Jim Lux wrote:


What you CAN say is that the studies prompting the early alarmist
literature (e.g. "currents of death", "VDTs cause miscarriage") have
severe methodological or statistical problems. Unfortunately, those
early studies have been (poorly) abstracted and summarized many times
and the caveats in the original paper, or subsequent better studies, are
ignored.


Absolutely. I am not at all afraid to use my cell phone in moderation.
It isn't going to make me drop over or faint - unless Ed McMahon calls
me about my PCH prize.

The issue to me is that we are seeing some effects that are more subtle
than nasty diseases or imminent death. Those early and poorly done
studies did not help for sure.

But you can see out on the roads - something is happening. There are
stone sober people who are driving like drunken people. Their reaction
times are bad, they make poor decisions they have trouble staying in
their lane, they drive through red lights and remain stopped at green
lights.

Some of the excuses given for this behavior just don't wash if you ask
me. Things like driving distracted, while plausible, have a niggling
problem. People like the police and Ham radio operators and plenty of
other folk use radios daily, yet when was the last time that you heard
about say a State Forest Ranger getting in an accident because he was
using the radio?

Many of these cell users survive on the good graces of other drivers
looking out for them, and avoiding them. Whereas once I would look at
the cars around me in a general fashion, I now zero in on the driver to
see if they are talking on their cell, or even worse, texting, I then
chart my course to separate myself from them as far as possible. Problem
is, there are too many of them on many local roads, and those places I
just avoid.

But I think is is just plain sad that we have to drive with impaired
drives every day.

The thing I find odd is that this behavior is verifiable and
widespread, and yet to point it out and ask the question "Is there
something going on here?" gets one labeled a kook.

And yet, if these very same drivers were driving intoxicated and killing
and injuring people, there would be the same old hue and cry. Is a
person killed by a drunk driver more dead than one killed by one using a
cell phone, and driving the same way as the drunk guy?

As the comedian once said "Drive carefully on the way home folks - it
only counts if you get killed during the holidays!"

- 73 de Mike N3LI -