Cell phone ban

It is a truck not a #### phone booth!

Moot point the FCC was holding hearings with phone makers about disbaling them when GPS senses movement Hopefully it goes through and all the yack off's with surgically implanted phones will pay attention to the job at hand. You know like driving

 

Tried to let everyone know about this earlier this year. State Police in Michigan downloading all the info in motorist's cell phones. Weeks later, the motorist gets citations for all the times the phone was used in school zones, construction zones, etc.

I was new to the Forum and decided not to push the issue any farther because of ridicule.

Regardless, the battery is always out of my phone, if I need to use it I park, install the battery, make a call and pack it all away for the next time.

And I make sure the card for my laptop stays hidden, it has the same potential for trouble as my cell.

 

Exactly right. The NTSB has a long list of wish list items they've been hounding the FAA about for years.

The "news" business is about telling people what they want to hear, exasperating people so they tune in to find out more, advancing a view they believe their audience ought to have, or proving to their colleagues the reporter/editor/producer have the proper views. This is why they advertise every little podunk medical "study", conducted by 2 crack pots using 8 patients and concluding what "they" said was safe on Monday is a public health risk on Tuesday.

Stop wasting your time on general news outlets. Which gives a more accurate picture of trucking, one of the trucking magazines or the latest breathless report of a 23 year old floozie standing beside a road where a pick-up wrecked 34 hours ago? If you're sitting around waiting for news to come to you, you are being misled. Go find the specialized sources on topics that make their living being accurate. Ignore the "sources that spend their day telling you about celebrity gossip, latest TV shows, recipes for the holidays, Dow Jones Index, and what 3 guys in a basement propose to do one day, if they can convince 500 other people, half of which will not go along.

Even if cell phones are banned, like they are in specific locations, it's not going to be enforced more than 1% of the time. Does every speeder get fined every time they speed? If you are smart enough to hang up before you get to the scale house, or you only use it when it's safe, instead of like your very life depends on keeping that phone to your stupid head like most drivers, you'll be in touch enough and ticket free enough.

 

One problem, is there aren't as many places to make calls from these days. Take a look around where you are stopped, there may be 1 pay phone, sitting there all by itself, looking lonely, lol.

 

Pay phones? to hell with that. I pay for a service and I intend to use it. I have hands free and do not have a problem holding my lane. Hell then they need to try and ban CB's after all those are not hands free and why not ban the satalite trackers on trucks those are a distraction as well lets take out radios and cd players while we are at it.It only takes one law to have a domino effect on every aspect of a trucker's life.

 

If you have ever heard the ruuuuup ruuuuup from the brail on the sides of the road when talking on your phone then I can safely say that you are not dedicating enough attention to the real task at hand which is operating the truck.

Also I am not saying you have to use a pay phone. I am just saying that there is no phone call that important that it can't wait until you are safely out of heavy traffic or pulled over on an off ramp etc.

You see, the majority of cell services have a neat feature called voice mail. Let the call go to voice mail, check it when the proper time comes and all will be good.

Heck, I go for hours and hours down the road and not see one single car. Something wonderful about driving up here in North Dakota. I still don't talk on my phone.

I used to jabber on the phone all the time. Sometimes I used to ask myself, did I check that mirror before I moved back into my lane after making that pass? Did I do this or did I do that????

See, there have been hundreds and hundreds of studies done on peoples ability to multi task or the brains ability to multi task. The brain can not and does not multitask very well at all. It can quickly switch from one task to the next but it can not multi task.

At our last safety meeting they showed us a quick little test on the brains ability to multi task. They put four people in front of the room with basic 10 piece puzzles in front of them. They timed them putting the puzzles together. Then they told them to count while putting the puzzles together. It took EVERYONE atleast 4 times longer to put the same puzzle together while they were counting. They did this with 4 different groups and the results were all the same.

I for one am all for phones being made that are dissabled when they sense that they are moving at a certain rate of speed. If the GPS in the phone notices a 25 mph movement then boom, you can not receive calls, it instantly goes to voice mail. It can not place calls, text functions will be dissabled, you won't get notified of a new text until you slow down to less then 25 mph. Or you will get notified but the screen will be blank until you slow down.

As far as laptops and internet cards, same thing. I dam near got ran off the road one morning because the idiot was typing on his computer while driving down the road. I know it for fact because I was passing him at the time. When I finally got up next to the cab I looked over and could see the laptop open on the passenger seat and he was leaned over freaking typing on a chat window.

I called 911 and reported the truck, with company name, truck number, mile marker and direction of travel to the HP.

The truck was behind me and going the same direction and a few miles down the road I seen a full grown do a flip and hit the lights behind the dimwit. I just smiled as I kept going.

 

My vote goes towards hands free only - either a bluetooth headset or a system similar to Ford's Sync system, which uses a single button and does voice activated dialing.

CB's were never a huge source of distraction, and the benefit of communication between drivers has probably saved more accidents than caused.

Anybody who texts while driving is an idiot, and should have their license suspended for the infraction if caught, especially in a CMV. I have seen so much distracted driving over texting, I think that the inability to text while the phone senses motion would be a #### good idea.

Laptops and iPads need to be put aside. Good Lord, whatever happened to throwin' on some good tunes and just ridin'?

 

Hands free is good. Lets not go overboard.

 

+1, I have hands free as well, no problem holding lanes, and I have seen drivers pass me and nearly hit me because they cant hold a lane talking crap on the CB, ban cells in trucks?, then they need to ban CB in trucks!, My father is terminally Ill, I need my phone, Ban or no Ban, I WILL have my phone!!!