I spend a lot of time poking fun at the New York Times and other ’safety experts’ who want to banish cell phones from cars, so I thought it only fair to take some time to listen to some of their arguments. To kick things off, here is a recent public service ad from the Highway [...]
Posts Tagged ‘cell phones’
Roads safer than ever before but the NYT still wants to ban cell phones
If you read all of the scary stories about how distracting cell phones are to drivers, you’d probably think that our roads are becoming a more dangerous place. After all, how could they not be? The ‘safety experts’ keep telling us that talking using cell phones while driving is as dangerous than driving drunk! And [...]
Surprise! Surprise! Cell phone bans don’t make the roads safer [distracted driving]
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety just finished a comprehensive study of the effectiveness of cell phone bans and the results won’t be surprising to regular readers of this blog. Cell phone bans, it turns out, have no effect on road safety and accident rates.
To repeat: The effect of bans wasn’t mild, or slight or [...]
They thought car radios were dangerous too… [cell phone ban]
It strikes me that a lot of the hysteria about the dangers posed by cell phones in cars boils down to little more than plain old technophobia.
After all, there is no reason to believe that cell phones are uniquely distracting. Both academic studies and surveys suggest that they are in fact less of a distraction [...]
Texting ban moves forward in Michigan
Earlier today Yesterday, the Michigan House Transportation Committee approved legislation that would make texting while driving a civil infraction in Michigan.
The State House has not yet posted the committee minutes, so it is unclear what the exact vote was on the legislation.
The bill still needs to pass the House and Senate before it can be [...]
Cell phone crackdown starts tomorrow in NYC [Revenue enhancement]
If you’ve got some speeding, drag racing, or other type of anti-social behavior you’ve wanted to engage in on New York City’s roads, tomorrow might be a good day to do it.
Why? Because the NYPD is going to is going to spend most of its energy ticketing drivers who use cell phones.
Gothamist reports the last [...]
Is it time to ban carpooling?
It took the police almost an hour to arrive at the scene of the accident. The dark red Saturn with its crumpled front end and my 2001 VW GTI with its smashed side panels and broken rear axle had already been cleared from the road. Shattered glass and the remnants of my passenger-side mirror still littered [...]
Yellow Journalism Watch: New York Times continues its assault on the freedoms of motorists
For a paper based in the most pedestrian-oriented city in the country, the editors at the New York Times sure have it in for America’s motorists. For the last few weeks, the Times has been running a series called “Driven to Distraction” about the extreme dangers purportedly posed by motorists who chat on their cell [...]
The war on driving
An American’s car is his castle, and that castle is under siege.
The assault on American motoring practices began last Saturday when The New York Times published its lede story on the dangers of driving while talking on a cell phone. The Times continued the theme Monday, citing recently released study from the National Highway Traffic Safety [...]
#14. Cell phone contracts
The only thing more unpleasant and anxiety inducing than buying a used car is strolling into your neighborhood cell phone store to replace your broken handset.
Unfortunately, since the typical cell phone has a life expectancy just shy of that of a mosquito, replacing a cell phone is something we all have to endure with a [...]
