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From: Andrew <andrew@spam.net>
Newsgroups: comp.mobile.android
Subject: Re: How will the police find me.
Date: Thu, 23 May 2024 18:02:05 -0000 (UTC)
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micky wrote on Thu, 23 May 2024 12:28:44 -0400 :

> Better than that, when you first said that cellphones have lowered the
> accident rate, it would have been very good if you'd mentioned that they
> also cause accidents. 

You are correct.

I said, from the start, they're certainly a distraction. 
There's no doubt distractions cause accidents. 

I even said I'd expect the accident rate to skyrocket.
And yet, since I'm a scientist, I checked.

It didn't go up (it steadily went down).
But most people are not scientists.

They don't check anything.

Most people are, in fact, stupid.
They believe every myth that they're fed.

Most people don't bother to check if the myth is real or not.
I did.

It's a myth.
Now it's up to us to figure out why (I gave you my hypothesis already).

> to prove anything to anyone, especially given that you yourself say
> there are hundreds of things that affect the accident rate. 

You are correct.

The NHTSA concentrated on the top ten, in which cellphone use is.

However there was always a top ten cause of accidents.
And there always will be.

Didn't you get the "good student discount" when you were a new driver?
I certainly did. 

One of the top causes of accidents is stupid drivers.
Stupid drivers will have accidents no matter what.

>>>>Thanks for asking. It's only fools who don't question common myths.
>>>>I'm a scientist. My words below are written very clearly around facts.
>>>>
>>>>I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been
>>>>publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the
>>> 
>>> You said this already and I don't find it of value, because lots of
>>> things can make the accident rate go down, while cell phones could still
>>> be a danger.   That's why I want you to answer each of the 4 questions
>>> at the top. 
>>
>>I'm a scientist. 
> 
> Being a scientist is great, but writing in a way that convinces people
> of things is a separate skill.  

You are correct. 

But I'm not writing a scientific paper here. I've been there. Done that.
But this is just a casual conversation.

I consider the vast majority of people on this newsgroup to be stupid.
So I write that way.

But you asked a reasonable question, so I thanked you and answered it.
The others simply spouted their myths.

If Andy Burns had questioned it, I'd write to him differently than, oh,
say, Joerg Lorenz or Alan Baker or Frank Slootweg.

I dumb down the message to fit the audience.
I raise it to the adult level when people act like adults.

> It helps a lot to make the affirmative
> points one thinks supports his position, but it ALSO MATTERS A LOT to
> foresee the objections readers will have and deal with them.

You are correct. I said even I would have thought that cellphones cause
accident rates to rise just as I would have thought that high-octane
gasoline is better and just as I would have thought that an iPhone is safer
than Android and just as I would have thought that low fat is better than
high fat, and just as I would have thought that name brand drugs are better
than generic drugs.

But since I'm a scientist, I check things.
And they're all myth. (As an aside, I love the Myth Busters series.)

> In this
> case that would be admitting that cellphones caause accidents and trying
> to convince readers that they lessen the number of accidents more than
> they increase them.  A) I don't know how anyone can do that if the
> readers are not going to spend hours and hours looking at detailed
> accident data, B) I don't think it matters, because cellphoners have so
> many advantages unrelated to traffic accidents, and because this is
> supposed to be a free country, so that few are going to object to the
> use of cellphones, and also few will object ot enforcing laws against
> using them while driving in ways that make accidents more likely. Which
> is the situation we have now. 

All you realize that it's a myth is this single set of statistics:
  *What is the accident rate before, during & after?*

If the cumulative effect of added cellphone distraction was as bad as
people think it is, then the accident rate would have to have gone up.

It did not.

In fact, it went down - but it was trending down anyway.
So the best we can say is that it was unaffected.

Now, the question is WHY was it unaffected, the answer to which I only have
two hypothesis to offer to explain the reason that the myth is a myth.

We already know there are already thousand of distractions, and even if we
concentrate on the top ten, cellphones simply displaced one so there are
still a top ten.

We also can surmise that cellphones, while a distraction, also removed one
distraction, which was the use of driver navigation (e.g., with paper
maps).

Also cellphones reduced the issues with detour and avoiding traffic. And
cellphones allowed far better route planning and contingency efforts.

It's a hellova' lot safer having Google tell you in the dead of night that
the road forks up ahead than to find out with your own eyeballs, right?
  
>>It's good that you understand a few things which is that the accident rate
>>is based on a variety of things 
> 
> Yes, I understand that.  I feel so good about that. 

The rate depends on miles driven, the price of gas, the economy, weather
events, social events (like Covid), etc., as the number of accidents will
change but that's why they normalize it by miles driven (which they know
well as they have fuel & toll road statistics to gauge that kind of stuff).

What you see in the news are "accidents", which will always happen.

What matters to make intelligent conclusions is the accident rate.

>>- but what you have to understand is the
>>accidents that are caused by cellphones would have happened anyway in the
>>statistical record. 
> 
> Huh?   What is the difference between "would have happened anyway" and
> "would have happened anyway in the statistitical record"?

Same thing. 

What I mean is there are always gonna be stupid people driving.
Those stupid people will have accidents.

No matter what.
It won't matter which distraction causes the accident.

While I've never had an accident (and I've driven hundreds of thousands of
miles in a variety of states in a variety of weather and variety of cars)
I'm sure you know stupid people who keep having accidents, don't you?

It's not accidents that matter. 
It's accident rates.

>   First, if there's a difference, I want to talk about real-life
> accidents, not some statistical record which you seem to say disguises
> the cause of cell-phone-caused accidents. 

I'm not saying accidents don't happen.

But the rate is unaffected.
So we have to figure out why.

That's what intelligent people would do.

>  Second, if there is no substantial difference, you seem to be
> backtracking on the answers you gave to my 4 questions above. No, the
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