Five Weighs

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Rope-Pusher
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Five Weighs

Post by Rope-Pusher »

Five ways the mobile phone is killing the car
As cell phones hit 40, are cars in their twilight years?
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Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/2013040 ... z2PSTXuwgU
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bk7794
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by bk7794 »

I would NEVER text and drive. I think it's the most idiotic thing you can do behind the wheel aside from just straight out not paying attention.
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ClutchFork
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by ClutchFork »

bk7794 wrote:I would NEVER text and drive. I think it's the most idiotic thing you can do behind the wheel aside from just straight out not paying attention.

A fitting punishment for texting while driving is they cut one of your fingers off each time you are caught. Repeat offenders will soon stop texting.

Maybe they need a law that you have to carry your cellular devise in the trunk, like many states do for transporting guns. Put the touch screen in the trunk too, or just have it disabled when ever the car is in gear.
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six
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by six »

Texting while driving is more dangerous than DUI. Why not make the punishment fit the crime? Arrest them and put them in jail until their cellphone runs out of battery. Second offense? Suspend their license, more jail time. Third offense? Revoke their license, confiscate phone, impound car, more jail time, community service. How can anyone take it seriously when it's a $20 ticket???
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by theholycow »

...but as far as its purported part of the blame for differences in the way cars are made now:
Automakers have responded by adding additional electronic nannies to warn us of impending doom while we're typing, making cars heavier, more complex and more expensive without reducing the tendency toward distracted driving itself.
You might blame the nannies on distracted driving, but the weight, complexity, and expensive were on their way before distracted driving ever became a known issue. Blame the dot-com and housing bubbles and low fuel prices of that time for making a huge market full of people with the money for such cars and no interest in fuel economy, and blame CAFE too for providing an easy way for wagons to bypass the car fleet MPG issue by adjusting them until they were minivans and SUVs.
Why burn fuel to visit friends or meet at a restaurant when you can see who checked in on Foursquare or post a photo to Facebook?
Speaking of which, blame teens' disinterest in cars on the current opposite economic conditions from those that made cars the way they are. Teens back then might have been able to afford modern cars and modern fuel prices, what with the job market, but teens now sure as hell can't.
Remember when you used to spend road-trip hours staring out the window, playing “Travel Yahtzee” or punching your sister? Our latest generation is staring at mobile DVD screens, texting friends and, increasingly, browsing the Web using the phone as an in-car mobile hot spot. The phone isn't just killing the car, it's killing the road trip.
No. In-car passenger entertainment systems have no effect on the issue of "killing cars". They probably have an effect on children learning how to interact and be patient. The boredom of sitting in a backseat for 12 hours with that bitch of a sister didn't stimulate the mind directly, but it did force you to learn how to keep your own damned mind busy and get along with some miserable bitch you're stuck with.
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by tankinbeans »

I have a friend who insists he can text and drive, because "[he's able] to pay attention, unlike the other morons on the road."

I just roll my eyes and nod. You can't explain anything to him because he's always right.

Whatever happened to reading in the backseat? My mom used to tell me to grab a book if we were going on a road trip because she steadfastly refused to put a DVD player in the car, in their (mobile DVD player's) infancy.
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by kamesama980 »

on my older cars with actual controls for things like the radio and hvac, I can run everything by feel and muscle memory without looking or hunting around. New cars with a giant touch screen to control it all drive me nuts because if I'm too warm, too cold, want to change the radio, etc I have to look away from the road to find the button to navigate to the relevant screen and adjust the controls on the perfectly flat touch screen.
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by Shadow »

kamesama980 wrote:on my older cars with actual controls for things like the radio and hvac, I can run everything by feel and muscle memory without looking or hunting around. New cars with a giant touch screen to control it all drive me nuts because if I'm too warm, too cold, want to change the radio, etc I have to look away from the road to find the button to navigate to the relevant screen and adjust the controls on the perfectly flat touch screen.
I find just the opposite true. On my new car, I can control the audio system via steering wheel controls, so there's no need to take my hands off the wheel or my eyes off the road. Or to take it a step further, I can control virtually anything in the car with voice commands. For example, saying "temperature, 72 degrees" is all it takes to adjust the temperature. Or "radio, 102.7 fm"....or more likely "XM channel 25". Want to make a phone call? Just say "call (or dial) 201-555-1212".
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by ClutchDisc »

kamesama980 wrote:on my older cars with actual controls for things like the radio and hvac, I can run everything by feel and muscle memory without looking or hunting around. New cars with a giant touch screen to control it all drive me nuts because if I'm too warm, too cold, want to change the radio, etc I have to look away from the road to find the button to navigate to the relevant screen and adjust the controls on the perfectly flat touch screen.
Exactly! I don't have to take my eyes off the road to adjust the controls in my 2001 Chevy S-10. There's nothing like simplicity!
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by AHTOXA »

Shadow wrote:
kamesama980 wrote:on my older cars with actual controls for things like the radio and hvac, I can run everything by feel and muscle memory without looking or hunting around. New cars with a giant touch screen to control it all drive me nuts because if I'm too warm, too cold, want to change the radio, etc I have to look away from the road to find the button to navigate to the relevant screen and adjust the controls on the perfectly flat touch screen.
I find just the opposite true. On my new car, I can control the audio system via steering wheel controls, so there's no need to take my hands off the wheel or my eyes off the road. Or to take it a step further, I can control virtually anything in the car with voice commands. For example, saying "temperature, 72 degrees" is all it takes to adjust the temperature. Or "radio, 102.7 fm"....or more likely "XM channel 25". Want to make a phone call? Just say "call (or dial) 201-555-1212".
Yep. Tech integration has become far more available in nearly all car classes over the past few years. One of the prerequisites of the Sonic was the tech package, or whatever it was called, which gives BT, all the steering wheel controls, voice dialing, etc. I can't have a car w/o BT now and similar integration. It works too well and is too convenient.
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bk7794
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by bk7794 »

InlinePaul wrote:
bk7794 wrote:I would NEVER text and drive. I think it's the most idiotic thing you can do behind the wheel aside from just straight out not paying attention.

A fitting punishment for texting while driving is they cut one of your fingers off each time you are caught. Repeat offenders will soon stop texting.

Maybe they need a law that you have to carry your cellular devise in the trunk, like many states do for transporting guns. Put the touch screen in the trunk too, or just have it disabled when ever the car is in gear.
I agree with you guys on making a fitting punishment for the crime, but what if there is an actual emergency? I don't want the phone to be in the trunk because people can't stop texting and then I am out of luck. Might as-well not have a cell phone at all then.
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by tankinbeans »

Easy solution to emergency + phone in trunk = Bluetooth. That way you can say "call X" and it'll still dial for you. This allows use of the phone, but removes the temptation to sext. My car automatically calls police if it detects that you've been in an accident.
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Re: Five Weighs

Post by Rope-Pusher »

BLUETOOTH KILLED THE RADIO STAR
Will automakers get rid of radios in cars before this decade is out? That’s what some experts are saying. They predict car radios will go the way of 8-track and cassette players. They believe drivers will access their favorite radio stations through the internet via their smart phones and stream it to their car. But others aren’t so sure. They point out that in the U.S., 90 percent of people age 25 to 54 listen to radio weekly, and it is the top choice for in-car entertainment. Also, over the air radio is free, versus cell phones that can have expensive data plans and sometimes iffy wireless coverage.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2013 ... car-radios
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