[geeks] Stuff fo' sale

[Dan Duncan]

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, der Mouse wrote:
> (The "at least" is making explicit something I, at least, see as
> implicit in the wording given.)  Even if we accept both of those, we
> are not, logically speaking, forced to any conclusion about how people
> talking on handheld cellphones compare to people talking on handsfree
> cellphones.

True, but there are plenty of studies to support it.  The point is that
migrating people to handsfree setups does NOT make them safe!  This
is a very common misconception and I consider it a dangerous enough one
to step in when I see it being trotted out.

> Personally, I suspect that handsfree is safer than handheld, but I also
> suspect that the difference is slight compared to the difference
> talking on the phone at all makes.

If there's a difference, it's not significant enough to be measured
across the various studies.  You're exactly correct about the act of
talking on the phone in any manner causing a distraction.  The problem
is that people have this false perception that handheld = bad, handsfree
= good, and handheld is real easy to spot and thus enforce so it's an
easy target for legislation.  I accept that a law barring any cell phone
use would basically result in everyone just switching to handsfree anyway.

> I also suspect that the latter
> difference varies tremendously from driver to driver, probably to the
> extent that it is measurable only statistically, and then only in
> fairly large samples.

I agree.  Plenty of hams have been doing this for years without any trouble.
I don't do CW (Morse) while mobile but I know guys who do.
<begin other pointless diatribe> We had a guy in our ham club back in VA who when
he bought a new Ford Taurus he got the wagon instead of the sedan because he
needed the real estate for his mobile antenna farm.  I'm not kidding, this guy
looked like Cheyenne Mountain driving down the road.  He had a paddle on the
steering wheel and could do 100wpm driving down the road.  The funny part was
seeing someone ask him about his CB or saying "10-4" to him.  Hehe.
</other pointless diatribe>

-DanD

-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
# 		Benjamin Franklin
#