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Pastimes : I AM A MINDLESS ZOMBIE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (195)	11/3/2002 3:19:31 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 258

Carranza, good point. Unfortunately, the top quartile does get dragged down to the bottom quartile level in all sorts of ways. Evolution has been taking care of that for millions of years, so we do drive better now than in the past. Young males have been hitting trees, culverts, bridges and trucks and unfortunately other cars and pedestrians for 100 years now so they are being filtered out. Blessed are the good drivers for they shall inherit the roads. The complexity of modern society makes it difficult for everyone to cope, but especially difficult for the lowest quartile or decile. So rules are set by states to order people around and avoid the need for them to think, which so many are incapable of doing to sufficient level to function. In this particular instance though, banning holding a phone won't make a difference. The talking is the problem. Hands-free still enables talking. Banning cellphones in cars is absurd. I believe that it's a cultural adjustment that people need to learn so that the new thing can be absorbed into how we live our lives. We didn't ban air travel because comets fell out of the sky [though they way things are these days, I'd be surprised if anyone was allowed to invent aircraft]. Like entropy in production of energy, accidents and death are part of creating new stuff which does great things for us. Keeping the safety entropy low enough is the issue. There are actually few costs associated with using cellphones in cars while driving, but there are huge economic and social benefits. Most of the cost falls on the people who do the talking, because their insurance or other payments are harmful to them, not others. Some people are killed or injured by them - that also costs the person who did it [gaol or large liability claims]. The benefits are huge and measurable. The benefit is the value of the calls made by people in cars. I'd say the payment is many $$billions per year. Actually, that isn't the benefit. The true benefit is those payments plus the consumer surplus. Compare that benefit to the cost to OTHER parties, not to the person using the phone, and we'll see if the benefits exceed the costs. I will bet $10,000 to $1,000 that the benefits exceed the costs. It's easy to know that'll be true because people do things which benefit them. That's why democracy works. Sure, plenty of people will NOT be using cellphones in cars in a way which benefits them, but overall, in total, people will. Those relatively few will harm themselves, as happens in evolution, and be taken out of the equation. As you pointed out, sometimes, none of us can hold a conversation and drive at the same time - full attention to the 3D processes outside require our full attention including load-shedding and slowing or stopping to avoid the complexity. The central problem is that good quality thinking can't be legislated. People who can think can be selected in personal review tests. It's like legislating good posts in SI. We can't. We always have the likes of Schmandrel. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think. Horses don't get driving licences. Mqurice