The ARRL seems to be taking a fairly strong position with regards to
amateur mobile operation in the face of a mountain of evidence
suggesting that texting or cell phone use while driving is as
dangerous, or more so, as drinking and driving:

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/08/09/11012/?nc=1

No matter your position on the mobile issue, does it seem to you that
by taking such a stand the ARRL is exposing itself to a boatload of
liability the first time a mobile operating radio amateur plows into
someone on the Interstate and the amateur operation is cited as a
primary cause for the accident?

--
73 de Jeff

Jeff Davis wrote:
The ARRL seems to be taking a fairly strong position with regards to
amateur mobile operation in the face of a mountain of evidence
suggesting that texting or cell phone use while driving is as dangerous,
or more so, as drinking and driving:

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/08/09/11012/?nc=
No matter your position on the mobile issue, does it seem to you that by
taking such a stand the ARRL is exposing itself to a boatload of
liability the first time a mobile operating radio amateur plows into
someone on the Interstate and the amateur operation is cited as a
primary cause for the accident?

I think you said it all when you pointed out that there's a boatload of
reliable data indicating that it's dangerous to use a cell phone while
driving. Trying to operate a transceiver while driving certainly can't
be any less dangerous. In spite of the fact that licensed amateur radio
operators think they're completely capable of operating and driving at
the same time, hams are people just like the rest of the population.
Obtaining a license from the FCC does not improve ones ability to drive
while distracted.

Trying to justify an exception to these laws based on emergency
communication is simply ludicrous. Only a tiny fraction of in-motion
mobile is actually related to an emergency. I think that this stance by
the ARRL is simply wrong.

Yes, it fly in the face of years of tradition that one should not
operate in-motion mobile. But when data showed that seat belts save
lives, we started using them. When data showed that smoking was bad, we
stopped smoking. For folks who are still driving without a seat belt,
smoking, and ragchewing all at the same time, nothing I say is going to
change your mind.

73, Steve KB9X

In article ,
Steve Bonine wrote:

I think you said it all when you pointed out that there's a boatload of
reliable data indicating that it's dangerous to use a cell phone while
driving. Trying to operate a transceiver while driving certainly can't
be any less dangerous.

Although I think there's some merit to the League's comment about
hams not talking and listening at the same time.


Patty

"Patty Winter" wrote in message
...

In article ,
Steve Bonine wrote:

I think you said it all when you pointed out that there's a boatload of
reliable data indicating that it's dangerous to use a cell phone while
driving. Trying to operate a transceiver while driving certainly can't
be any less dangerous.

Although I think there's some merit to the League's comment about
hams not talking and listening at the same time.


Patty


Holding a cell phone to your ear keeps you from being able to turn your head
to check your blind spots. This is the #1 thing I watch out for when I see
another driver is on the phone and it has saved me again and again. A mic,
you can just drop in your lap when you need to. Most people I have seen
driving with hands-free systems and voice recognition dialing on their cell
phones drive no worse than they normally do.

Aside from that, people who have problems with keeping their attention span
primarily to the driving, shouldn't drive. You don't have to look at the
mic, so it is actually potentially safer than having a passenger in the car.
It is that simple. Would you outlaw passengers? This always seems to be
goal of any discussions like this.

Some people seem to be intent on outlawing every thing that somebody else
does because they know they can't do it right themselves. The insurance
companies would have nothing to do if people got their license pulled for
getting in wrecks rather than outlawing everyone else.

I have seen boatloads of data that gets overturned by boatloads of different
data all the time. After 40+ years in the land-mobile industry, and rubbing
elbows with many others in the community, experience with the real thing is
a lot more telling. I can tell you that "texting" and typing on a computer
keyboard certainly needs to be the job of the co-pilot.

On Aug 11, 2:16�am, "JB" wrote:
Patty

Holding a cell phone to your ear keeps you
from being able to turn your head
to check your blind spots. �This is
the #1 thing I watch out for when I see
another driver is on the phone and it has
saved me again and again. �A mic,
you can just drop in your lap when you need to.
�Most people I have seen
driving with hands-free systems and
voice recognition dialing on their cell
phones drive no worse than they normally do.

That's part of it all right.

Another factor is that holding a cell phone has the person driving
one-handed all the time.

But the biggest difference is psychological. Telephone conversations
tend to be two-way (duplex), radio is almost always one-way, and the
distraction level is very different.

Aside from that, people who have problems
with keeping their attention span
primarily to the driving, shouldn't drive.

That's true, but who decides such things? Almost all of the bad drivers
I know think they are good drivers!

�You don't have to look at the
mic, so it is actually potentially
safer than having a passenger in the car.

You don't have to look at the passengers while driving, either. I sure
don't.

It is that simple. �Would you outlaw
passengers? �

Some of them! (Actually, if a certain passenger is a distraction, I
pull over).

This always seems to be
goal of any discussions like this.

Some people seem to be intent on
outlawing every thing that somebody else
does because they know they can't do it
right themselves. �The insurance
companies would have nothing to do
if people got their license pulled for
getting in wrecks rather than outlawing everyone else.

I disagree.

The problem is that too many people are poor judges of how well they
can do something. Particularly in real-life situations. After an
accident is too late to do prevention. Pulling the license doesn't
bring back the dead or instantly heal the injured. (And some folks will
simply drive without the license!)

Where I work, we have a saying: "The safety book is written in blood".

I have seen boatloads of data that gets
overturned by boatloads of different
data all the time.

Sure. But we have to go with the data we've got, and that data proves
over and over that cell phone use while driving seriously reduces
driving skills.

If someone did a lot of testing, they could probably find certain
individuals whose driving skills with an illegal blood alcohol level
were better than those of certain other individuals who were stone cold
sober. IOW, exceptions that prove the rule.

But the law has to be written and applied the same for everyone.

�I can tell you that "texting" and typing on a computer
keyboard certainly needs to be the job of the co-pilot.

Of course! And you would think that everyone would have the common
sense to know that. But they don't.

That's the real issue - people's lack of self-awareness, good judgement
and common sense. Maybe we can't legislate those things, but we can try
to prevent some of the obvious bad results.

73 de Jim, N2EY

wrote:
Sure. But we have to go with the data we've got, and that data proves
over and over that cell phone use while driving seriously reduces
driving skills.

If someone did a lot of testing, they could probably find certain
individuals whose driving skills with an illegal blood alcohol level
were better than those of certain other individuals who were stone cold
sober. IOW, exceptions that prove the rule.

But the law has to be written and applied the same for everyone.

I guess I think the problem is we're concentrating too much on
preventing behaviors that *might* lead to dangerous activity and not
enough on preventing the dangerous activity itself.



For example (bear with me here!) DUI is not in itself dangerous.* Heck,
on any given night the vast majority of drunks on the road get home
without harming anyone or anything.

The dangerous activity is running red lights, driving way too fast,
moving out of your lane without regard for the presence of other
vehicles, etc...

Of course, being drunk makes you FAR, FAR more likely to commit one of
these dangerous activities. Being drunk is not an *excuse* for these
activities. I do not mean to suggest DUI is a good idea, nor that we
should make it legal.

But if your mom gets run over by someone blowing through a red light at
30 over the limit, should that person get off more lightly because they
were sober and just thought they were too important to obey traffic
signals?



IMHO we should be spending more resources patrolling our roads and
stopping those who are actually doing dangerous things, *regardless* of
why they're doing it -- and stop diverting those resources to people who
are doing things that *might* be dangerous.


--

Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View, TN EM66

* For the record, I don't drink and have never been pulled over for DUI.

Jeff Davis wrote:

The ARRL seems to be taking a fairly strong position with regards to
amateur mobile operation in the face of a mountain of evidence
suggesting that texting or cell phone use while driving is as dangerous,
or more so, as drinking and driving:

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/08/09/11012/?nc=
No matter your position on the mobile issue, does it seem to you that by
taking such a stand the ARRL is exposing itself to a boatload of
liability the first time a mobile operating radio amateur plows into
someone on the Interstate and the amateur operation is cited as a
primary cause for the accident?

Disagreement? Bad press? Hard feelings? Quite possibly.

Liability? No, I don't think so. All they're doing is advocating (as
in "free speech" and "lobbying"), and in fact they're specifically
advocating that hams who do operate mobile do so only in ways which
don't put others at risk.

Granted, anybody can sue anybody for anything for any reason in this
country... but I think it'd be a very long stretch for someone to
succeed in winning a case against the ARRL based on their position and
statements.

Steve Bonine wrote:

I think you said it all when you pointed out that there's a boatload of
reliable data indicating that it's dangerous to use a cell phone while
driving.

True.

Trying to operate a transceiver while driving certainly can't
be any less dangerous.

Well, it *can* be less dangerous (or so I believe). I think that this
is a good area in which to base actual legislation (or a decision not
to have legislation) on actual research and facts, rather than on
guesses and conjectures and opinions.

My guess (grin) is that it depends very much on what you're doing with
the ham radio.

If you're just listening - it's probably no worse than listening to
the car FM or AM radio.

If you're tuning around - it's probably about as dangerous as tuning
your car FM radio, or trying to put a different CD into the player.
Could be dangerous.

If you're talking on the mike - you're more distracted then when
you're just listening, but unlike the tuning-around situation (or
changing a CD, etc.) you don't have to take your eyes off of the road.
Might be very distracting, might be no problem at all, depending on
how engaged you are in the conversation. [The same is true with
conversations with passengers in the car, by the way... anywhere from
no-problem-at-all to OK-now-look-at-the-tree-you-made-me-drive-into.]

If you're trying to dial in a message to be transmitted via APRS, it's
probably about as dangerous as cell/SMS-texting while driving (i.e.
insanely dangerous IMO, please do *not* do this!)

Obtaining a license from the FCC does not improve ones ability to drive
while distracted.

Granted.

The real question is, just how *much* distraction actually results
from various forms of equipment usage?

Trying to justify an exception to these laws based on emergency
communication is simply ludicrous. Only a tiny fraction of in-motion
mobile is actually related to an emergency.

If ham radio transmitting while driving is to be outlawed because it's
inherently too distracting and dangerous, then (as the ARRL points
out) one should outlaw *all* similar transmission behavior by *all*
drivers who are not actually involved in an in-progress emergency.

That would include public-safety land-mobile (i.e. most police radio
use by the driver), private land-mobile (e.g. cab drivers, business
radio use by delivery trucks), CB (truckers), FRS (by families in
convoy), and so forth.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Yes, it fly in the face of years of tradition that one should not
operate in-motion mobile. But when data showed that seat belts save
lives, we started using them. When data showed that smoking was bad, we
stopped smoking.

And, *if* actual *data* shows that typical land-mobile radio use does
result in a high enough level of distraction to significantly raise
the accident rate, then I'd agree that legislative action is called for.

I don't feel that simply taking data on cellphone usage effects, and
applying these data willy-nilly to land-mobile/CB/ham use, is
justified. I've seen some discussions which indicate that there are
valid psychological reasons why cell-phone conversations are
*extremely* distracting during driving... and that these factors do
not necessarily apply to typical land-mobile / ham usage.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

On 2009-08-11 01:28:09 -0400, (Dave Platt) said:

Disagreement? Bad press? Hard feelings? Quite possibly.

Good point about the bad press. I suppose if it were ever to happen
that a person plowed into a school bus (heaven forbid) because they
were distracted by operating their ham radio equipment, and the
mainstream media got hold of the public letters sent by the president
of the ARRL to the National Safety Counsel explaning how radio hams
should be exempt from any laws preventing their use of radio equipment
while driving ... it could get fairly ugly.

And I still wouldn't rule out financial liabilty, especially since
these things tend to follow the money. And while suing the bejeezus out
of WD9GCT might not yield much dough, suing the ARRL just might and of
course that is the way lawyers think.

The points made about 'simplex' operation versus 'duplex' may very well
be valid, but it's also a bit of a red herring since other modes of
operation are available to the radio amateur.

A few years ago I was having an enjoyable CW QSO with a fellow in
Wisconsin who had a great fist but every now and then it would fall
apart. Eventually he apologized for his "bad" fist explaining that the
highyway he was driving on had a lot of chuck holes and was in need of
repair.

He was operating CW with a key strapped to his thigh -- while driving to
work.

I like ham radio, and I like that guy ... but I don't want him
operating a moving vehicle anywhere within a hundred miles of me or my
family... even when all else fails...

73 de Jeff

Jeff Davis wrote:

He was operating CW with a key strapped to his thigh -- while driving to
work.

I like ham radio, and I like that guy ... but I don't want him operating
a moving vehicle anywhere within a hundred miles of me or my family...
even when all else fails...

You have captured the essence of my feelings in two sentences.

There is a body of reliable data that indicates that distraction during
driving causes accidents, no matter what is causing the distraction. It
is obvious that operating a ham radio causes distraction. You can argue
that the amount of distraction depends on what you're doing, or that
similar distraction is caused in other services like public safety or
land mobile, but the fact remains that operating a ham radio while
driving increases the probability that you'll have an accident.

Does it increase the probability enough to lump it in with cell phone
use and discourage the behavior by passing laws? I think that it does;
I recognize that there are dissenting opinions.

But for the ARRL to defend the right of hams to distract themselves
based on emergency communication is not logical. If they want to make
the case that operating a ham radio is sufficiently different than using
a cell phone that such laws should not apply, I still wouldn't agree but
at least the premise would be logical.

I have seen several close calls related to people chattering away on
cell phones while driving. I am convinced that the issue of distracted
drivers having accidents is real, and I support laws that prohibit that
behavior because I believe it to be dangerous both to the person who is
doing it and to me. I don't buy that operating a ham radio is
sufficiently less distracting that it should be exempted.

73, Steve KB9X

In article ,
Steve Bonine wrote:

But for the ARRL to defend the right of hams to distract themselves
based on emergency communication is not logical. If they want to make
the case that operating a ham radio is sufficiently different than using
a cell phone that such laws should not apply, I still wouldn't agree but
at least the premise would be logical.

But they did: that article discussed the difference between simplex
(ham radio) and duplex (cell phone) operation. I agree with them that
that's a defensible difference.

It also ties into the comparison with having a passenger in the car.
If the passenger is an adult, they will likely notice when the driver
is in a tricky situation and stop talking. That's certainly what I do.
I'll stop talking in the middle of a sentence if I see that the driver
has to deal with some traffic that has suddenly bunched up, or some
other issue. A person on the other end of a cell phone can't see what's
happening and know to stop talking.

I actually have a non-driving example of this. A few years ago, I was
on the phone (with someone in Newington, coincidentally!) on a day when
we had had a small earthquake. Another one struck while the other person
was talking. I asked her to hang on, because I needed to gauge whether
it was big enough that I needed to move away from my desk. But she, of
course, had no idea that anything was happening and didn't hear my first
couple of requests to hold the conversation. So I was distracted from
dealing with the actual situation by trying to get the attention of the
person on the other end of the phone. Now, had I been in a car and some
dangerous situation had suddenly arisen, I would have simply dropped the
phone. But I still think this points to the greater distraction of phone
conversations during local "emergencies." And I think it's not as much
of an issue with simplex conversations.


Patty N6BIS