Study: 1 In 3 Americans Text And Drive

[AtheistCrusader]

134. Nope. I'm a gun user and carry concealed.

Your analogy is an outsized ridiculous over-statement of risk that assumes all users are inherently and equally bad at 'playing' with a gun.

If I try and be generous, I'd suggest a CLOSER analogy would be the difference in carrying a 1911 design pistol with a round in the chamber, cocked, safety on (condition 1) versus carrying with a round in the chamber and the hammer down (uncocked). (Condition 2)

Some police departments shun the use of condition 1 for reasons you might well imagine. (Interesting parallel here, some police departments acknowledge the distracted driving issues of using a trunked radio, cell phone, and computer while driving, and are working to simplify matters, others do not)

Carrying condition 1 is estimated by some police departments to be an acceptable risk. (I use a different pistol design called DAO, that allows me to carry condition 0, round in the chamber, cocked, no manual safety, which I can explain the inherent safety of, if you wish, due to it not being a 1911, and rather being more like the modern glock DA-SA hybrid design.)


Curious if you will find that analogy acceptable, or if you want to use a level of risk that actually implies a felony threat when you employ it against another human (brandishing a firearm).

"Studies continue to show that it is a major distraction and therefore an increasingly riskier behavior in the already risky act of driving." I referenced the Ohio University study earlier. I disagree with your characterization of it being 'major'. Again, for study-related reasons I outlined at the time. I will agree it is a RISK, but we clearly disagree on the degree to which it is, and the universality of that degree.

"Well, you have had a glass or two of wine before and then gone to the gun range and everything has turned out fine thus far."

I don't mix alcohol and firearms for the precise reason that it directly diminishes capacity, and restraint. Using a cell phone while driving consumes capacity, but you may not have been using all of it anyway, and there are ways to compensate, again, as demonstrated in the OU study that showed increased following distance.

"We, the public, have been shown strong arguments and enough proof that driving while texting increases distraction levels and leads to more accidents many of them quite deadly."

We the public have also been shown that people ignore such laws at an ENORMOUS rate, and like the Freakonomics folks often show counter-intuitive fallout from various actions, banning it may lead to RISKIER behavior, wherein people hide the phone while using it, completely ignoring the road. Your efforts here in favor of an absolute ban might in the end be RISKIER than something more like a public education campaign to get people to voluntarily curtail it to 'high value communication', brief acknowledgements rather than dissertations, how to hold the phone so your peripheral vision can still be engaged in the task of driving, how to shorten the duration of your glance to the phone, how to transition to VOICE ACTIVATION which is becoming ubiquitous on most phones produced today, etc.

I don't accept that your perception of risk is accurate, that it has led to good public policy, or that it makes us safer.

"No you can not convince me with rhetoric which is all that you are offering."

I have offered to discuss, and have also brought up more than one study. I am waiting.

"You can pretend that I am arrogant or a 'true believer' but no, I am just an adult that recognizes that my independent freedom is always a compromising and delicate balance between my will and desires and the world of others that I exist in."

I think your perception of risk is overblown, is leading to bad public policy, and is reactionary and damaging in the same way that the right wing's perception of public drug use is overblown and leading to bad public policy, and that seemingly counter-intuitive fixes like decriminalization would lead to similar improvements in outcomes. That's all.