Re: How will the police find me.

Newyana2 wrote on Tue, 21 May 2024 08:16:49 -0400 :

   Here we have a classic case of advanced, terminal cellphone
addiction. A vehement, irrational -- even religious -- belief that
cellphone distraction while driving reduces accidents.

Many people believe in myths, but very few question them, and even fewer
ask why there is no solid evidence in the government record for them.

You aren't at the level to answer the question of "why" yet, because you
still believe in the myth. In fact, you "religiously believe" in the myth.

It's you who owns the religious belief.
Not me.

I believe in facts.

Notice I never said cellphones aren't a distraction. They are.
I never said distractions don't cause accidents. They do.

I simply said that the accident rate trend (slowly going down, year
over year) was wholly unaffected by cellphone ownership rates going up.

There's a reason for that.
But you first have to understand the data.

Also I said nothing about injuries, as they're a second-order effect.

This is closely
related to the vehement geek belief that playing murderous video
games all day has no effect on mental health. "Cigarettes help your
lungs by reducing coughing." "Alcoholism is just the name used by
teetotalers to describe people who can hold their liquor." "I don't know
how she got pregnant. We never had sex... I don't think."

But you have to understand that there are hundreds (nay, thousansd) of
distractions while driving, e.g., using the car radio (if you have one).

    If you can't be honest with yourself about your cellphone
dependency, that's addiction. Can you just set it aside for a couple
of weeks without any big problems? Then that's addiction. If you
think that you can pay attention driving while on your cellphone,
you're fooling yourself. Those of us who are paying attention are
preventing the accidents. We watch you carefully while your
speed changes, you make sudden movements, you brake for no
reason, you drive like an old lady and then suddenly speed up....
We try to get away from you as soon as possible because you drive
like a drunk, only vaguely aware of what you're doing.

And yet, what you're doing is justifying the myth without ever looking at
the data, which clearly shows in the USA, where accurate government
statistics have existed since the 1920's, the accident rate was wholly
unaffected by the skyrocketing years of cellphone ownership rates.

   The last accident I was in was due to someone on a cellphone.
A man was driving while getting directions on his phone from friends
who he was going to pick up. He was in the left of 2 lanes, signalling
a left turn. I was passing in the right lane. Suddenly his friends told him
he was turning at the wrong street, he overcorrected with his one
free hand and veered into me.

Anecdotal evidence is not science.

   We locked mirrors for a few yards. The man first swore that
I'd hit him. Then he insisted there were not two lanes! He called the
police. He called his insurance company. He truly believed that I had
hit him while he was minding his own business. All the while he never got
off his cellphone. Luckily a sharp cop showed up and pointed out that
all the broken side mirror glass was in my lane, so I couldn't have
hit him... That accident wouldn't have been recorded as being caused
by cellphone usage. Anyone causing an accident by cellphone distraction
is likely to say they weren't on their phone. And we don't have breathalyzer
tests for cellphone mania.

BTW, notice I said cellphones are clearly a distraction, nay, even a "new"
distraction... which went from zero percent in vehicles to 100% in only a
few years.

   I saw a funny story the other day. I forget where it was. A young man
was tracked by a cop using his cellphone while driving, then pulled into
a fast food restaurant. The cop followed, walked over to his window, and
gave him a ticket for using a cellphone while driving. The young man
insisted
that he had just then pulled out his cellphone to let the drive-through
clerk
scan a coupon.

And yet, the accident rate trend was unaffected. There's a reason for that,
but you first have to comprehend the facts before you can understand them.

   Less amusing was the documentary made by Werner Herzog, about
Amish people in a buggy killed by a texting driver.
https://slate.com/culture/2013/08/werner-herzog-texting-while-driving-documentary-from-one-second-to-the-next-is-worth-watching-video.html

I never once said that there were no accidents. What I said was accurate
data clearly shows in all fifty states the accident rate trend was
unaffected by the skyrocketing rates of cellphone ownership.

  To even imagine that you can safely drive while using a cellphone is
feeblemindedness. Cellphone addicts feel like they're on top of things,
handling all sorts of input at once. Their cellphone is their cockpit. The
trouble is that the one thing they're not tracking is the here and now.
They're not where their body is. It's like those old Hollywood movies where
the mogul is answering 2 or 3 phones at once, too busy to relate to
any of the calls properly.

Many people believe in myths, but very few question them, and even fewer
ask why there is no solid evidence in the government record for them.

You aren't at the level to answer the question of "why" yet, because you
still believe in the myth.

Notice I never said cellphones aren't a distraction. They are.
I never said distractions don't cause accidents. They do.

I simply said that the accident rate trend (slowly going down, year
over year) was wholly unaffected by cellphone ownership rates going up.

There's a reason for that.
But you first have to understand the data.

Also I said nothing about injuries, as they're a second-order effect.