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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (311721)	6/26/2009 11:29:42 AM
From: Oral Roberts	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793927

Hands free phones are no worse than talking to someone in the car while driving. edit: I missed the hands free:)

To: LindyBill who wrote (311721)	6/26/2009 11:54:53 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793927

Lindy, there's mass hysteria about cellphones being used while diving but it's ideological. When there's not much happening, it's easy to eat food, tune the radio, adjust the air conditioner, look at the view, talk to people in the car, look at the map, conceive babies, and all the other things people do. We have an offence in NZ called driving without due care and attention. There are others called dangerous driving and no doubt lots of other ways of describing driving which is illegal. There is no law against tuning the radio or looking at the view specifically, but both are illegal if circumstances are unsuitable for doing them when they are supposed to be driving. Using a cellphone is not much different from looking at the view but it's not as bad. When driving fully engaged, I can duck and dive and switch lanes and zip and zap and notice lots of things while doing so. When using a cellphone, I go with the flow, watch the traffic not the view, don't do tricky things, don't also tune the radio and look around for a place to park. What it's all about is drivers applying brainpower in sufficient quantity to driving the car. People who say all attention should be on the road are obviously retarded, with low brain power, and should not be driving if even benign conditions require their full attention. I drive a lot and never come close to being hit by people using cellphones. But plenty of them obstruct traffic [which is an offence and for which they could be charged] or are driving without due care and attention. Before there were cellphones, half-witted people were still half-witted and they were still hopeless driving. I've been driving for 45 years in various countries, and the hopeless have always blocked roads and crashed their cars. There used to be more crashes. That's because driving used to require more brainpower. Nowadays, driving is mostly just following the car in front, so there's less need for judgment about speeds. Traffic lights are pandemic so there's not much thinking required at intersections. What little thinking that was required, the dopey traffic engineers have stopped by putting red arrows where people could previously turn when no traffic was coming. They have created psychological traps and accidents by taking away the requirement to think. The half-witted can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Some of us can drive, chew gum and talk on a cellphone while admiring the view with a babe snuggled up close. Mqurice