Guess who got her first traffic ticket!

[Thorsman]

I'm actually not that jerk at all. I use the rightmost lane when I'm in AZ and the leftmost lane when I'm in the UK. I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary that would necessitate sticking to posted speed limits, I just think they're there for a good reason. In Britain there's a common expression: "Rules were made for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men." While I don't claim to be a wise man (or a fool for that matter), I recognize that speed limits and regulations banning cell phone use while driving exist for logical reasons.

Care to make any other assumptions?

[Healer24]

I recognize that speed limits and regulations banning cell phone use while driving exist for logical reasons.

And what some people here are arguing is that the logic behind the "logical reason for banning cell phone use while driving" is fallacious.

[collegestudent22]

And what some people here are arguing is that the logic behind the "logical reason for banning cell phone use while driving" is fallacious.

Hell, on occasion, the logical reason behind the speed limits is fallacious.

[Thorsman]

And what some people here are arguing is that the logic behind the "logical reason for banning cell phone use while driving" is fallacious.

I'm aware of the argument. I just think the argument itself is fallacious. Banning cell phone use while driving to my mind makes perfect sense. You simply cannot have any kind of conversation on the phone while driving and be able to drive properly. I don't care what kind of sophistry you use to justify it - talking on a cell phone while driving diverts attention from your driving, and road conditions could change at any moment for any number of reasons. If you're on the phone and unaware of sudden changes, you could endanger your own life and/or someone else's.

Oh and CS22, I don't see any fallacy behind speed limits. By and large they're designed to keep people from going at unsafe speeds on a given type of road. Unfortunately, however, a lot of people take speed limit signs to be opinions.

[Healer24]

You simply cannot have any kind of conversation on the phone while driving and be able to drive properly.

I disagree.

I don't care what kind of sophistry you use to justify it - talking on a cell phone while driving diverts attention from your driving, and road conditions could change at any moment for any number of reasons. If you're on the phone and unaware of sudden changes, you could endanger your own life and/or someone else's.

If that were the case, then wouldn't you be able to extend that argument to include talking with passengers? Are you against that as well? Because if you are, then I could see your argument. However, if you think that it is perfectly acceptable to talk to someone sitting next to you while driving, then I don't understand your position.

[bagheadinc]

Personally I think talking to a passenger is much more distracting than using a hands-free device. Most people tend to want to look at the person they are talking to.

[Deacon]

OK Deacon, your slippery slope has slipped far enough (no Freudian slip jokes, please, folks). Pulling off the road or the highway for a few minutes to chat on a cell phone isn't a very extreme thing to ask in terms of a safety measure

I'm not sure wtf you're going on about with your slippery slope, but yes, it IS an extreme thing to legislate. You can ask, if you want, but that leaves me the choice of whether to comply. I'm perfectly capable of chatting with other people, whether passengers or via a phone, fiddling with the radio, changing the climate controls, following satnav directions, reading road signs, taking a sip of a drink, etc, all without an unreasonable risk to the safety and well-being of myself or others. Asking me to pull over to do any or all of those things is very extreme and totally unreasonable. In fact, I'm taking far greater risks by slowing down, pulling over, stopping, remaining a motionless obstacle on the side of the road (ask any cop), and then having to pull back out into traffic and such than I would ever present just chatting away as I drive, especially on the freeway. When you say asinine things like "why introduce an unnecessary danger in the first place" you make me wonder wtf your life is like that you never take any risk, no matter how minor, unless it's absolutely necessary. It's not introducing a significant level of risk to warrant legislation against it.

As for your argument about keeping a car's speed at a slow crawl, you and I both know that speed limits according to what type of road you're on exist for a reason - certain maximum speeds are safe on certain types of roads.

No, that's bullshit. Speed limits are set with all kinds of variables in mind, but they're set at the low end of the scale, and they're often unreasonably low, especially on the highway and in areas where much of their municipal revenue comes from writing tickets. There's a sparsely populated road on which my company's office building is located, with long sight-lines, no residential driveways open onto it, it's two lanes to a side with a wide, tree-lined median in the middle and dedicated turn lanes, and the speed limit is 35. Why? Because it's on the edge of a little township that runs their bored-ass cops back and forth along that road all day trying to catch someone going 38 (or 45 or 50 as is much more comfortable and reasonable on that road) so they can write them a ticket the judge of their little fiefdom will never dismiss. If they could, they'd set it at 20, but then they'd have a full scale riot on their hands rather than the everyone's more passive hate, instead. There is nothing magical about the number some blue-haired city council member or state legislator painted on a sign where going 5mph under that speed is completely safe and reasonable while going 5mph over that speed is reckless endangerment of human life--especially when those limits are placed so low.

And even if you believe with all your heart that the number on that sign has magical protective properties (and apparently you're the jerk creeping along on the highway under the speed limit causing people to have to swerve around you and other nearly-as-slow jerks teaming up to make rolling roadblocks for everyone else), it has nothing to do with whether it's acceptable to legislate cell phone usage in cars, much less whether it's a good idea.

When I was driving around with my wife visiting friends and family in Arizona last week, I kept my speed just a couple miles per hour below the posted speed limit so I could keep reasonable control of the car lest I need to change direction, slow down, or stop along the highway/road (again, depending on where I was). I didn't feel the need to speed in order to "assert my freedom" because I much preferred to assert my wife's and my mutual desire to not get splattered along the I-10.

If you're driving skills are so sketchy that going a couple of miles an hour above the posted speed limit prevents you from keeping reasonable control of the car, causing an accident if you ever need to change lanes or whatever, then you have absolutely no business driving in the first place. Additionally, you providing a rolling obstacle to otherwise freely moving traffic means you're increasing your likelihood of being splattered along I-10. You are the lowest common denominator against which traffic safety rules are measured.

Then again, at this point I'm not convinced that you're not taking some sort of bullshit devil's advocate stance, though if you really are the fuckass on the road you claim to be, it'd explain a lot about so much of the other stuff you claim about yourself.

Banning cell phone use while driving to my mind makes perfect sense. You simply cannot have any kind of conversation on the phone while driving and be able to drive properly.

Holy shit.

[collegestudent22]

I see signs with numbers on them as minimum speed. As do 90% of german motorists.

And somewhere around 80% of drivers here in Wyoming. Because, typically, they are. Going 85 on the highway does not decrease the safety of your driving in any significant way.

[Arres]

OOH! I've got anecdotal evidence to chip away at the cell phones are unsafe nonsense. I drive in the outskirts of L.A. every weekday. My drive is approximately 45 minutes each way. I usually spend that ENTIRE time on the cell phone, because driving is boring (pfft. I don't know anyone who routinely uses the phone for "just a couple minutes"). I have been in 3 accidents in the last year, and in not ONE of them has any driving party been on the cell phone. I don't even see a correlation really.

My biggest issue with the law is that they are badly written. If it's unsafe to drive while using a cell phone, then it's also unsafe to read, apply makeup, do your hair, eat a cheeseburger, mess with your Ipod or any of a number of other things not covered by the law. They didn't write the law that way because safety isn't the concern of these people. Passing a law so they can SAY safety is their concern is what they're after.

[adciv]

I'm actually not that jerk at all. I use the rightmost lane when I'm in AZ and the leftmost lane when I'm in the UK. I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary that would necessitate sticking to posted speed limits, I just think they're there for a good reason. In Britain there's a common expression: "Rules were made for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men." While I don't claim to be a wise man (or a fool for that matter), I recognize that speed limits and regulations banning cell phone use while driving exist for logical reasons.

Care to make any other assumptions?

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato

To continue, some states accept that there is always going to be car accidents. If the accidents in an area start to go up, they start to lower the speed limits. If the accident rates go lower, they raise the speed limits to a point. They figure out an acceptable accident rate and work from there.

[Sophira]

I would like to point out that Deacon got pulled over on suspicion of being ass-drunk because he was fiddling with his navigator. There were two RLF witnesses!

And everyone thinks they're a good driver, even Rainman.

[Rorschach]

I would like to point out that Deacon got pulled over on suspicion of being ass-drunk because he was fiddling with his navigator.

Who was the lucky fella in the front?

[Deacon]

I would like to point out that this was in Duck, NC, with the equally bored and paranoid and greedy cops up there (just ask Greg and MB), and I was inexperienced in fiddling with my navigator. Not that that has anything to do with talking to passengers or on the phone.

[JermCool]

I would like to point out that Deacon got pulled over on suspicion of being ass-drunk because he was fiddling with his navigator.

Who was the lucky fella in the front?

I demand this be answered quickly and without hesitation.

I think the problem isn't so much with normal people having a conversation on the phone while driving. It's the morons who get so engrossed with whoever they're speaking with that the hands start waving about and they lose total focus on everything around them except the phone on their ear. We've all seen them. These are the people who scream into their phone at a restaurant or theater. We want to kill these people. I damn near got side-swiped on my way into work this morning by one of these people.

I don't begrudge cellphone use while driving. I begrudge morons who drive.

[Deacon]

Exactly. The problem isn't the phone, it's the drivers who can't handle the phone, just like the drivers who dig around in the floorboard of the passenger seat for a book or something until they run off the road and total the car (my sister did this back when she was in high school). The standards for acquiring a driver's license are way too low.