Re: Driving and Cell Phones
The "studies" performed were funded by the insurance industry. For what purpose? To raise insurance rates of course. If you have sought a new carrier lately, try online. My wife had an accident a few years ago and I had to answer yes to the accident wuestion. Well in almost every case the question came up was the accident caused while talking on a cell phone. If I asnwered yes, you can bet the premium would have jumped. The studies don't appear to stipulate if the cellphone user was at fault, just if one of the parties involved was using a cellphone. And with the pervasive nature of cellphones in our society, a cellphone user isore likely to be involved in an accident. After all a person with a driver license is far more likely to be involved in an accident than a person who has never had a license. It's just natural.<br /><br />As for the smoking issue, our medical advances have extended our lifespans. Our medical advances have also proven that smoking causes a multitude of health problems that weren't known in the '50's '60's and even '70's. So yes the parents who smoke with children in the car ARE idiots. My parents smoked in the car when I was a child. They were not idiots then, they were simply ignorant to the truths we now know. If they had known then that second-hand smoke was dangerous, then yes they would have been idiots. It's all about the facts available at the time.<br /><br />As for the comaprison between cigar/cigarette smoking and fireplaces/woodstoves, get real. You will find far lower concentration of woodsmoke in a home that you would second-hand smoke even from only one smoker. And the second-hand smoke has far more substances than just tar. Try nicotine, chloroform, and other proven cancer causing agents. Wood smoke, well there is creosote. That is deadly if allowed to build-up and start a chimney fire that burns down the house.<br /><br />I use a hands-free unit with my cellphone an dcan tell you that even that way is a mild distraction. I have absolutely no problem with ignoring my caller if I have a situation occurring on the road in front of me. And I try to minimize my road minute on the phone. What we really need as a society is to educate and police the idiots. Don't take away the priviledges, just demand a higher level of responsibility to others.<br /><br />The smoking area being moved further away from buildings, why do you have the right to endanger my health? I don't smoke, and I hate it when I have to walk through the fog to enter a building. Having a no smoking section in a public building is like having a no peeing section in a pool. My mother died of emphysema caused by smoking. The doctors told my father and myself that it can be hereditary. So that can explain the 102yo farmer.<br /><br />Until a neutral party conducts a study that condemns cellphone use as increasing the cause[/] fo accidents, I will continue to be skeptical. Insurance companies have only one objective, find ways to charge you higher premiums for less coverage, while finding ways out of owning up to the responsibility of what little coverage they do provide. And I will continue to pi$$ and moan about others using their cellphones while driving when they are clearly incompetent at driving withoutdistractions.<br /><br />Thank you all for your time and consideration.
