Sun 25 Feb 2007
ITuning while crossing may soon be illegal in New York
Posted by Jon Haynes under News
[2] Comments
ITuning while crossing may soon be illegal in New York
What is Ituning while crossing you may ask? Ituning comes from a combining the name of Apples software, Itunes with the act of listening to tunes on your Ipod. Alright, so I made it up, but it sounds catchy. Reportedly New York Senator Carl Kruger is introduced legalization on February 7 that will result in a $100 for someone Ituning while crossing or even someone on a cell phone.
“Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry,” Kruger said in a telephone interview from Albany, the state capital.
However, there does not seem to be provision for fining deaf inattentive people that cross the street. I wonder how they to plan to keep them safe while crossing the street. You cannot legislate common sense. Perhaps the government will learn that eventually, it is impractical to try to protect everyone from every stupid think they may do. You have to appeal to their sense of reason. There could potentially be people that are able to safely cross the street with an ipod, especially if they are not wearing noise canceling head phones, blasting the music, and maybe think to take one phone out while they cross the street.
Senator Kruger told TV station WCBS
“They are walking into speeding cars. They are walking into buses. They are walking into one another and it is creating a number of fatalities that have been documented right here in New York City.”
Another interesting point.
I have heard of studies that show driving while talking on a cell phone is about as dangerous as having a blood alcohol level that well exceeds the .08 allowable (sorry, forgot the exact figure; I want to say .4, but I won’t defend too vehemently.)
As for fining someone for crossing while iTuned, it strikes me as virtually unenforcible. iPods, and the other brands, are everywhere.
btw, good posts, and a good site. I followed you over here from kmareka. Your posts show thought and nuance; I have the feeling we may come down on different sides of a number of arguments, but the lack of overtly partisan rhetoric is a nice change. I appreciate the different perspective.
Keep up the good work.
As far as the cell phones go I think you are right; that cell phones do in some studies show to cause about as much impairment as being drunk. However, I question whether these studies measure initial reaction time or measured the overall performance of a driver through an obstacle course. A least with a cell phone the conversation can be terminated abruptly if an emergency situation does come up, however you cannot stop being drunk. Consequently, I believe that the point of comparison between a drunk driver and a driver on a cell phone should be in initial reaction time; if that is not the case then it could be misleading. Also frivolous legislation seems to be moving towards restricting drivers to using hands free devices only (such as in New York I believe it is the case); but apparently hands free devices are not that much better, because the main distraction is the conversion not the phone. Of course conversations can be held with passengers that are distracting also; but the experts would claim that cell phones are more distracting, because a passenger can at least recognize a hazard and warn or stop distracting you. Once we eliminate all these distractions, then how are we going to restrict day dreaming, from our lack of stimulation. Who is to stop us from driving in automated state? Perhaps if we make driving more demanding such as by raising the speed limits people would have to focus on driving instead of these distractions. I understand that Europeans think that having a cup holder in a car is strange. I also recall hearing of studies; which, they say, have showed that cell phone usage gives us about the reaction time of an elderly driver, and there does not seem to be any proposed upper age limit on driving much in the way of an upper age limit or other restrictions, although I think there is some retesting for the elderly. There were even, a number of cases not many years back and even more recently of the elderly doing some pretty dangerous things such as mistakenly plowing into crowds of people, and mistaking the gas pedal for the brake pedal thereby driving into a building. Do not get me wrong I have nothing against the elderly I personal think there is a great deal we can learn form the older generation, but I would prefer that a better system be worked out to persuade them to hang up the keys much sooner than many do. Perhaps the reason that we do not more aggressively pursue this issue, with the elderly, is because most lawmakers are elderly or not far off.
There are so many aspects of an issue like these that it really comes down to the person and those around him having enough sense to determine whether the person is too impaired or not.
I think that the Ipod issue, although not perfectly enforceable, can be enforced to a reasonable degree with an initial blitz of enforcement, at first and sporadic enforcement thereafter; followed up with crackdowns as needed. Just as speeding laws are not perfectly enforceable. However what gets me with the Ipod issue is that they are doing it in order to protect people from themselves rather than from each other even. A person Ituned while crossing is a danger almost exclusively to himself; as far as we can tell thus far.
Thanks for the input and the complements; I always like to receive feedback on what I am doing right or wrong. I think you have described me rather well, even surprisingly so; others have definitely not always expressed such positive opinions concerning my views. I can say I will always strive to present what I believe to be the truth, and that I am indeed more concerned with philosophical reasoning and epistemological arguments, rather than partisanship rhetoric.