Overlord Theophany wrote:
Meh, it's just like carrying on a conversation in the car.
Jury is still out on that one. Study results aren't entirely conclusive, but seem to fall more heavily on the side of showing that a conversation on a hands-free cell-phone actually is more dangerous than a conversation with a passenger in the vehicle.
One study goes so far as to show that traffic became a part of the conversation with an actual passenger, resulting in both passenger and driver backing off the intensity of the conversation when the demands of driving increased. Such responsiveness to traffic doesn't exist on the other end of a cell phone.
Quote:
This study examines how conversing with passengers in a vehicle differs from conversing on a cell phone
while driving. We compared how well drivers were able to deal with the demands of driving when
conversing on a cell phone, conversing with a passenger, and when driving without any distraction. In
the conversation conditions, participants were instructed to converse with a friend about past experiences
in which their life was threatened. The results show that the number of driving errors was highest in the
cell phone condition; in passenger conversations more references were made to traffic, and the production
rate of the driver and the complexity of speech of both interlocutors dropped in response to an increase
in the demand of the traffic. The results indicate that passenger conversations differ from cell phone
conversations because the surrounding traffic not only becomes a topic of the conversation, helping
driver and passenger to share situation awareness, but the driving condition also has a direct influence
on the complexity of the conversation, thereby mitigating the potential negative effects of a conversation
on driving.
Quote:
I actually drive better when I'm on the phone, then I'm not bored and looking out the sides of my car on the freeway.
I do drive better while conversing, which was a fact that became known to me way back in driver's ed. During the road portion of the class, we would drive with a different instructor each time we went out, and only one of them either made the effort or had any aptitude for conversing easily, and it was with that particular instructor that I always did my best, because I was able to relax and stop over-thinking what I was doing, letting muscle memory and reflex play their roles.
{checks calendar}
Okay, it's another day.
My main objection to cell phones mainly stems from the fact that when they ring, people tend to forget all about common-effing-courtesy. Not just driving, but everywhere. I can be walking along the street and nearly get bumped off the curb by some bimbo with a friggin' phone growing out of her ear because she couldn't be bothered to turn her head and see if there were other people around her. Yo, sweetums, maybe your oh-so-important discussion about your brother's girlfriend's roommate's cousin's one-night-stand should wait until you're not juggling a latte, an egg and cheese bagel, three shopping bags and a purse the size of Milwaukee, mmkay? I'll be sitting at a park with my kid and have to listen to shouting from some chucklenut on the next bench trying to get his message across while dealing with a crappy signal. I've been known to make my excuses in social situations where my presence is clearly so unimportant that the person I am with will interrupt our conversation in order to have a conversation on the phone with someone else (excepting business calls and the like.)
The kicker, however, has to be last Valentine's day. Mr. Ambrya and I went out to dinner, and at a table near us was a middle aged woman and her husband/significant other who were obviously also out for V-Day. During the ~hour we were there, the woman's phone rang FIVE times, and she answered it each and every time, interrupting her conversation with her companion as she did so, much to his very visible irritation. And they weren't important calls, from what I could overhear--not business related, or life-and-death emergency stuff. No, it was just friends calling to gossip. FFS lady, turn off the damn phone and have a romantic dinner with your husband.
Anyway, yeah. Hate 'em.
Edited, Jul 22nd 2009 12:40am by Ambrya
<-- Flowers from his butt. 
