U.S. Gov Bans Truckers from Texting

Today the U.S. government has set into place rules that prohibit truck drivers and other interstate commercial vehicle operators from sending text messages while operating a moving vehicle. The law goes into effect immediately, and any driver caught violating the rules will be subject to civil or criminal fines of up to $2,750.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/government-bans-texting-by-truck-and-bus-drivers/

Interestingly, typing on dash mounted computer or dispatch system is still currently allowed.

Good.

See, paying attention to the road while piloting a massive vehicle is a good thing.

Now they need to follow up and ban texting while operating any vehicle while it's on the road.

I text in the car, but I wait until I stop at a light or I, gasp, actually call the people back and talk. Yes, I know that makes me a fossil to use old school technology, but I can talk and drive a lot better than I can text and drive.

Michigan is in the process of enacting the same sort of thing for all drivers. If it were me , I'd ban cell phone use for drivers. I caught a tongue lashing from a guy who changed lanes in his Expedition and just about ran over my Miata. Apparently it's my fault because my"car is too damned short to be on the road" and he didn't see it. I pointed out that he ought to look at that fancy right side mirror of his, the one with the turn signal (that never flashed !) and get the damned phone out of his ear. He never touched my car, but he chased me into the strip mall to give a piece of his mind. There ought to be a device that disables cell phones when the vehicle is in "Drive". Just leave 911 functioning.

Cell phones are banned while driving in Ontario. I'm not a fan of new laws, as I think we already have far too many, but I'm on side with this one.

Maryland enacted a no texting law last year.

Yep, no texting while driving in NY for all since last year, and cell calls have had to be hands-free for several years. Doesn't stop the dozens of people I see every day talking on the phone, texting, reading the newspaper, etc. while driving.

jrw1621 wrote: Interestingly, typing on dash mounted computer or dispatch system is still currently allowed.

Wouldn't want to interfere with the cops using those laptops while driving...

DeadSkunk wrote: Michigan is in the process of enacting the same sort of thing for all drivers. If it were me , I'd ban cell phone use for drivers. I caught a tongue lashing from a guy who changed lanes in his Expedition and just about ran over my Miata. Apparently it's my fault because my"car is too damned short to be on the road" and he didn't see it. I pointed out that he ought to look at that fancy right side mirror of his, the one with the turn signal (that never flashed !) and get the damned phone out of his ear. He never touched my car, but he chased me into the strip mall to give a piece of his mind. There ought to be a device that disables cell phones when the vehicle is in "Drive". Just leave 911 functioning.

What a complete and utter shiny happy person tool!

Cell phones are like open containers, you're better off putting it in the trunk. Here is a story that was in yesterday's paper. I don't understand why their licenses have not been revoked. Some people just need to not drive.

News & Observer Article: Two can't stop phoning while driving - Like father, like daughter - only more so. Tyler Strandberg of Rocky Mount has a hard time getting her mind off her BlackBerry when she drives. She has crashed three cars in the past three years. Each time, she was distracted from her driving because she was typing text messages or talking on the phone. "Sometimes I will zone out and forget I'm driving," said Tyler, 23. "If I'm on the phone talking about something that takes up all my focus, I'm looking straight ahead - but not even seeing what's there." Her dad, Buckley Strandberg, worries that she will never curb her dangerous habit. But Buckley, an insurance executive, confesses his own weakness for Blackberry and Bluetooth. He feels compelled to conduct business by phone and e-mail on long, lonely drives between his offices in Rocky Mount and Nags Head. "That's more than two hours," said Buckley, 49. "I'm not just going to sit there in the car. I get a lot of work done on that straight, dead stretch of U.S. 64. "And if I run off the road, there are rumble strips that divert me back onto the road. That has happened occasionally. They seem to work, those rumble strips." Buckley and Tyler Strandberg contacted The News & Observer to come clean about a problem they share with each other - and with a lot of us. They expressed embarrassment but spoke candidly about how they rely on their phones when they drive, and how they try to reduce their risks. As many as 60 percent of drivers use their phones occasionally, researchers say, and 11 percent are on the phone at any one time. Cell phone use is a deadly distraction that causes as many as 28 percent of all traffic crashes, the National Safety Council says. Readers share alarming stories about other drivers who swerve in traffic while clasping phones to their ears or gazing at little text screens: "I saw her on her cell phone as she sped through the red light," said Nancy McGrew, 77, of Garner, describing a driver who "banged into the back of our truck." "The driver never even put on her brakes," said Janet Giannattasio, 66, of Raleigh. "She got out of her car, still on her cell phone. She told whoever was on the other end, 'I just hit somebody.' My daughter and I still have problems from the whiplash injuries." Distracted at wheel - Tyler Strandberg graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill last May and is spending a couple of years in Wyoming. She has had three crashes while phoning or texting. The first was in 2007 on U.S. 15-501 between Chapel Hill and Durham. She was texting, didn't see traffic slowing in front of her, and ran into a truck. There were no injuries, she says. Then she totaled two cars within two months. In February 2008, she was lost on Raleigh's 540 Outer Loop, overdue for a family dinner. She and her father argued on the phone as she drove, and she couldn't understand his directions to the Raleigh restaurant. "I was mad, lost and late. It was sleeting, and I was really stressed out," Tyler said. She hit an icy patch and spun into a green exit sign, smashing her Nissan Xterra. "It was pretty scary being on the phone with her and hearing her going through the accident," Buckley said. "She was screaming." Five weeks later, in March, Tyler was on U.S. 64 near Rocky Mount, driving home for Easter break. She had borrowed her grandfather's VW Beetle. Buckley says she was texting her sister to let her know she'd be there soon. "There was a wreck up ahead, and I didn't see the other cars slow down," Tyler said. "I looked up at some point." She rear-ended another car. "A lot of times I feel like I can just look at my phone for one second, but that one second can be enough," Tyler said. "There can be something in front of me that one second that I don't see." That happens a lot when drivers are distracted by their phones. "It's the kind of impairment you get with alcohol," said Rob Foss, a senior researcher at the UNC Highway Safety Research Center. "Your brain is not really on your driving like it needs to be. But you don't realize that until it's too late." Texting has become "an unconscious obsession almost ... with my whole generation," Tyler said. The urge to reach out "I get the urge to be in touch with somebody when I'm alone. If my phone's nearby, I'm going to pick it up and be looking at it." She frequently tucks the BlackBerry into her purse and puts the purse in her back seat, out of reach. She says she stays off the phone when she has passengers. But her dad remembers an exception when he visited her last summer in Jackson Hole. "I said, 'What are you doing? Haven't you learned anything?'" Buckley said. When Tyler gets bored she uses her phone to surf the Internet and read the news online. She sounds like her father when she explains an urge to multitask: "I'm reading the news, and I guess that's doing something. I look at driving long distance as a time to get things done." When Tyler's father hears that she reads the news as she drives, he gives a little whistle. "That's pretty scary," Buckley said. "Although I have done it myself." But he still reads his news the old way, in print. Sometimes he takes his morning newspaper on a drive and grips it between his thumbs, on the steering wheel. "Here I am preaching to my children - but they have been in the car and witnessed me doing exactly what I'm telling them not to do. So that's a problem," Buckley said. "And yet it's so hard to pull myself away from doing it. Because it's a fast-paced, get-it-all-done society. Work, work, work, 24-7."

"And yet it's so hard to pull myself away from doing it. Because it's a fast-paced, get-it-all-done society. Work, work, work, 24-7."

It's not my fault.

It's society's fault.

See, I've been thinking that I want to find a HUD out of a wrecked Vette and set it up with something like one of those bluetooth steering wheel devices like Tommy found, so I can text while driving, yet never take my eyes off the road or hands off the wheel!

Companion article that argues the need to keep computer dispatch units and keyboards in the cab.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/technology/28truckers.html

I don't understand the distracted while talking on the phone thing. We've been talking to the passengers in the car since the horse and buggy days and, yes, there are some things you don't need to be doing while driving -like trying to slap the kids in the back seat to make them quit fighting, but just talking never has distracted me or anyone I know.

Now when a customer calls and I'm in the car I do have to pull over because they are going to want me to do more than just talk. When paperwork has to come out then the car needs to be stopped.

carguy123 wrote: I don't understand the distracted while talking on the phone thing. We've been talking to the passengers in the car since the horse and buggy days and, yes, there are some things you don't need to be doing while driving -like trying to slap the kids in the back seat to make them quit fighting, but just talking never has distracted me or anyone I know.]

I've seen it many times when talking with people in the car. The driver can be distracted during intense conversations. That being said, there is still a difference between concentrating on someone right there in the car with you than there is when your attention is far away on the other end of a phone.

Why do so many people speak so much more loudly on the phone than they would face to face? Because their attention is focused not on their surroundings but on another place far away. The same thing happens when you talk on the phone in a car, even on hands free. The "cell phone shout" is a symptom of your attention not being on your immediate environment.

Some people can multi-task, and some absolutely cannot. I don't think it should be a law, I think it should be common sense that if you are on the phone/computer while driving that you are willingly putting yourself and others at risk. Unfortunately, common sense isn't as common as it once was.

The problem is the people who are least able to multi task are also too dense to understand they are incapable. That makes them doubly dangerous. I say ban it.

EastCoastMojo wrote:

"I get the urge to be in touch with somebody when I'm alone."

The desperate cry of someone terrified to be alone with their own thoughts. That's sad.

Colorado has banned texting while driving, the law came into effect on January 1st. The police say it's tough to enforce, as you can't tell on quick inspection if someone is texting vs talking - although you would think that perhaps the location of the phone might be a clue. I kinda like the way Quebec apparently does it - if you're holding a device that is capable of making phone calls, you're "on the phone" and you get ticketed.

Personally, I'm all for banning texting while driving, and especially for people driving heavy trucks. It's common sense not to drink and drive, too, but it seems that leaving that up to individual discretion doesn't seem to work. Same for seatbelt use. So if making it illegal stops a few teens from piling into bridge abutments or - worse - me, cool.

I've seen studies that have shown that speaking to someone who is present is less distracting than speaking on the phone, regardless of if your hands are involved. As an added bonus, your physical passenger may be looking out the window and might notice you're about to drive into a river even if you're distracted.

I am not for the seatbelt law for adults. If you want to fly out of the vehicle during rapid deceleration go right ahead. Maybe it will reduce some of the traffic congestion if we let these people weed themselves out of the gene pool. /flame on

I am baffled why people drive and hold a cell phone to talk or text. Rarely a day goes by where I see some idiotic behavior on the road and in a majority of the cases the perpatrator is on the phone. What is the worst is that everyone I've talked to about it insists that they can do it - it is everybody else that cannot multi-task, but it has no effect on their driving....they say that even after I've witnessed the results. In short I am against driving and talking/texting.

My problem really though is that the Federal government implemented the ban. Not sure where that power is granted to them in the Constitution. Apparently Ray Lahood thinks he has that power. When does the Secretary of Transporation make the laws?

Keith wrote: Colorado has banned texting while driving, the law came into effect on January 1st. The police say it's tough to enforce, as you can't tell on quick inspection if someone is texting vs talking - although you would think that perhaps the location of the phone might be a clue. I kinda like the way Quebec apparently does it - if you're holding a device that is capable of making phone calls, you're "on the phone" and you get ticketed.

So if I'm holding a book that means I'm reading it?

Reminder to self, don't pick up any paperwork that's in the car while I'm driving in Quebec. Crazy Frenchies!

As far as talking on the phone being distracting, the phone is the best thing to prevent boredom on those long road trips. It keeps me awake much better than the radio and therefore there's less chance I'll crash.

There must be technology available that could disable mobile phones if they're moving through space (ie: in a car) faster than a walking pace. Enable 911.

You wanna talk/text/email/watch Lost on iTunes? Find someplace to park, and leave the roads for those of us who are paying at least a little attention.

First they came for the texting truck drivers, but I did not speak out because I was not a texting truck driver.

Then they came for the texting car driver, but I did not speak out because I was not a texting car driver.

Then they came for the cell phone talking driver, but I did not speak out because I was not a cell phone talking driver.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out...and if any one did while behind the wheel you'd be in trouble.

alex wrote: There must be technology available that could disable mobile phones if they're moving through space (ie: in a car) faster than a walking pace. Enable 911.

But then passengers couldn't use them. I think the best tactic is insurance hits for drivers who are involved in accidents, especially when found to be at fault (any percentage of fault) where cell phone activity can be proven at the time of the accident. Repeat offenders get their license suspended.