National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman has a column in the Washington Post this morning attempting to justify the agency’s recommendation that the U.S. ban all cell phone use in cars. I was familiar with the piece, as it was posted on the NTSB website yesterday when I was writing this column.
But Ms. Hersman is engaging in some numbers fudging. The almost identical article, posted online, contained this sentence in which she clearly claimed that texting caused 3,000 deaths last year:
And it was over just like that. It happened so quickly. And, that’s what happened at Gray Summit. Two lives lost in the blink of an eye. And, it’s what happened to more than 3,000 people last year. Lives lost. In the blink of an eye. In the typing of a text. In the push of a send button.
When I phoned the agency yesterday to ask where the 3,000 figure came from — and whether it included all distractions (including rubbernecking, eating, adjusting the CD player, etc). An agency public affairs person said it did.
Well, in that case, Hersman was misrepresenting the numbers. I had looked at the NTSB’s data on distracted driving, which is where you’ll find the 3,000 figure, and learned that of the distracted driving deaths, only 995 were attributable to cell phone use.
This morning’s Washington Post piece changes the wording ever so slightly to avoid an outright lie:
In Gray Summit and on highways across the United States, thousands of people were killed last year in the blink of an eye. In the typing of a text. In the push of a send button.
It’s a small difference, but a significant one. The NTSB is attempting to “save” us from a wildly exaggerated threat at the price of incredible convenience and efficiency.
Nice to know you're pro-life. As long as life doesn't interfere with the convenience of the elites.
When it's a choice between convenience and life, what's a few squashed pedestrians between friends? Pedestrians can't afford Escalades, so they are Unpersons.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's a great point. If someone was truly pro-life, they would support a National Speed Limit of 10 miles per hour.
Think of all the lives that would be saved, and all the horrible injuries that would be avoided!!
But no, hypocrites prefer convenience. These elitists can't waste their precious time on the roads.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGovernment operating as designed.
1. Identify a problem that doesn't exist.
2. Craft a solution that will not work.
3. Modify rationale as needed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow many people died in accidents last year who would have survived if the national speed limit were 25 MPH? Surely, no life is worth being able to drive at 30, 35, or even higher speeds. A national 25 MPH speed limit would save the lives of thousands.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe idea of cost benefit analysis where life and death is involved is understandably diificult for people to accept. But as you point out, people in fact make that judgment every day when they get in their cars, accepting a statistically minuscule chance of death in exchange for the utility they get from traveling to places they need to go. But they seem unable to make the same connection to things like cell phone bans, standing in line to be groped by a TSA worker, etc.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe don't get that choice because the Government takes it away from us. Imagine if we did away the the TSA entirely and made airlines responsible for passenger security. Security would become a differentiator in choosing which airlines to fly. I could choose, as a consumer, to pay a bit more for an airline with El Al levels of security, or pay a little less and accept the risk of an attack. I could decide that one airline's policy of armed flight crews was preferable to another airlines policy of strip-searches.
But instead I am forced to pay for a system where the government spends billions of tax dollars and subjects millions of travelers to humiliation for the sake of confiscating toe nail clippers and contact lens solution.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSee above. In a whole slew of situations, not having a choice ain't no big deal. American laws against driving on the left are the easiest example. Some laws (no driving and texting) are so close to that, why bother even arguing about them? Why not save your powder for laws that really do infringe your liberty in a meaningful way?
This is not a "slippery slope" problem. It's progress. Edison didn't put us on a slippery slope to becoming slaves to technology. He put us on the path to becoming liberated by technology. Likewise, having your aftershave confiscated by TSA is part of the liberation of air travel, just as not being able to stand in the aisle and hang by a strap if a flight is overbooked infringes neither the airlines' liberty in any meaningful sense nor yours.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusehorse and buggy is the safest ...
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse...until the horse kicks you.
And environmentalists would hate horse manure. So I guess we're stuck with just the buggy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRickshaws! Think of the "jobs created". It's a perfect "government" solution.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJFC, sometimes conservatives go right off the deep end.
This is madness. There isn't a responsible parent in America who doesn't shudder at the thought of his or her kid talking or texting behind the wheel. There is no burden in any government coercion, any Big Brother intrusion, any socialist, communist, Kenyan anti-colonialist, fascist law that comes close to outweighing the tiny little benefit in parents just being able to say to their kids, "And it's illegal, so that's just one more reason I absolutely demand that you put your phone away while you're driving!"
Next you'll complain what an inconvenience it is to have to come to an absolute dead stop when the school bus throws up the flashing red lights.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn other words, rather than take their little darlings' phones away from them themselves, the parents surrender that responsibility to the state.
In all honesty, There isn't a responsible parent in America who doesn't shudder at the thought of his or her kid *doing anything* behind the wheel. So, we should also probably outlaw changing the radio station and eating fast food, too. In fact, if "parent shuddering" is the criterion, we should outlaw teenage driving altogether. Am I allowed to call you a hate-filled idiot who wants teenagers to die because you oppose the government setting a national 25 mph speed limit?
So, do you oppose the National 25 MPH speed limit, Mike B? It's just a little inconvenient to have to drive more slowly, and it would save thousands of lives.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat do you think, G o Y? Have you ever driven 30 on a 25 mph road? Ever texted while driving? Can you feel a difference?
What I was commenting on was the kneejerk ideological objection to laws that no reasonable person ought to quibble with.
I'm happy to go the other way with you. For example: There are gazillions too many deer, and hundreds of thousands of responsible sportsmen. What moron objects to deer hunting in season and within the law? (I don't hunt and don't own a gun, but I'm not crazy enough to tell you that "animals are people too.")
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat do you think, MikeB? Have you ever talked to someone over a hands-free cell phone while driving? Ever texted while driving? Can you feel a difference?
What I'm commenting on is the kneejerk ideological support for laws that no reasonable person ought to support.
If the NTSB wanted to outlaw texting while driving, they could make that case. But that's not what they're proposing, is it?
By the way, "What moron objects to deer hunting in season and within the law?" Plenty of morons, apparently. Google "deer hunting opposition" sometime.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"What I was commenting on was the kneejerk ideological objection to laws that no reasonable person ought to quibble with."
So... as per the standard liberal argument, if I do not agree with you, I am not reasonable.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYES!
If you don't agree with me that it's a bad idea to strap your golden retriever (or your infant son) to the roof of your car and proceed on a cross-country trip, you're unreasonable. Period.
Between there and issues about pipelines and such is where we have to figure out where reasonable minds may disagree.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI admit I am pretty "knee jerk" about Federal laws being proposed where no Federal responsibility exists. Even more so when the justification for taking action neither addresses why the issue requires Federal jurisdiction, and uses purposely misleading statistics.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd it's not that I oppose texting bans per se, but what I do oppose is when the appeal for a new law is made using emotional manipulation and dishonest numbers. Like Dingbat Senator Barbara Boxer claiming that 8,100 people would die if new EPA regulations were delayed.
If you insist on restricting liberty, at least have the intellectual honesty to make a reason-based case for it, rather than pulling numbers out of your [censored] and waving around a bloody shirt while screeching that everyone who opposes you is a greedy, bloodthirsty idiot.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHere: is your reason-based case:
Your right to swing your arm ends at my nose.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLike a broken clock, MikeB is correct twice a day. This is one of those times.
Here is an example of the human cost:
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