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Originally Posted by jhmulkey
Everyone has their calling and cause. Some may feel a passion to deal with distracted driving issues, while others may commit their time to health issues or violence issues. I say good on them no matter which problem they're trying to help with. A life saved from a motor vehicle death due to distracted driving is just as important as a life saved from any of those other things (not saying you disagree; just emphasizing).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GHS
Have to disagree with this. The top five killers of people are listed as diseases. While some are treatable and like (obesity) may be preventable in some cases, talking or texting on a phone are conscious acts, not a disease nobody asked for. That is 100% treatable. And the ripple effects after deaths and injury are high insurance rates, damaged vehicles and road ways, cost of calling out emergency road and air crews, etc. Its an epidemic among a large portion of the population...an elected disease.
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I'm very sensitive to the ramifications of traffic accidents and this danger. Long timers here have probably read my posts about our losing family member to an selfish jerk behind the wheel.
I'm also aware of the technology coming to cars and in a lot of phones. The suggestion to jam signals when better engineering is here and coming just seemed absurd. More absurd having made lifestyle changes that have a positive impact on other problems discussed here.
Transportation is so costly and can be such a mess that it is one of the areas where my inner rebel or inner libertarian thinks about better planning and the economics concept of public goods.
To be fair, my thinking might not make sense because so many people make moves that add to sprawl and make a lot of places conduits vs communities - add to the driving vs reduce it. As said earlier and in other posts, we moved where our driving was cut down, where our kids can walk or bike K-12, and where some transportation is old fashioned foot or pedaling. 11 years in I see how right my wife is. Even if we go to a park or do some recreation via car in free time it's usually less than we used to sit our butts in a car just to go to work and pick up kids.
To be fair, we also know the future or what it should be because we have one car with the semi-autonomous safety system and 5 iPhones with the DND drive feature. Add that my wristwatch vibrates or shouts important things while driving that were looking at an atlas or notes when I was a truck driver.
I'm not saying we don't have a problem. We do have it where some will always be bad drivers, misbehave or do criminal stuff. Better overall transportation systems will help that.
I'm also saying look in the mirror regarding other big problems.