Re: It's a myth that cellphone use caused the accident rate to rise in the USA

On 5/29/2024 11:48 AM, micky wrote:

In comp.mobile.android, on Wed, 29 May 2024 15:22:54 -0000 (UTC), Chris
<ithinkiam@gmail.com> wrote:

You realise this is "arlen", right? This is his MO. Fire off dozens of
posts and threads on the same topic with no interest in having a
discussion. Unless, of course, with sycophants.
>

Could be.  I usually don't get caught up in his stuff.

I also hesitate to do so, especially with this Arlen\Arlen character.  I have waited because he kept saying the real question to ask was "why" something or another, and I wanted to give him the opportunity to actually contribute something intelligent that he came up with.  That never happened.  I have no idea what he does for a living, nor do I care.  But his continuous proclamation of being a scientist is quite amusing.  As we all know, what he really is is simply a troll, whose motivation is another thing I couldn't care less about.  All he deserves is to be shunned and kill filed.
That said, there is so much wrong with this latest trolling of his it's hard to find where to start.  His entire premise of accident rates is wrong from the start, though he appears to be figuring that out and weaseling towards only distracted driving stats.
Accident should be going down since the whole world is buying modern vehicles and our different governments are forcing automakers to provide many new and innovative safety improvements.  I'm not going to even list any since all those "morons" Arlen refers to probably know lots of them.   You would also think that those idiots that get into accidents would begin to make the rates go down since they've all wrecked their vehicles and told their friends of their misfortune.  That hasn't happened either.
The big problem with his ridiculous speculation is calling statistics FACT.  A real scientist would know they are not.  His whole argument is based on this lie.  I'll quote some of the pertinent things from an actual webpage so Arlen can't say I simply made this up.
"----
"A simple idea that helps explain a lot of disagreements is that there’s
a difference between a statistic and a fact, and it’s really hard to
tell the two apart."
"A statistic is just a number. And numbers are as easily manipulatable,
incomplete, and misleading as words are. But they’re more dangerous than
words, because numbers are associated with math, and math is associatedwith fact."
"But facts are something special. Facts are complete and unbiased enough
to tell you something relevant to understanding the past or predicting
the future. They don’t care about your goals. They’re uninterested in your
politics. They’re not trying to tell your story. They don’t have quarterly
earnings expectations to meet. They drown themselves in context and explain
blunt-force reality in all its glory."
<https://collabfund.com/blog/the-difference-between-a-stat-and-a-fact/>
------
Now this next page gets right to the point of what is a fact, a statistic, and data.  A "Scientist" should know these things.
<https://www.statisticser.com/statistics-vs-facts/>
---------
Now I assume he'll say, "But it's awesome government statistical data. It has to be trustworthy."  So take a gander at the next page I'll link to from the *National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.*  I'll quote the part showing the difficulties *SPECIFICALLY* to the collection of *distracted driving* data.
"NHTSA recognizes that there are limitations to the collection and reporting of FARS and CRSS data with regard to driver distraction. The data collections for FARS and CRSS are based on PCRs (police crash reports) and information gathered after the crashes have occurred."
"One noteworthy challenge for collection of distracted driving data is the PCR itself. PCRs vary across jurisdictions, creating inconsistencies in reporting. Many variables on the PCR are nearly universal, but distraction is not one of those variables. Some PCRs identify
distraction as a distinct reporting field while others do not have such a field and identification of distraction is based upon the narrative portion of the report. This variation in reporting forms contributes to variation in the reported number of distraction-affected crashes. Any
national or State count of distraction-affected crashes should be interpreted with this limitation in mind due to potential underreporting in some States and overreporting in others"
<https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813443>
------
The trolling part of this whole ridiculous argument he has for some unknown reason (attention perhaps) started is unclear.  But I guess I too am a moron because I would certainly say it is an OBVIOUS truth that using a cell phone is dangerous, for some groups of people more than other, and that most people understand this naturally.  Texting while driving is unimaginable to me, yet I see it all the time.  The fact that most places are making laws to curtail the use of cell phones while driving attests to that truth.  All you have to do is get in a vehicle and drive and every time you will see someone who is not paying attention to the road, but instead is on the cell phone.  It has changed the way most people drive, having to always be on the lookout for those idiots and have an escape route available.  Especially motorcyclists like me.  Everybody sees it, everybody knows it, and everybody realizes it's causing a lot of traffic accidents.  Everybody except the "scientist" Arlen the Troll.
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