Modern Vespa

I wonder if mobile phone use whilst driving, whilst yet another sign of the increasing stupidity in the general population, is helping prove several theories wrong.

1 - Intelligent design - if there was an intelligent designer - would s/he not design an intelligent product, or if there was a glitch in the production process,instead of producing idiots, s/he would have fixed the thing through six sigma, Kanzai, or other improvement project?

2 - Evolution - is not the theory of evolution based on the "fittest" and most well adapted surviving? - if this is the case, then why are all these idiots surviving, breeding like rabbits, and producing more idiots? I suppose humankind has f##ked the ecosystem enough that the idiots are not being killed off at a fast enough rate. so - are the fittest idiots?

my tuppence worth!

As an ol' retired electronics engineer who firmly believes in the perversity of inanimate objects, the idea of self-driving cars scares the shit out of me.

The technological complexities this degree of autonomous control introduces are immense, and reliability is generally an inverse function of complexity.

Autonomous and semi-autonomous control systems have been in use on rail transit systems (a fairly simple problem to solve by comparison to cars) for years, and failures are fairly commonplace... resulting in lots of deaths despite a human operator backup (the human having been rendered inattentive by stupid reliance on the technology).

Having had lots of experience in the field of electromagnetic compatibility, I know how difficult it is to design cost-effective control circuits that are completely immune to confusion caused by electromagnetic interference. All it takes is a source of high-intensity pulses (EMP from solar flares, nuclear detonation, etc.; a high-powered radar; an arcing high-tension power line; etc.) and you may see multi-car pileups the likes of which the world hasn't experienced... all because manufacturers didn't want to put tons of money into "hardening" their circuits, and the public's blind faith in technological "solutions" to everything.

Tongue in cheek right?

One would hope so, but my sarcasm detector wasn't triggered, and I've run into a lot of people who firmly believe the same thing.

Wish drivers could understand a very simple concept to an obvious problem....

"Don't out drive your eyes"

Saw this on FB today. Seems to go here...except the re-post part.

+1 on the message. Now if we can only get this posted to our FL tourists....Damn, I hate driving through the Disney corridor.

You made me laugh pretty hard!

So all of you out there have never looked at your phone while driving? Really? I never do it on a bike simply because it's impractical but seriously...you all have never looked at your phone AT ALL? I don't text and drive and never have. However, I do get distracted to answer it.

I was referring to people messing with their phones in any case. Utah just passed a law making it illegal to even touch your phone while driving. Bluetooth or handsfree are the only options.

Glad you clarified. I think most thought you meant we have all driven or ridden while texting.

No, never. Neither in a cage nor on a bike.

It's not the time or place for it.

Exercise some willpower for the sake of the safety of all of us. Calls and texts can wait. The world will not end if something goes unanswered until the end of a drive/ride.

Ever adjusted a GPS, tuned the radio, eaten, picked up something dropped, had a conversation with a passenger,? All distractions. If you have not then I would say you are a rare bird.

GPS... what's that? Never had one on a car or bike. Have one on my sailboat, but I'm seldom doing more than 5 knots there... and the traffic is considerably lighter.

I tune my car radio with the buttons on the back of the steering wheel that allow me to keep both hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road... admittedly a minor distraction. Don't have a radio on any of my bikes and never will.

Can't stand drive-thru fast food, so I'm never juggling gooey sandwiches while I drive. Maybe munch occasionally from a bag of pretzels on the interstate on a long, boring trip -- guilty of that much.

Because of the above, there is seldom anything to drop on the floor, and anything I drop can harmlessly stay there until I reach my destination.

I seldom have passengers in the car, except for my wife on date nights and road trips. She's a rider, too -- and she knows how I feel about distractions -- so she's mostly content with listening to music.

Of course, nobody's driving is completely free of distractions. But that's not much of a justification for failure to minimize them as much as is practicable. Don't know whether I qualify as a rare bird, but I think I may be on the endangered species list.

Sorry I was unclear. I looked at my original comment and see it's a touch vague.

Streak...you definitely have more will power than I when it comes to exhibiting self restraint. I never text, but I have a hard time ignoring calls. I do have a new smartwatch coming soon which will remedy this.

When I drove a big truck, I could drink coffee, talk on the CB and type on the Qualcom. All while driving. Wait a minute, I don't drink coffee

Yes texting and driving is dangerous. We got that point. But I add there are many other stupid things people do while driving that distract them. Eating, putting on makeup, shaving, reaching for something in the back seat or floorboard, how about lighting a cig.... At what point does one distraction hold more weight over another??

I have the Pebble and it helps a lot to keep me from trying to quickly "peek" at my phone for something. I can see really quick what's going on and choose to ignore or pull over to answer. My son has ASD and has problems at school so any phone call/text during the school day has a good chance of being an emergency. The watch helps tremendously.

Heck I just found just the act of removing my phone from my pocket while driving is dangerous. No I had no accident or anything like that, this is purely emotional. It caused me to subsequently loose something that was very meaningful to me when I later got out of the car.

The suspense is killing me. What did you lose? Sanity, a gonad?

My money clip, it was my father's. I've carried it for the last 26 years since his passing, Monday will have been his 90th birthday....
(I am 'heart sick' over it.)

UPS calls them "In Cab Distractions". So when you ask, "So, can I eat, listen to the radio, talk on the phone, text, whatever, etc, etc, while I'm driving?" The response is "Is that an 'In Cab Distraction'"? Which means Yes it is, and no you cannot do it! As it is they drive a 10,000 lb truck while playing memorization games all day long. Don't need to add any more distractions than that.

BTW - AAA published that doing math problems or complex memory games is the most distracting thing you can do while driving. Hmmm, I can think of a few others though...

Oh man, that's bad...

I think your right, Trip. I also think the answer will eventually be the self-drive car. So another 10 to 15 years . . .

That watch seems very cool. Lots of days i have important calls coming in and i'm riding. This would solve many problems. Does it work as well as they say it does?

Self-driving cars? They're only as good as the programmers and engineers are!

Judy, dariasen's Pebble is a nice option. I haven't tried it but I have heard good things. The one I will be getting is called the HOT Smart Watch.

https://www.hotsmartwatch.com/

I ordered it last fall on a Kickstarter and they are now in production (finally). It has a speakerphone as well as a patented private call function.

Need more of this.

I once saw one of their trucks with two signs on the back.

The one on the left said, "Pass on this side -- your business."

The one on the right said, "Pass on this side -- OUR business."

There also used to be a paper company around this area called Parson's Paper Co., if I recall, whose trucks had a sign on the back that said "CAUTION -- You are following a paper truck."

Gotta love a business with a sense of humor.

I am sorry for your loss. That does suck. I had my mothers class ring on a necklace and I lost it in a huge pasture while fishing. I am still sad about it 20 years later.

If you've never had your sailboat above 5 knots - it is time to go someplace where the wind blows.

Thanks PAD. 8)

The pebble has been amazing for me. At times for me missing a call means the difference between picking up my son at school or picking him up at the hospital. It's also helps with the invisible jerk of the leash my phone can sometimes have on me since I not only get notified for phone calls but also texts and emails (anything I want to be notified on really). As long as I'm within 30ft of my phone I know what's going on.
It also controls music apps so that just a bonus.

This is a chubby, heavy 19' New England cruising catboat on the Chesapeake Bay, mind you. It's displacement hull speed (the speed dictated by the laws of physics above which enormous horsepower is required to lift the boat over its own bow wave onto a plane) is 1.34 times the square root of the waterline length = 5.7 knots.

Most of the time in the Chesapeake's light airs, I'm cruising at about 4 - 5 knots. On breezier days, running downwind or on a broad reach, I've seen 6.5 knots on the knotmeter while surfing, but that's about it.

Fine with me... I didn't buy it for racing.