ticket for holding a cell phone while driving

I don't have the info at hand but I believe humans are not truly capable of multi-tasking, what we perceive as multi-tasking is just muscle actions fired from auto responses or quick serial responses from quick short individual mental assessment/decisions. The reason we always need to practice things and commit them to muscle memory so that when crap hits the fan you can compensate quickly without thinking.

One example I see daily are those drivers that never signal lane changes in heavy traffic but suddenly seem to be able to do it in a turn lane when the need to signal is least important. That's probably because they have the time to think about activating a signal and then translating that into muscle action. In traffic there's too much for their brain to process because they need to "remember" to do it, it's not an automatically initiated reaction to a twist of the wheel.
 
NealT said:
I don't have the info at hand but I believe humans are not truly capable of multi-tasking, what we perceive as multi-tasking is just muscle actions fired from auto responses or quick serial responses from quick short individual mental assessment/decisions. The reason we always need to practice things and commit them to muscle memory so that when crap hits the fan you can compensate quickly without thinking.

One example I see daily are those drivers that never signal lane changes in heavy traffic but suddenly seem to be able to do it in a turn lane when the need to signal is least important. That's probably because they have the time to think about activating a signal and then translating that into muscle action. In traffic there's too much for their brain to process because they need to "remember" to do it, it's not an automatically initiated reaction to a twist of the wheel.
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I remember hearing something on the news about a half a year ago or so about multi-tasking being far less beneficial than finishing one task and moving on to the next....? I guess that kind of relates to your statement.

Prime example of this, as much as it angers me, was when I saw a lady putting make up while driving today. She was all over the road crossing in to on coming traffic as she was "driving" with no hands. Almost hit me when I was passing her as she went in to the left turn lane (I guess by accident...?) and made a hard right to move back in to the lane I was in. Obviously she had no idea I was there...
 
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PLau said:
I remember hearing something on the news about a half a year ago or so about multi-tasking being far less beneficial than finishing one task and moving on to the next....? I guess that kind of relates to your statement.

Prime example of this, as much as it angers me, was when I saw a lady putting make up while driving today. She was all over the road crossing in to on coming traffic as she was "driving" with no hands. Almost hit me when I was passing her as she went in to the left turn lane (I guess by accident...?) and made a hard right to move back in to the lane I was in. Obviously she had no idea I was there...
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Exactly, you can only focus on one thing at a time, in her case putting on make up, the result is a total loss of awareness of where her vehicle was going. Probably the only thing she was aware of was her physical location in the car.
 
They introduced this distracted driving law last year into Calgary and it has resulted in more accidents because people are hiding the devices from view. So their eye levels would be below the windshield and hence not focused on the road. Go figure people just have to text.
 
78.1 (1) No person shall drive a motor vehicle on a highway while holding or using a hand-held wireless communication device or other prescribed device that is capable of receiving or transmitting telephone communications, electronic data, mail or text messages. 2009, c. 4, s. 2.

So what if my phone is in airplane mode? Isn't it no longer "capable of recieving or transmitting telephone communications?"
 
DOHC1 said:
78.1 (1) No person shall drive a motor vehicle on a highway while holding or using a hand-held wireless communication device or other prescribed device that is capable of receiving or transmitting telephone communications, electronic data, mail or text messages. 2009, c. 4, s. 2.

So what if my phone is in airplane mode? Isn't it no longer "capable of recieving or transmitting telephone communications?"
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your device is still capable, you've just disabled the feature.
 
psycho44 said:
They introduced this distracted driving law last year into Calgary and it has resulted in more accidents because people are hiding the devices from view. So their eye levels would be below the windshield and hence not focused on the road. Go figure people just have to text.
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Wouldn't happen if people weren't on their phones to begin with. Stupid thing is when people put the phone on speaker and hold it in front of their face. I see no logic in that.
 
I can guarantee less people will be on the phone if they enforced the distracted driving violations consistently. It's like the jaywalking incident in Toronto couple years ago when few pedestrians got struck. The police did a blitz and one of my co-workers got a $300 fine for a spot where we all jaywalk across to the restaurant for lunch. Word spread quickly and no one jaywalked for a while.

It's easy money. I see people on the phone all the time when I'm on my motorbike. I just stare into their window and sometimes shake my head.
 
This new law is what caused me to buy my current phone. I leave it sitting in my cupholder.
I simply speak out loud "Text my wife!"
And it will ask me what I want the text to say.

"I love you!". It will type out the text. I then say "Send!"...and the text is sent. I don't touch the phone or even look at it.

(it's text to speech function sometimes has some glitches..I have sent texts about senate ***** and cock blocking, when the phone couldn't figure out what I was trying to say,LOL
 
Why don't we ban satellite radio? Because a lot of the time I find myself reading the song/artist name. What's the diff between that and an ipod that's connected through a wire (is that considered "wireless"?) I hold my phone or ipod in one hand and press the next song button...that doesn't require me to take my eyes off the road and it takes barely any focus to do it but I'm sure a cop would pull me over for that. Meanwhile, a guy who's turning his head around to tell his kids to shut up while driving doesn't get a second glance? What about driver's who have a billion things in their trunk and can't see out their rear window, or don't bother de-icing it so theres a full layer of hard snow that doesn't slide off while they're driving that completely covers their rear view?

Is smoking considered hands-free?
 
imnothng said:
Talking on a phone IS different than talking to a passenger. The person on the phone has NO idea what is going on around you, while the person in the car can SHUT UP if the need arises.
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I need to introduce you to a couple of exes of mine :-P
 
Malks said:
Saw a clip on the news last night. The cops are riding the TTC and looking down into the passing cars. If they see you they get off and give you a ticket. Please do the rest of us a favour and put the phone down and drive!
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Goo catch!
 
DownUnder said:
Out of curiosity, is there a law to keep both hands on the steering wheel in Canada (unless changing gears on standard, turning lights on etc)?
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no there is not a law to keep both hands on the wheel. same thing with bikes.
like someone said, if your doing something stupid then get into an accident, the police could do careless
 
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