New spin on speeding tickets...

and even better, dont report this to the police, report it to the board of supervisors rep (Steve Snow for most of us). BoS and Sheriff's office are always at odds, and elected officials will always try to take care of the problem...they have a very good reason to.

...just don't be shocked if your next ticket is for something like illegal tread depth or "obstructed view" (i.e. hanging an air freshener from your rearview)...which by the way is a 6 point offense!

 

For real??

 

N.J. Court Says Hangovers Impair Drivers

Here is an interesting situation. Now looks like even an hangover from cocaine even if you are not high on it can get you a DUI.

Another problem is drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

A study many years ago said falling asleep at the wheel may be the cause for as many accidents and deaths as DUI's.

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0607/435343.html

 

Re: N.J. Court Says Hangovers Impair Drivers

Im gonna pick some straws here. I think that the only part of this law that stinks is the fact that it is only valid for virginia residents. But the fines for breaking the law, Im ok with that. To interject with your study there have been plenty of studies that show that talking on your cell phone can be worse than driving drunk.

The thing being that even though most people are impaired when they get behind the wheel after too many beers they try way hard to pay attention to everything. Generally people on their cellphones tend to be not paying attention to anything except the topic on the phone.

 

Re: N.J. Court Says Hangovers Impair Drivers

WHUT?!?!?!?!?

 

I will quote about cell phone driving be as bad as drunk driving so that you can digest it.


"If you do a carefully controlled study where you equate for the amount of time that people are driving and the driving conditions, you're actually worse off when you are using a cell phone than when you're legally drunk," says David Strayer, a psychologist at the University of Utah. Strayer had done several previous studies showing that talking on a cell phone significantly impaired driving, so he wanted to know how talking compared to the ultimate driving impairment.

"So we had people come in one day and we got them legally drunk, with a blood alcohol level of .08," says Strayer. "And then we measured how they drive in our driving simulator."

The simulator is a $100,000 virtual reality driving machine in which volunteers follow a pace car. The simulator measures how fast, accurately and aggressively the driver follows the route. At the same time an eye tracking device measures where the driver is looking the whole time. Forty volunteers drove the car on four different mornings: once while legally intoxicated, once while talking on a hands-free cell phone, once while talking on a hand-held cell phone, and once with no distractions.

As Strayer and his colleagues wrote in the journal Human Factors, drunk drivers were more aggressive, tailgated more, and hit the brake pedal harder. Cell phone drivers took longer to hit the brakes, and got in more accidents. (There was no difference between hands-free and hand-held cell phone drivers.) Strayer notes that these are different results, but both are dangerous, and "in both cases you were significantly impaired."
Strayer had announced some preliminary data from his study at a scientific meeting in 2003. It took until now for the study to be completed, undergo review by other researchers and finally be published. This work builds on previous research of his which showed that talking on a "hands-free" cell phone impairs driving just as much as when the phone is in your hand.

The researchers think talking on a cell phone is so distracting (more distracting than talking to a fellow passenger) because of a phenomenon they call "inattention blindness," where the drivers enter a kind of "virtual reality" with the person they're chatting with. "Neither you nor the other person is really dealing with the physical environment that you're in," says Strayer. "Instead you're in this kind of cell phone-induced virtual reality, and you interact in that virtual environment rather than talk about the physical here and now of driving." He adds, "Even though the driver who is using the cell phone is looking out the windshield, they're not necessarily seeing what's out there because their mind is directed elsewhere." The eyetracking part of his studies confirm this: The drivers who talked on phones remembered half as many of the objects they looked at compared to those who were driving without talking on phones.

On top of that, the drivers did not even realize that they weren't really "seeing" everything in front of them on the road. They thought they were driving perfectly safely, and figured that if anyone had a problem driving while using a cell phone, it would be "the other guy." He explains, "Part of this inattention blindness shuts down their own processing and their own assessment of how well they're driving. So they themselves are not as aware of their driving performance while they're using a cell phone."
Inattention blindness from cell phones is the beginning of what Strayer calls a "new class of distractions" for our modern multitasking culture. "You now have navigation systems, electronic mail, you can send and receive faxes, you can surf the Internet while you're driving. There's all of a sudden a new class of technology that's making its way into the vehicle that has a much greater potential for distraction."

 

Yes and think about the two most horrific accidents on the east coast lately here and New York involved a car full of girls.

Lee j

 

I have to admit my initial, knee-jerk reaction equating talking on the cell phone with driving drunk is that it's total BS. Are you kidding me?

But then I've thought back to long trips where I've talked at length about business matters with a client...and the time seems to go so fast...and I don't remember guideposts or landmarks along the way. So in that sense, I get it about inattention, entering that "virtual reality" and being slow to respond with brakes.

I would hate, though, for anyone to use this to argue the inverse somehow and marginalize how awful it is to drive drunk.

One thing that is missing from this study is that it is presumably a controlled environment--the subjects get intoxicated, but they aren't coming from a party, they aren't jacked up with friends in the front and backseat blaring music...and all the other extraneous factors that make driving drunk so dangerous. Plus the fact that (I assume), most people who are driving drunk are doing so later at night, in the dark, while tired, etc.

So while I get the cell phone part, I think it is dangerous to relate the two in any way. You should NEVER EVER drive while intoxicated and there should be SEVERE fines for it. Not the same with cell phones.

 

Looking through my post I can see where I said "Go ahead and drive drunk, its all good."

Oh wait I dont see it. Its not there. How about using a word called context.

You can do it, I have faith in you.

Oh I said that driving while on a cell phone is as bad as driving drunk, so maybe I think that there should also be laws in place to curb the driving while on the phone and not "on the road." I just hope the next time I get cut off by someone in this area (meaning all of NoVA) who is either talking on the phone or texting their friends that I am not talking because I might get into an accident and cause traffic on some random road for you. And we know how you, along with everyone else on this board would jump all over the fact that there was an incident with someone not paying attention on random road and how horrible it is that you got home 10 minutes later than usual.

See I too can ASSUME you say something from your posts and go on my little rant.

 

Dude, you either have an anger-management problem, you had a bad week at work or you're just a ****. Haha. How did you get onto that rant from my post?! Wow. Chill, little boy.

 

Don't call me little boy. Chances are you would never say it to my face, so dont say it on here.

If I got a little too passionate about you picking facts out of my post and using them as you see fit. I was wrong for even replying when you obviously think that talking on the phone is not a big deal when even you said "...and the time seems to go so fast...and I don't remember guideposts or landmarks along the way. So in that sense, I get it about inattention, entering that "virtual reality" and being slow to respond with brakes.
".

That puts you in the same category as most of the people that are complaining about these fines. Ones who want to get away with driving like idiots and breaking the law.

And as for me having an anger issue or being a a hole...if I did have those issues I am sure I would just drive right into the cars that are weaving back and forth on 267,clairborne and waxpool while on their phones.

I do not in any way condone drunk driving but I am smart enough to see that it is not the only thing that makes usually good driver unable to be behind the wheel.

 

I get what he is trying to say. I am quite certain there are better drivers out there at .08-.10 than people who are stone cold sober.

I understand the reason for the laws and have no arguements with it.

 

I would argue that! Almost daily I am honking/swerving/breaking on the Greenway/Toll Rd due to someone on a cell phone.

Early this week I was almost run into a jersey wall on the Greenway by someone dialing their phone. And you want road rage, my 4 year was in the car with me.

I can't tell you how many times I have seen cars doing 10-20 miles below the speed limit because somone is on the phone.

I do use a cell phone on rare occassions while driving but I am also a very anal driver. I do not let it change my driving.

 

I agree cell phones are the number one danger on the roads today. How many drunks are on the roads during the day??? Drunks are a fraction of cell phone users and cell phone users are 24/7

Only thing worse are two or more women in a vehicle because most of the time they have to look at the other woman everytime they talk. Hey before you women crucify me It was James Bond who said that

Lee j

 

My post supported your statement about cell phone usage. That's why I pointed out that I have been guilty on long trips of entering that virtual reality the research spoke of...and that scares me.

Far fron condoning cell phone usage while driving, my point was to show that it was dangerous. But as with everything, there has to be context to it. And it's different than driving drunk, that's all.

I just didn't get why you immediately went personal and thought I was disagreeing or twisting your words-I didn't.

Fortunately, I work from home and drive very little for business. I pretty much only drive for pleasure around here and virtually never talk on my cell phone. It's usually only on long trips, like the one I did today to Chicago on a major highway, that I'll conduct an actual consultation while driving.

So I support your post. I just don't know how you think I twisted it. Anyway, no biggie.

 

My 2 experiences with cell phone usage while driving were 1). When I almost ran off the road near Costco while talking to my brother. My dad had just been diagnosed with lung cancer, was in the hospital and bro called me to fill me in on the latest. 2). On the outer loop of 495, near Tysons, guy in nice sporty convertible in left lane, talking on cell phone, hits the Jersey barrier, does a 180 - and keeps on going.

I rarely talk when driving and my family jokes that I never answer my phone anyway (probably because it sounds like all 10 other electronic noises all around me).

In today's Post, there was an article about VA law changing to make it a secondary offense for drivers under 18 to drive while on a cell phone, hands-free or not. One mother noted that she's also going to have to change her behavior and remember not to call her kids when they're likely to be on the road.

 

My bad for getting worked up about what the posts after my first. Somehow I misread the reply to my post and went off on some random tangent. Good to see that everything is back on topic.

My wife gets mad when I am driving and she calls but I wont answer, she also gets mad when she is driving and I wont talk to her when she calls, but she doesnt get mad if I tell her that I will be the designated driver so that she can have a few drinks.

And yes mythbusters did confirm it is as bad, but the point they made is that you can put down the cell phone but you can not undrunk yourself. Problem is that not enough people put down the phone. I saw a lady t-bone someone else while doing around 60 and talking on the phone. When we all ran up to the intersection to see if everyone was alright, she STILL wouldnt get off of her phone so that we could find out if she was alright. She also said that it wasnt her fault because she was on the phone and didnt see that her light was red.

 

You guys are the experts on this, I just don't drive enough around here to see this in action.

So what is the right plan of action? Would you ban talking on hand-held cell phones and make it okay to use hands-free devices? Or would you ban ALL phone calls? I assume it would be tough to enforce a ban on hands-free calls? Would you ban on highways alone or all roads? What would be the fine?

Then how far do you take that? Do you then ban other distractions in the car? Eating while driving, putting on make-up, reading, using navigation systems, radio, CD, rowdy kids in the back?! Not intending to be smart, but there are other distractions as well.

 

You can already be charged with "Failure to give full time & attention..." but I can't recall if it's a primary offence or a secondary offense. So, in theory, it's already illegal to do anything else while driving a vehicle.