Advocacy & Safety - Cold, hard, sad statistics.

At least some things have improved, but more needs to be done. It is bad enough during a single car accident people are killed, a lot of the time because they do not have a seat belt on & are ejected from the vehicle, but at least with the new divided 4-lane it has reduced or eliminated the amount of head on collisions.

I think to improve things the law makers need to change the seat belt law to include everyone in the vehicle, both front & back, including containing pets as they can become projectiles. and we need law prohibiting cell phone use while driving too.

http://www.bikeiowa.com/asp/hotnews/newsdisplay.asp?NewsID=1938

The article mentions the two biggest factors that need to be addressed ... speed and cell phones.

jw

The article mentions the two biggest factors that need to be addressed ... speed and cell phones.

jw

With cell phones it is a simple solution. Simply ban them from being used while in a motor vehicle. The state raised the speed limit to 70 because people were already driving that or above. They did so with the hopes that it would appease those that already sped over the limit. What it has done is the opposite, it has caused those that already speed to drive even faster. I think the speed limit is as high as it should go & should not go any higher.

A majority of the speeders are high school to college age kids. I think as part of the drivers ed. curriculum they should see what happens when they speed or use a cell phone, have an accident & die. They should be shown graphic photo's, video & if possible take them to a morgue to show them the dead body of a kid like them who died because he or she was speeding or using a cell phone while driving. I think maybe it would sink home. Scare them into not speeding. Who know's, maybe it will scare them into not driving & cause them to use public transit or commute by bike. That wouldn't be a bad thing either.

They should put cell phone jammers in cars, activated when the engine is running. If somebody needs to pick up messages he should stop and then check.

What's funny is I went for a bike ride the other day on the bike path to the beach and encountered a surprising number of bike riders who had pulled over to use their cell phones. Too bad car drivers don't do the same.

Let us be a little more precise, OK? Drivers should not use cell phones while driving. I am cool with passengers doing it.

I would like some way to prevent cell use while driving. Pity normal jamming would leak out of the car and interfer with other phones.

What's funny is I went for a bike ride the other day on the bike path to the beach and encountered a surprising number of bike riders who had pulled over to use their cell phones. Too bad car drivers don't do the same.

But what isn't funny is when on a ride like RAGBRAI you can't ride on mile of it with out seeing someone on a damn cell phone.