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Topic: texting while driving
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Bart Smith
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 228
From: Hackney, London
Registered: Feb 2007
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posted August 26, 2009 01:14 AM
Here in the UK it has been illegal for a while.
Famously Britain's first Muslim Life Peer, Lord Ahmed, was convicted and jailed for doing so a year or so ago:
On 1 December 2008, Lord Ahmed appeared at Sheffield Magistrates' Court in connection with a charge of dangerous driving. Lord Ahmed admitted sending and receiving five text messages on his phone while driving two minutes before the crash, and pleaded guilty to the charge before him. He was banned from driving until his sentencing. On 22 December, Sheffield Magistrates' Court referred the case for sentencing at the Crown Court on 19 January due to its "aggravating features". This was later put back until 25 February. Lord Ahmed was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, which meant he would serve six actual weeks in jail and was disqualifed from driving for 12 months. He was expelled from the Labour Party on 25 February.
On 12 March 2009 Lord Ahmed was freed by the Court of Appeal. Lady Justice Hallett said it was important to state that Ahmed's offence was one of dangerous driving, not of causing death by dangerous driving. Hallett said that there was "little or nothing" Ahmed could have done to avoid the collision and that after being knocked unconscious, he had come to and 'risked his life trying to flag down other vehicles to stop them colliding with the Audi or his car'. She said that while his prison sentence had been justified, the court had been persuaded it could now take an "exceptional" course and suspend the sentence for 12 months. Lord Ahmed was freed just 16 days into his sentence.
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www.bluecinetech.co.uk
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 26, 2009 02:06 PM
Not completely,
I had it for two years until I decided I wanted to use it, then I learned how. Had I not wanted to no amount of marketing could have made me want to.
I have 5 cartridges of K-40 and Plus-X ready for the lab and plan of shooting some 35mm slides in the Fall. A cell camera has no pretense of replacing either, since the resolution is so low. However,it has the advantage of being pocket sized and usually there when I don't even expect to need a camera.
The fact of the matter is that there was no thought of a market for amateur photography until George Eastman created it over a century ago. Sometimes a need creates a market, sometimes vice versa. It's still up to individual consumers to either embrace or reject the stuff. It doesn't make them "sheep" if they do.
I bet 40 years ago most people would have thought the idea of people having computers in their homes was absolutely ridiculous. What on earth would the average person do with such a thing, after all. Then it was a toy for the moderately geeky, later it was a tool for home business and today it's as common as the TV set. Did we all decide we needed this or did somebody see a potential market and cultivate it?
Guy walks into a bar in 1835, says to the guy next to him "I need a telephone". The second guy says "What on Earth are you talking about?" Then it was invented it and people discovered they DID need it all along, they just hadn't imagined it yet.
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Martin Jones
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1269
From: Thetford , Norfolk,England
Registered: May 2008
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posted August 26, 2009 02:55 PM
Absolutely agree with you, Steve.. the same applies to most of our consumer devices. But out of all our "must have" consumer aids NONE, except perhaps the motor car itself, have proved to have been so inherently dangerous as a result of using them in the environment for which they were designed... the MOBILE one.
Or perhaps I should say MIS-using them, because it's the mis-use that is so lethal. And I still believe, although I do carry one myself, that it is a product that we never really needed, the last 80 years without it is proof of that. The MAIN reason I carry one is for emergency; occasionally I use it to contact home while out and about, which I used to do by public telephone until these contraptions caused the death of those. And I never cease to be amazed at the ENORMOUS sums of money spent on using them; in the last year I have spent less than £15 GBP using mine. That's a good indication of just how unnecessary they really are.
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Retired TV Service Engineer
Ongoing interest in Telecine....
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 26, 2009 03:24 PM
There's the Swiss Army Knife factor. Years ago I had one for camping only, then I had it in my pocket while I was at work and kept finding uses for it. Now if I find myself at the car and I find I'm without it I debate going back in and getting it. The cellphone has become kind of like that.
Martin, I have a confession to make: I didn't want the damn thing at first.
It was my wife's idea because we became parents and needed to be able to change plans on a moment's notice whether we were at a land line or not. Then I started to tinker with it (Engineer's weakness...) and actually began to enjoy it.
Since then I've actually used it for practical purposes a number of times.
1) We needed to head out quickly on a moment's notice recently. I quickly composed directions and e-mailed them to my wife's cell. She navigated while I drove and she didn't need to decode my scribble.
2) We were at a store and saw something we thought my Mom was looking for. I snapped a picture and sent it to her E-mail. She called my cell and asked us to buy it.
3) I was out on a walk and saw this really bizarre bug. I whipped out my cell and snapped a picture and sent it home to my computer so I could figure out what it was later. (Turned out to be a flightless wasp.)
4) I recently needed to record a string of numbers and I didn't have a paper or pen. I texted my PC and wrote it down when I got home.
5) I needed my wife to have a phone number recently. I texted it from my cell to hers.
So when I leave the house today, I have my Swiss Army Knife in my right pocket and my cell in my left. I prefer the knife, but I need them both.
BTW: Years before the American Revolution (obviously), young George Washington decided he wanted a commission in the British Army. He mounted his horse in Virginia, rode 6 weeks to the Headquarters in Boston, was told "No" and then rode 6 weeks home.
He didn't know what a car, or an airplane, or a phone was because they didn't exist, but he sure needed any one of them!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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