Damn cell phones

Yesterday I was being tailgated by this glazed-eyed woman. Of course
she was on the phone. Fortunately she backed off when I flashed my
tail lights. Usually the driver is so engrossed in the conversation,
they don't react.

Cell phone use is rampant and dangerous. Since most authorities are
doing nothing about it, I thought I'd ask here about cell phone
jammers.

Jammers are commercially available. They send out a radio frequency
that prevents use of cell phones in a particular radius of limited
size. They are (so I have read) in use in theaters, restaurants, banks
(to hinder crooks), and in security zones.

Wouldn't it be nice to have one of these gadgets in your car! Then
nobody within range would be gabbing on the phone and that would
improve your personal safety.

In many jurisdictions, cell phone jammers are illegal. But apparently
nobody is ever charged with using them. Most likely this is because
cell phone users never know what is disrupting their phone, so they
don't complain. Anyway, there might be situations where you might have
to trade off your safety (or comfort) against the chance of being
caught by the cops.

These jammer gadgets are not cheap. But if you are the handy type, you
can build your own. See ref below.

What I would like to ask is, is anyone using these on the roads?
Experiences? Opinions?

Some web refs:

http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/story1a092200.html
http://slate.msn.com/id/2092059/
http://gbppr.dyndns.org/PROJ/mil/celljam/

 

Agree wholeheartedly! Ban the durned things completely;
not even the hands free variety should be allowed.

But do it properly - petition your government wherever
you are to do it, not the way you're suggesting.

How are you going to feel if you should happen to be
driving by my place - and interrupt my call - and the
call I was making was calling an ambulance for your
child, or mother?

Ken

 

I'm in NY where they already passed laws against cell phone use, and it
does nothing. There's still people all over the place using them.

Please spare me the "emergency" argument though. It's the same type of
fear tactic that's lead the USA into our current ridiculous situation.
The reality is that everyone is gabbing on their phones about clothes or
who went out with who.

 

I for one would strongly recommend against this. Yes, I'm ticked off at
inconsiderate and unsafe cell phone users--cell yell on the bus or in
restaurants, driving unawares, etc.--and would LOVE to jam the bastards.
Never mind those pricks who put on their ghetto blasters on the train in
NYC... However, I recognize that schmucks exist in the world, and that
it isn't within my rights to control their behavior outside the
mechanisms of law. What we need is legislation and enforcement, not anarchy.

Just the other week I was involved in an accident, and we took care of
the claim stuff with our insurance company right there, on the scene.
Boy would I have been ticked off if some self-righteous person taking
the law into his own hands with a jammer had driven along and disrupted
this legitimate call, off the road, 40 minutes into it.

How about being stuck on the highway with a mechanical failure and
trying to reach a towing service, but never getting past the hold music
because someone with a jammer zooms by every 3 minutes?

Then there are the emergency situations (not a "fear tactic", Brian, but
a legitimate point). Say your wife goes into labor or your grandfather
goes into cardiac arrest, and you need to find the nearest hospital? Or,
as pops up in the news occasionally, your daughter has been
carjacked/kidnapped and manages to dial 911, is triangulated and thereby
rescued? Or is being chased by some ill-doer and manages to reach help
on the cell?

The point I'm trying to make is that there are many issues to consider:
free-for-all jamming could cause real problems. Better to educate people
and lobby your legislators to enhance legislation and increase
enforcement. I empathize with you Otto--I've been there myself--but
using a jammer would, in my opinion, be completely irresponsible pending
proper assessment by folks at least trying to be impartial.

Abe

 

Ya, while you're at it, why not ban passengers in vehicles because they too
can distract you from driving, with all their talking and carrying on. Hands
free cell use is no different than talking to a passenger who is right next
to you. Ya there are those who should not ever use a phone while driving,
since they can't drive period. But to ban the use is ridiculous. I
personally do not like taking a call while driving, I always make the
passenger take the call.

 

So afraid to be alone that they have to be hooked to someone on a phone
even in a crowded mall. Pathetic.

 

I've seen people eating, reading the paper hanging over the steering wheel,
watching TV, trying to lite a smoke with the window down and many other
things. Cell phones are not the problem, its the driver. I used to eat,
talk on the CB radio and shift my manual transmission S10 and still manage
to check my blind spot and signal before changing lanes which is a task
some people can't even manage without distraction. What we need is
stricter testing, I passed easily with one bad eye, if I were writing the
rules I wouldn't allow me to pass without lenses (I have learned to
compensate just like someone with hearing loss or someone in a wheelchair
though)

 

Agreed - Some of us do possess the mental ability, dexterity and
competence to use a hands free cell phone while driving (about the same
as a pilot using their radio headset). Just because there are some
morons that don't know their limitations is no excuse to pass blanket
laws that we all have to be limited by. Go look up the study that was
done on the source of driver distraction- cell phones are low on the
list. If you want to handle driver distraction, outlaw CD players and
radios in cars. Those still cause more accidents than phones.

I've found that people that are hung up on cell phone usage while
driving are usually the people that remember when a cell phone was a
status symbol (everyone has them now- they're not "status" anymore) and
are more angry about the flaunting of phone than the driving performance
issue.

Every law that gets passed takes a little bit of everyone's freedom. If
you want to squander yours, that's fine- but don't squander mine.

 

if it jams the phone and causes a lost signal, wont the typical idiot
driver try to redial the number, distracting themselves even more? just
a thought.

i want one of them strobes that turns stoplights green

 

or even stupider shit.

ive got a prepaid virgin mobile cell phone i carry with me, but it stays
off. if i need to make a call, i wait til i get to where im going, then
turn it on, make the call, turn it off.

 

drivers that are easily distracted probably shouldnt be allowed to carry
passengers.

i had a friend years ago that would talk to me while hes driving,
looking over at me and gesturing. i had to keep grabbing the "oh shit"
handle and telling him to keep his eyes on the road.

so yes, good point. all drivers should be tested for retarded behavior
before issuing a license.

 

Yeah, instead they'd be fiddling with the thing (redialing, looking at the
screen and not the road) trying to figure out what happened... sounds MORE
dangerous to me ;-)

 

SoCalMike opined in

no, that's NOT just a thought.That's exactly what would happen!

add to that the down-sides that OTHER guys have already suggested and you can
come to only one conclusion:

That is...The poster is, IMO, just another self-righteous idiot that only
sees things in black and white.... never considering side effects.

 

I agree with your thoughts but I would like to add another item - as I was
driving down the freeway I passed up a car on my right and just happened to
look over and just when I thought I'd seen everything I saw this woman
driver flossing her teeth with both hands - so was she driving with her
knees? Can anyone top this?

 

Keep your eyes on the road and not some other woman's bathroom habits...

(sorry, just seemed funny)

 

Nothing safe like a driver who is pissed off because he just got off from
his important cell phone convesation.

Nor is anything safe like a cell phone user who is driving and desperately
redialing because he got cut off and wants to get reconnected.

Jeff
(...)

 

Let's think about this for a second. What is the person on the cell phone
going to do when they come into range of your jammer? My guess is they will
immediately look away from the road at the phone to see what happened and
then start redialing, running into your car in the process because of the
added distraction of the the dropped call.

 

_________________________________________________________

I can top that easy. Back in the '70s I was driving through Riverside,
CA at the then speed limit of 55 mph in the right lane on the freeway.
To my amazement, a motorcycle passed me on the left with - get this -
the driver leaning way back on a banana seat with his hands behind his
head, steering with his feet!! I thought to myself "I am going to see
this nut die right in front of my eyes". He gradually pulled away and
disappeared around a curve. I kept looking for a bloody mess, but I
never saw him again and never heard anything on the news.

The absolute dumbest thing I ever saw.

 

Maybe what we should start doing is make everyone who wants to use the phone
while driving pass the driving test while talking on the phone to prove they
are coordinated enough and can concentrate on the task at hand.

 

_________________________________________________________

Instead of gabbing, they'd be frantically redialing and causing even
more of a hazard. Thank God you're not a lawmaker. This kind of brain
dead thinking is all too common.