British PSA: Texting While Driving

[Chemisse]

This clip was just shown on NBC news. I missed it and wanted to see it but everywhere I look it says:

This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.

Anybody know how to access it?

[aikoaiko]

1. youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ttNgZDZruI

eta: Its scary and sad. The dead baby almost made me while her sister is begging for her daddy to "wake up". I'm such a sucker for that sort of thing.

[Chemisse]

2. Thanks - it looks like that link will work

I wonder why I had trouble.

Although from what you said, maybe I don't want to watch it.

[YOY]

3. It's shock value.

It made more paranoid than anything. Then again I resemble the father of the family more than the teenager. I never text. I actually call people who text me and tell them that "we're adults. Call me."

One can only hope it reaches some intended audience.

[Pangolin2]

15. It's just like the films they showed in driver's education 50 years ago

with newer cars.

[customerserviceguy]

4. Won't make one damned bit of difference

We saw plenty of gory-ass films when I was in driver's ed, it didn't matter one iota to the reckless.

We need to BAN texting, period. It's the only thing that will stop the body count from piling up. If we can lower the limit at which one is considered drunk to the amount one would consume in two ordinary drinks, then we can ban texting. Alcohol has existed in the world for millenia, texting wasn't even an engineer's wet dream twenty years ago.

Stop this madness before another generation gets hooked on crackberry.

[Chemisse]

5. But how do you enforce it?

It would be easy to get away with it. They would only get caught if an accident or other incident happened.

[customerserviceguy]

8. You deal with it at the source

You simply ban all the cell phone companies from offering texting.

Whatever thing you REALLY need to say to somebody, you can do the old-fashioned way, by TALKING on a cell phone. That keeps people's eyes on the road, except for the really stupid people who feel a need to look at the damned phone while they're talking on it, or gesturing with the other hand.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. driving and talking on the cell phone is like driving drunk

no you ban doing either, and good luck enforcing it.

But god help you if you crash or are stopped doing either, should be treated like DUI

[customerserviceguy]

11. There really are people who can talk and drive at the same time

and I favor giving aptitude tests to allow that (much the same thing as the motorcycle test I had to take many years ago), but nobody can text and drive anywhere near as well as they can simply drive.

Get rid of texting altogether under all circumstances. We didn't need it twenty years ago, we sure as hell don't need it now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. I am a TRAINED emergency vehcile operator

don't buy it.

Why do you thinks many a times cops pull to the side to take the call?

And there are studies that do prove it is like driving drunk, fine treat it as a DUI.

Oh and when hubby was a cop, one way to assign P1 was who was on the phone.

When I was a medic, early in this, we started keeping stats. Those stats are one reason Mexico was ahead of the US in declaring cell phone use in car behind wheel illegal.

By the way, I wrote the book on this with radio protocols, unless it was an emergency. why you can use it to call 9.11, my emergency vehicle operators were to use the radio when the ambulance was not moving. Or if they were, the co-pilot. It was funny when NORTH OF THE BORDER followed us... rare, it is usually the other way around...

[customerserviceguy]

13. I'll admit, a majority of drivers cannot do it

but they wouldn't last too long on a motorcycle, either. In any case, you always have the hands-free possibility with talking on a cell phone (although I'll admit there are people who cannot do that, either), whereas there are absolutely no hands-free options for texting.

I'm all in favor of making an accident the "fault" of the texting/cell phoning driver in any accident, when you're talking about damages in civil court.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. The only reason hands free is legal

is the power of the industry. The studies are startling.

I know this, I just don't do it. It drives my sis nuts, by the way.

:-)

[customerserviceguy]

16. And I insist

there are people who can do it, and people who cannot. I see both sides on the roads everyday, you obviously see a lot of people who cannot.

Can we agree that nobody can adequately text and drive, and that it needs to be banned?

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. My perspective is jaded by ten years of EMS

and many a study that has found that people cannot do that. Why emergency workers are truly not really encouraged to use the radio and drive at the same time unless it is an emergency. and god knows emergency workers ARE trained to levels normal drivers are not. The closest would be big rig, aka truckers.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Yes, the ones you've scraped off of the highway cannot do it

The people who have a short conversation, keep at least one hand always on the wheel (usually both), and their eyes always on the road are probably no less safe than people who listen to the car radio.

But can you at least agree that a gory PSA isn't going to make one iota of difference to the clowns who think they can text and drive?

[Chemisse]

18. That doesn't seem likely to happen

Texting is incredibly popular among teens.

There needs to be another way to stop it while driving that doesn't rely on self-discipline.

[customerserviceguy]

20. You simply ban texting from the cell phone companies

that offer it. If we can ban the sale or distribution of many things, surely we can ban this. Teenagers can just talk to each other, the way we did for millennia before this evil invention was ever thought of.

[TheMadMonk]

6. Also: Eating, reading (book/map or paper), applying makeup,...

...phoning (even hands free).

Ban any activity which requires a driver divert a part of their attention from driving their vehicle, even manually tuning to a radio station.

If I were to do any of these things in the workplace while operating even the most inoccuous of power tools my employer would have grounds for immediate dismissal. Yet opperating a motor vehicle is a far more demanding and complex task than opperating even quite complex industrial machinery and such activities are either permitted outright or all too often overlooked.

[customerserviceguy]

10. While all of those activities are indeed stupid/dangerous

they are inherently harder to prevent than simply saying "We, as a society, find the practice of texting to be unnecessary and dangerous."

We've already had some notable losses of life from people in charge of mass transit doing it, how many people need to pile up before we do something effective about it?

[REP]

7. It was in English, but filmed in Wales - "Heddlu" is Welsh for "Police"