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monty
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 05, 2007
Posts: 3158
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 Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| skafather84 wrote: |
heh, an overinflated sense of entitlement is what brought the law into being. the cali "liberals" in their righteousness voted it in because they hate seeing people in front of them on cell phones.
300 deaths out of 4000 fatalities means that it's roughly 9% of the fatalities...that's not particularly a strong reasoning to legislate this issue.
edit: just checked the math, it's actually 7.5% |
I don't understand why you think the liberals hate to see people in front of them on cell phones. Maybe because people talking on cell phones drive less safely??
Also, 300 deaths seem like a rather steep trade-off for the 'right' of people in one state to blab at the same time that they are driving.
I'm hoping that cell phone records are routinely subpoenaed in traffic cases, and people who were talking get charged with vehicular manslaughter or vehicular assault. And sued under the common law doctrine of negligence, which states that a person who fails to act prudently is guilty for any damages he might cause while failing to do so.
So I am not an absolutist ... not dim ... I admit it .... I am a prude!! And I think others should act prudently, too. |
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slowmutant
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Age: 30
Posts: 11411
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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| You're a despicable human being, skafather. Really you are. |
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skafather84
Platypus God
Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 25
Posts: 6524
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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| monty wrote: | | skafather84 wrote: |
heh, an overinflated sense of entitlement is what brought the law into being. the cali "liberals" in their righteousness voted it in because they hate seeing people in front of them on cell phones.
300 deaths out of 4000 fatalities means that it's roughly 9% of the fatalities...that's not particularly a strong reasoning to legislate this issue.
edit: just checked the math, it's actually 7.5% |
I don't understand why you think the liberals hate to see people in front of them on cell phones. Maybe because people talking on cell phones drive less safely??
Also, 300 deaths seem like a rather steep trade-off for the 'right' of people in one state to blab at the same time that they are driving.
I'm hoping that cell phone records are routinely subpoenaed in traffic cases, and people who were talking get charged with vehicular manslaughter or vehicular assault. And sued under the common law doctrine of negligence, which states that a person who fails to act prudently is guilty for any damages he might cause while failing to do so.
So I am not an absolutist ... not dim ... I admit it .... I am a prude!! And I think others should act prudently, too. |
300 deaths is nothing. how many people are on cell phones that have no accidents while the phone is to their ear? how many people are there on the road in general?
you're falling into the appeal to emotion that got the law passed and you're failing to see the bigger picture.
oh, and if you are a prude, stay out of the buzzed driving is not drunk driving thread, you obviously have no reference of context by your own self-admission. |
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slowmutant
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Age: 30
Posts: 11411
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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How many deaths have to occur because some douchebag wants to chat while driving on the freeway? If not 300, how about 500? Or 1000? See, you are scum because your convenience is supposedly worth more than human life. Be careful not to wrap your car around a tree while driving and yakking on that lovely cell phone.
Last edited by slowmutant on Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Fnord
Metasyntactic Variable
Joined: May 07, 2008
Posts: 6251
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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| monty wrote: | | I'm hoping that cell phone records are routinely subpoenaed in traffic cases... |
They are.
| monty wrote: | | ... and people who were talking get charged with vehicular manslaughter or vehicular assault. |
They do.
| monty wrote: | | And sued under the common law doctrine of negligence, which states that a person who fails to act prudently is guilty for any damages he might cause while failing to do so. |
It happens.
And well it should.
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gone but not forgotten |
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skafather84
Platypus God
Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 25
Posts: 6524
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| slowmutant wrote: | | How many deaths have to occur because some douchebag wants to chat while driving on the freeway? If not 300, how about 500? Or 1000? See, you are scum because your convenience is supposedly worth more than human life. Be careful not to wrap your car around a tree while driving and yakking on that lovely cell phone. |
preaching from the mount with no connection to reality.  |
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twoshots
Boltzmann Brain
Joined: Nov 27, 2007
Posts: 4229
Location: Boötes void
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:00 pm Post subject: |
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| monty wrote: | | Ah - So you are a dim person who can only think in absolutist terms and opposes reasonable regulation for the public good that might conceivably not be 100% just. Well, might as well throw out all laws and punishments, then ... passing a law against murder might mean that someone is falsely convicted of murder someday. |
The salient difference is that murder is wrong in and of itself. Talking on a cell phone is just poor/reckless judgment. Since observations of increases in risk are predicated on random individuals, and no individual ought to treat themselves as random rather than taking into account their personal strengths/weaknesses, punishing the individual cannot be sure to be punishing them for doing something which was even a reckless judgment. This is different in a relevant way from other laws. If there is a high standard deviation in dangerousness from talking on a cell phone, then an individual may reason that they are safe, and the subjective will under which they took the action would be good, and the judgment not punishable. Increased risk is a statistical feature of large populations rather than individuals.
And for anyone who thinks that life is priceless - your a fool. You could eliminate all traffic fatalities by lowering the speed limit to 10mph, or banning all vehicles, etc etc. You could reduce traffic fatalities by not issuing licenses to stupid people, to men, to people below the age of 30. You could forbid people from driving if they haven't slept a sound 8 hours. Utilitarian traffic laws need to have a notion of acceptable risk.
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slowmutant
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Age: 30
Posts: 11411
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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Is life not priceless? Is it worthless in the face of our legal right to be idiots? Bah! 
*spits in digust* |
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monty
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 05, 2007
Posts: 3158
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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| twoshots wrote: |
The salient difference is that murder is wrong in and of itself. Talking on a cell phone is just poor/reckless judgment. |
Since this thread is linked in a number of ways to the buzzed/drunk driving debate, and since you are distinguishing between things that are inherently wrong vs reckless, ... do you think drunk driving is wrong in and of itself, or just poor judgment? |
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slowmutant
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Age: 30
Posts: 11411
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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| DUI is both wrong and wreckless. Unless you're fast-talking enough to squirm out of a conviction. In that case, you might want to try doing a line of coke off the dahboard next time. When they bust you for possession and DUI, just cry fascism! |
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skafather84
Platypus God
Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 25
Posts: 6524
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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| monty wrote: | | twoshots wrote: |
The salient difference is that murder is wrong in and of itself. Talking on a cell phone is just poor/reckless judgment. |
Since this thread is linked in a number of ways to the buzzed/drunk driving debate, |
only in your mind and that both deal with driving. |
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slowmutant
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Age: 30
Posts: 11411
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't know how it is down in Cali, but the Ontario Provincial Police would not tolerate this kind of bullsh*t. |
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twoshots
Boltzmann Brain
Joined: Nov 27, 2007
Posts: 4229
Location: Boötes void
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| monty wrote: | | twoshots wrote: |
The salient difference is that murder is wrong in and of itself. Talking on a cell phone is just poor/reckless judgment. |
Since this thread is linked in a number of ways to the buzzed/drunk driving debate, and since you are distinguishing between things that are inherently wrong vs reckless, ... do you think drunk driving is wrong in and of itself, or just poor judgment? |
That would probably depend on the probability of one being safe under the influence, and the fact that under the influence people are notoriously awful at understanding how affected they are. Very likely, an individual who is judging themselves safe under the influence (say, a BAC .08+) is full of it. Despite some findings that a person on a cell phone is as dangerous as someone above the legal limit, they make up a much smaller proportion of traffic fatalities, despite probably happening more often. I remain highly skeptical of the studies indicating how dangerous talking on a cell phone is, for a variety of reasons (of course, my university's library databases aren't working so I can't actually read them  ) (they are after all simulated driving. Furthermore, alcohol intoxication goes straight to the brain so it isn't something that careful judgment and good thinking is going to make much safer, in part because it screws up judgment to begin with.
This isn't something that can be solved without evidence. The distribution of risk increases is important. It may very well be the case that an individual ought never to judge themselves safe with a cell phone and hence the decision to do so is inherently reckless. It remains to be seen.
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skafather84
Platypus God
Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 25
Posts: 6524
Location: New Orleans, LA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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| twoshots wrote: | | monty wrote: | | twoshots wrote: |
The salient difference is that murder is wrong in and of itself. Talking on a cell phone is just poor/reckless judgment. |
Since this thread is linked in a number of ways to the buzzed/drunk driving debate, and since you are distinguishing between things that are inherently wrong vs reckless, ... do you think drunk driving is wrong in and of itself, or just poor judgment? |
That would probably depend on the probability of one being safe under the influence, and the fact that under the influence people are notoriously awful at understanding how affected they are. Very likely, an individual who is judging themselves safe under the influence (say, a BAC .08+) is full of it. Despite some findings that a person on a cell phone is as dangerous as someone above the legal limit, they make up a much smaller proportion of traffic fatalities, despite probably happening more often. I remain highly skeptical of the studies indicating how dangerous talking on a cell phone is, for a variety of reasons (of course, my university's library databases aren't working so I can't actually read them ) (they are after all simulated driving. Furthermore, alcohol intoxication goes straight to the brain so it isn't something that careful judgment and good thinking is going to make much safer, in part because it screws up judgment to begin with.
This isn't something that can be solved without evidence. The distribution of risk increases is important. It may very well be the case that an individual ought never to judge themselves safe with a cell phone and hence the decision to do so is inherently reckless. It remains to be seen. |
well in pure numbers, the number of cell phone related fatalities is 300 (i've heard 275 but i'll go with a larger number) against 4000 (all reports i've seen have said 4000+ meaning less than 5000 but more than 4k even) total. those results alone mean that roughly 7.5% of all traffic fatalities in california are cell phone related.
is that statistically relevant enough to warrant a law against it? not really, other than to be able to milk more money out of the people with another arbitrary law. |
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monty
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 05, 2007
Posts: 3158
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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| skafather84 wrote: | | monty wrote: | | twoshots wrote: |
The salient difference is that murder is wrong in and of itself. Talking on a cell phone is just poor/reckless judgment. |
Since this thread is linked in a number of ways to the buzzed/drunk driving debate, |
only in your mind and that both deal with driving. |
Both deal with driving.
Both deal with the notion of acceptable risk.
Both deal with controversial legislation.
Both were started by some guy named skafather84.
And in both you are calling people absolutist, dim, totalitarian, fascist, etc.
Yeah, only my beautiful mind would see any connections. 
Well, I'm done for today. Peace out. |
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