the mandatory burka, after all, it could save lives! Iran could have had this figured out all along and we are just behind the times.

I'm sorry this dimwit lost her life, but more sorry that many whom possess more advanced synapses (which is obvious because they're still alive to post and haven't caused a deadly accident by texting) figure they can solve the problem by instituting even more government regulation.

Guess what? It only works until the next problem is found!

Require basic, human normal smarts, and recognize that everyone makes mistakes. You can't and shouldn't regulate out of everything.

Yes... that's the same thing... I'm glad you didn't resort to unnecessary exaggeration to make your point?

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

So, as someone who is on-call every second week, I'd have to never leave my home those weeks?

People were on call before phones were portable. I'm sure you can figure out a system.

This is what I don't get about the argument. Besides the technology, a lot of these things haven't changed, so I don't know why people suddenly think they are far more busy or important than they were 30 years ago. Yes it does make it more convenient and yes you can get things done slightly quicker, but there are workarounds for every single situation people have said or complained about. As I said, we all did things on the road 30 years ago before we were carrying phones.

Just to clarify my position, I'm playing a bit of devils advocate for the arguments against instituting some sort of zero tolerance technological mandate like a kill switch or whatever. It does feel a bit heavy handed. But I'm arguing for it because a lot of the arguments against it are hollow and amount to nothing more than, 'jeez I don't want to lose my freedom' which is something people say when they don't want to change but don't have a good argument.

I don't think I'm totally against a good hands free set up and talking, I think the risks while using devices like that properly are much less, and let's face it, people talk to people in their car all the time anyway, so you're never going to get rid of talking, nor do I feel you should.

But anything over that, anything that involves holding a phone, checking a phone, and god forbid typing on a device needs to be banned and punished harder than it is now, and anyone who is fooling themselves into think A it doesn't make them a more dangerous driver or B they are too busy or important to give it up is just fooling themselves.

[strombad]

Originally Posted by Daradon

People were on call before phones were portable. I'm sure you can figure out a system.

This is what I don't get about the argument. Besides the technology, a lot of these things haven't changed, so I don't know why people suddenly think they are far more busy or important than they were 30 years ago. Yes it does make it more convenient and yes you can get things done slightly quicker, but there are workarounds for every single situation people have said or complained about. As I said, we all did things on the road 30 years ago before we were carrying phones.

Just to clarify my position, I'm playing a bit of devils advocate for the arguments against instituting some sort of zero tolerance technological mandate like a kill switch or whatever. It does feel a bit heavy handed. But I'm arguing for it because a lot of the arguments against it are hollow and amount to nothing more than, 'jeez I don't want to lose my freedom' which is something people say when they don't want to change but don't have a good argument.

I don't think I'm totally against a good hands free set up and talking, I think the risks while using devices like that properly are much less, and let's face it, people talk to people in their car all the time anyway, so you're never going to get rid of talking, nor do I feel you should.

But anything over that, anything that involves holding a phone, checking a phone, and god forbid typing on a device needs to be banned and punished harder than it is now, and anyone who is fooling themselves into think A it doesn't make them a more dangerous driver or B they are too busy or important to give it up is just fooling themselves.

Because people ARE more busy and important than they were 30 years ago. As society changes, so do things like "cellphone requirements" and the like. Saying something like "things haven't changed in 30 years" is borderline ridiculous. Of course they have, they've change extreme amounts in the last 30 years. It's not just the technology that has changed, but EVERYTHING.

I get what you're saying, but don't criticise people for making hollow arguments by making your own ridiculously hollow argument along the lines of "Well if it was good enough 30 years ago it's good enough for me!" because that speaks an awful lot to something else you said, what was it?

which is something people say when they don't want to change but don't have a good argument

The fact is, technology, society, and the requirements and abilities of both of vastly changed over the last 30 years. Things have made people faster, better, more efficient, safer (the ability to call 911 at any time for instance) and yes, more unsafe at times (texting while driving is an abuse of the benefits mobile technology offers).

Whether you like it or not, it's the way life is. We can all agree that texting while driving is dangerous and stupid, but don't make some ridiculous comment like "things haven't changed since 30 years ago!" because it makes you look like you're scrounging to make a point you really don't have to try that hard to make.