Enforcing hands-free for car phone use is useless

Sweden is the only European country where using a hand-held cell phone while driving isn't illegal. All other countries require hands-free equipment. Now the lobby organization Motormännen demans similar legislation in Sweden. The questions is, why?

According to studies the distraction of talking on the phone is what causes undesirable behavior in traffic, not whether or not you're holding the phone in your hand. There are no facts to support banning the use of hand-held phones in favor of hands-free equipment.

Motormännen point out that between 10-20 people die or are severely injured in car accidents every year because of phone use, both talking and texting. First of all, between 10 and 20? The difference between those number is way to high to tell anything, really. Second, there is a huge difference between talking on the phone while keeping your eyes on the road, and writing a text message. Combining these two activities in the statistics is just plain wrong.

Let me point you guys to this report (PDF) prepared for the European Commission in June 2009:

Hands-free versus hand-held?
Studies indicate that the use of hands-free phones causes as much
important driver distraction as the use of hand-held phones. Some studies show that in-car telephone
conversations while driving can impair drivers more than listening to the radio or talking to passengers.
An epidemiological study of crash involvement found that mobile phone use was associated with a greater
likelihood of crash than passenger carriage and increasing numbers of passengers

and

Effects of texting?
Many young drivers admit to the largely illegal activity of texting while driving. Text
messaging has a detrimental effect on safety-critical driving tasks such as lane-keeping, hazard detection
and the detection and appropriate response to traffic signs.

There we are. So stop with the bullshit and focus on the facts. If you want to ban phone conversations in cars then by all means do so, but stop pretending that everything will be fine if we just use hands-free equipment. In all fairness, Sweden appears to be the only country in Europe that hasn't based a law on pure propaganda. That's probably a first, and they deserve credit for that.

Stop leaving messages!

You would think in 2010 we wouldn't have to dial a number and listen to a recording of a message someone left while we were unable to answer the phone. There are so many options out there. Seriously, there's nothing more annoying about modern communication than seeing that you have one missed call and one text message containing the words "someone left you a message. Dial 888 to listen to it". AAARGH.

If I don't answer the phone, please send me a text message or an e-mail instead, or why not pinging me on my instant messenger, if I'm online. That way I can get in plain writing whatever information you want me to have (you know, which number to call you on, what address we're supposed to meet at, those things that would otherwise require me to find a pen and paper and start to write things down, and of course I wouldn't manage to get it all on the first listen, so I would have to press "2" to get the message repeated...).

Thank you so much for understanding.

Photo: TheGiantVermin

The basic functionality of a modern cell phone

ZoomMediaPlus have released a card reader, ZoomIt, for the iPhone and iPod Touch, making it possible to view files from a memory card, and interact with them, directly on the iPhone/iPod. I can't that it should take a 3rd party vendor to see this ridiculous design flaw or limitation in the product and come up with this functionality on their own. After all, it's pretty much standard in most other phones these days.

Except in most phones you don't have to have an extra gadget plugged in on the side of it for this to work. It's called a memory card slot, and you just insert your memory card into it, and voila, all the files you've transferred from your computer and onto the card are there. Usually these phones also let you copy or save files onto the memory card so you can easily transfer all music, photos and other stuff onto your computer.

But no, that would be giving the customers way to much freedom and ease of use, if you ask Apple.

Photo: ZoomIt website

Earphones

I'm fascinated by those kids who wander around on the streets with their cell phone in their hand, playing music that is so terribly boring, so bad, that you just want to take that stupid phone from them and throw it away.

Have they not yet been introduced to the wonderful accessory called earphones, that would enable them to enjoy that stupid music without bothering everyone passing by? Or do they simply live under a delusion that anyone else in this world is actually interested in the crap they're listening to? Is it some sort of pathetic cry for attention?

Just yesterday I was pestered by a moron walking around in the grocery store with the phone in his hands, some ridiculous arab disco-music blaring distorted out of the tiny mono-speaker. And this wasn't an 11-year old kid either, this guy was probably in his early twenties, and he still lacked basic social skills. That's just sad. And annoying.

Why exactly should I buy this crap?

I read a comparison of various cell phones in today's DN, and not surprisingly the hysterically over-hyped Iphone 3GS won the competition, together with the far superior, yet cheaper, Samsung Omnia HD.

Let's have a look at Iphone 3GS's selling points, according to the article:

• It can send and receive MMS.
• It's got bluetooth.
• It's fitted with a 3 megapixel camera, without flash.
• It's got a compass.
• You can copy and paste text from for example an e-mail.
• It's got support for the Swedish special characters ÅÄÖ (although the keyboard is "still hard to use").

All these new "features" are really the bare minimum you would expect from even the cheapest cell phone sold in the last 2-3 years, possibly with the exception of a compass. On the other hand, when have you ever been in a situation where you thought "damn, I really wish my phone had a compass"?

Why on earth should I literally pay through my nose for yesterday's news, when I could get a state of the art phone for almost half the price, and at the same time avoid the infamous Apple lock-in effect and the AppStore censorship madness?

Car + cell phone = instant death

Apparently using your cell phone while driving is just as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol, and according to public campaigns that would mean instant death. You'd think using a hands-free set would make it safer, right? Wrong. According to the study referred to in the NY Times, it's the multitasking that causes a fatal distraction.

So, whether you're fiddling with your phone, fiddling with something else, or just having a conversation with one of your passengers, you're exposing yourself and fellow motorists to grave danger, equivalent to the risk of drunk driving!

Now, is it just me or does this study completely trivialize drunk driving? I mean, when was the last time you were driving a car and not multitasking, either by talking to someone, listening to the radio, doing your makeup, looking at the scenery or having a coffee? When did you ever focus 100% percent on the driving, unless you were participating in the Monaco Grand Prix? Exactly.