I guess the NRA is getting a little too busy.

[General Septem]

My dad just got a fucking ticket, for talking on his cellphone while driving. What kind of bullshit is this? What, are the NSA having trouble keeping up? Are they just trying to control us for no forseeable reason? Let me tell you, if they can stop people from talking on cellphones while driving in the name of "national security", they can sure as fuck do whatever the hell they feel like.

[Brains_Behind_Operation]

Okay, my first question is what reason could the National Rifle Assossiation have for banning cell phone usage in cars? How could they possible care what a person does with a cell phone when it has absolutely no relation to owning firearms?

Next, to get on the topic, the reason your dad got a ticket had nothing to do with national security. the problem was with public safety. It has been a proven fact that people who use their cell phones when they drive are giving much less attention to the road and get in more accidents as a result of it, making the act of using your cell phone while driving too dangerous to allow.

[General Septem]

Okay, my first question is what reason could the National Rifle Assossiation have for banning cell phone usage in cars? How could they possible care what a person does with a cell phone when it has absolutely no relation to owning firearms?

Er, NSA. Sorry. :D


Next, to get on the topic, the reason your dad got a ticket had nothing to do with national security. the problem was with public safety. It has been a proven fact that people who use their cell phones when they drive are giving much less attention to the road and get in more accidents as a result of it, making the act of using your cell phone while driving too dangerous to allow.

The thing is, they let people use cellphones with headsets, and that doesn't make any sense because the attention is all given to listening, not the actual holding the phone. I mean, everything is unsafe to a degree. Are they going to make it illegal for a driver to talk to his passengers next?

[rawsugar]

In England you can get arrested for talking on your mobile while driving apparently. It's a law few people pay much attention to though. You've got to admit though that not paying full attention to the road when driving is dangerous, in a similar way to driving while drunk.
Abi

[General Septem]

I still think it's kind of stupid, though. I don't know, maybe it's just me. It doesn't impair one's senses at all, it just can be distracting, and for a good driver, this is rarely an issue. I find it kind of funny and kind of sad that they do not require one to have taken a driver's course to get a licence. My driving would be for shit if it wasn't for my instructor.

[rawsugar]

To be honest I don't know how much it affects a drivers ability, as I'm not old enough to drive in the UK yet. Six months to go :D
Abi

[General Septem]

I wouldn't know because I haven't tried to use a cellphone while driving yet. I'd think the most difficult part would be getting the thing out and dialing, and fumbling with the headset on top of that. The actual talking wouldn't really affect my concentration at all, any more than singing along with my MP3 CD does. :D

How old do you have to be to drive in England?

[rawsugar]

17, what is it in America?

[General Septem]

16 here. It depends on the state too, but I think it's 16 for licence anywhere. In some places you can get a permit at 15. I had my permit about a year ago, but I never really started driving until maybe April, when I started taking lessons. A couple of months ago I got my licence.

[Brains_Behind_Operation]

I still think it's kind of stupid, though. I don't know, maybe it's just me. It doesn't impair one's senses at all, it just can be distracting, and for a good driver, this is rarely an issue. I find it kind of funny and kind of sad that they do not require one to have taken a driver's course to get a licence. My driving would be for shit if it wasn't for my instructor.

It does impair your senses to the degree that your senses are focused more on the phone than on the road. I've talked on the phone while driving and come to a few close calls when I did, so I can understand why it's illegal even though I've been apt enough to avoid any accidents. For a GOOD driver it may be acceptable, but Americans are not good drivers. I know this because I drive all the time and ENDLESSLY am finding fault in everyone else's driving.

As far as affecting your concentration, it will do more than singing along with your music because conversation requires more concentration than repeating words to a song that you know verbatim. For some reason, it requires more concentration to talk on a phone than in person, I'm not quite sure why but I know that this is the case. Also, when you're on your cell phone you are dedicating one hand to the phone, (in cases without a headset), which takes one less hand from the wheel than is required by law.

[General Septem]

Well I guess I can see that you've got to have two hands on the wheel. But as far as impairing senses goes, that should be left up to the driver. I mean, if you're not a good enough driver to know whether or not you can handle talking on the phone, you don't need to be driving.

I just think it's a little controlling of the government to try and say we can't talk on a cellphone while driving.

[Brains_Behind_Operation]

Would you change the law to make it more difficult to obtain a driver's license? This is still an effect of a controlling government, but it is the only other option. It would be very difficult to tell whether a driver is intelligent enough to know whether he is able to talk on the phone, because there is no real test to verify that. This has little difference from saying that an intelligent driver would know whether or not he is able to consume a certain ammount of alcoholic beverages while driving. It's much safer just to make it completely illegal than to add in thousands of "ifs" and "buts." I think that it's better to allow more people to drive than to limit the driver's to only the ones who can drive safely regardless of the actions they are taking inside of their car.

[General Septem]

I don't mean only drivers who can talk on their phones can drive, I mean only people smart enough to know whether they can talk on their cellphones can drive. So if I can't and I know I can't, I wouldn't. But some people are oblivious, and the last thing you want to be on the road is oblivious.

[Brains_Behind_Operation]

That's just what I was saying. Hw can we select the drivers that know whether or not they can talk and drive? Even if we can select these people, how will we be sure that those who know they can't use their phone and drive at the same time won't? How are police officers going to know whether or not a person is violating this? Like I said before, way too many "ifs" and "buts." The truth is that talking on the phone while you're driving is less safe, any study on the subject has come to this conclusion. Because of that it is illegal to use your cell phone while you drive, just like it's illegal to carry a firearm into a school. Sure, there probably are people who won't be a problem if they do carry it in and it will only protect them, but when the wrong person carries one in you can't tell that he's the wrong person until it's too late.

[General Septem]

I know, but I'm saying, what's next? We don't let firearms into school, what's next? We don't let people have them at all? It's not just in school that the wrong person can do a lot of bad shit with a gun. And the people that are going to do the bad shit, are probably going to do it whether or not they're allowed to have guns.

And it's the same thing with driving. How much are we going to regulate what a driver can and cannot do? Cellphones are just one thing that can distract you. There are millions of others. Are we going to prohibit women from walking on the sidewalks? Let me tell you, I've found myself drifting out of my lane more times because of distracting women than because of cellphones. :D

[rawsugar]

what's next? We don't let firearms into school, what's next? We don't let people have them at all?

I don't think banning firearms in schools is unreasonable at all. People might have legitimate reasons for owning guns, but I'm struggling to think of a legititmate reason someone might have to bring one into school. In England we don't have the same culture of owning guns that you do in America at all. The only police armed in that way are the ones guarding the Houses of Parliament and suchlike.
Abi

[General Septem]

People might have legitimate reasons for owning guns, but I'm struggling to think of a legititmate reason someone might have to bring one into school.
Because if the wrong person does walk in with guns, they can protect themselves and their classmates.

Then again, if everyone got out guns, they might originally be just protecting themselves, but it might turn into a deadly riot. It's kind of complicated.

[rawsugar]

Because if the wrong person does walk in with guns, they can protect themselves and their classmates.

Then again, if everyone got out guns, they might originally be just protecting themselves, but it might turn into a deadly riot. It's kind of complicated.

Protect them how? By shooting the other individual with the gun? Hmm..I can see this getting kind of messy, not to mention the legal problems afterwards. Better to keep firearms out of schools i'd say.
Protecting yourself from gunmen in school just isn't an issue in England. I'm almost certain we have never had anything like that. Stabbings and the like yes, but no psycopathic teenagers running riot with firearms. It's sad. Ideally nobody would feel the need to own a gun as nobody would need to protect themselves, but unfortunately It's too late for that now.

[Brains_Behind_Operation]

Because if the wrong person does walk in with guns, they can protect themselves and their classmates.


On the surface it sounds like a good reason, but in reality it isn't. It is EXTREMELY more likely that the "good" person will end up having an accident when carrying his gun to protect himself and fellow classmates than the possibility of having someone dangerous walk in where the use of this defense weapon would be beneficial. The intent may be good, but intent can't change what has happened, whether or not it is an accident.

[who897]

Not quite sure how the topic of driving w/ a cellphone changed into bringing a gun to school. Which leads to the topic of ADD. I just don't think many people pay much attention to what they are doing. In the CG we got a saying "Attention to Detail". So, I'll clean the hell outta grate, but miss the big mess in the middle of the room, it was the details I was after.

See, I too can go off on a tangent