Drama in /r/wtf when OP shamelessly defends his use of a phone to take a picture at 58 mph on the highway. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
134 ups - 37 downs = 97 votes
83 comments submitted at 19:31:09 on Aug 23, 2013 by billpika
Drama in /r/wtf when OP shamelessly defends his use of a phone to take a picture at 58 mph on the highway. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
134 ups - 37 downs = 97 votes
83 comments submitted at 19:31:09 on Aug 23, 2013 by billpika
>LOL I wasn't browsing reddit while driving. I took a picture which took three seconds. I'm being defensive because I have done things MUCH more difficult than this while driving vehicles 10 times the size.
This is how he justifies himself? People like this make roads unsafe for everyone else.
Interesting how both the complainers and OP are getting downvoted though. Unusual.
>Interesting how both the complainers and OP are getting downvoted though. Unusual.
I think some of the pro-safety arguments ITT are exaggerated, or fail, like this comparison:
>Operating your phone while driving kills people. Your reaction times become similar to a person driving drunk. No picture or text is worth that.
So he drove drunk for 10 seconds? If that is a moral failing, someone who drives drunk from the restaurant to his home is on par with a mass murderer.
Are suggesting driving drunk for any amount of time is acceptable?
It can take less than a second of reduced reaction time or judgement for an accident to occur.
Edit: The study that compared driving drunk and using your phone.
>Are suggesting driving drunk for any amount of time is acceptable?
Yes.
I crunched the numbers downthread.
Wow... That's what you call number crunching?! All that shows is that you nothing about statistics. Your risk is not 'diluted' over time. Whenever you do something dangerous the risk is the same.... And of course you don't kill 100th of someone.
The world is littered with people that thought they could beat the odds and lost. You might think it won't happen to you but do you really think anyone else did?
Your concept of risk is irrational, also, you don't understand what 'beating the odds' actually means.
The odds were entirely in favor of this person being perfectly fine and not harming anyone during the very tiny window of time it took to take the photograph.
It's just an easy excuse to engage in thought-free moralization, for people who want an easy excuse to engage in thought-free moralization.
Risk vs reward.
Risk: getting into an accident, which can kill you and others
Reward: worthless internet points
Driving is something we all do, and most do fine, but it isn't something to be taken lightly. We are in two ton metal boxes going faster than evolution prepared us for, most times mere seconds from another vehicle, with other cars going in the opposite direction at the same speed. All it takes is one small slip of the wheel from you or someone else for people to die. If anyone thinks increasing the risk is worth internet points, well, fuck them.
I said moralize me hard
What are you scared of your own moral, stick it in me I want that morality deep
My concept of the increased risk of being in an accident is based on an understanding of statistics (I used them extensively during my postgrad. I'm far from an expert, but know enough to interpret the data). So 'thought free moralising' is far from what I'm doing.
The statistics show that doing anything that takes your eyes or attraction away from driving increases your chance of being in an accident.
Even briefly stopping to change the radio channel is enough. You can try and rationalise your way out of it, but the cold hard facts show that it's dangerous.
If it isn't necessary why take the chance when if you believe it's a small one? The consequences if you're wrong could be pretty life changing.
http://xkcd.com/1252/
Everything you do increases some risk or another. At some point the reasonable thing to do is to ask, does it actually increase a certain risk enough to make the pleasure you get from sharing stuff on the internet not worth it? That's not a lot of pleasure, sure, but apparently there's way less of a risk increase, actually.
I completely agree with that centement. However, I don't agree that using your phone or drunk driving give enough pleasure to negate the increased risk of death and serious injury to yourself and those around you.
Using your phone while driving is illegal in my country, but they allow using a hands free kit precisely for the reason you give. At least that allows for both hands on the wheel and looking at the road ahead.
>but apparently there's way less of a risk increase
Where did you read that? I can only think that people don't understand why being distracted with anything even for a small amount of time increases the risk.
Being distracted or drunk of course doesn't increases the chance that you'll be cut off by another driver, hit ice/oil on the road or have a child run in front of your car. That remains the same, so you may be very lucky and nothing like that will occur while you're driving drunk/distracted.
The increase in risk occurs when something unexpected like that does occur... it won't matter that you only looked away for a few seconds to get your phone out of your pocket or switching to the camera. It won't matter if you have the reactions of an F1 driver, your reaction time is increased to the point that you have far less time to take evasive action.
That's why you can't divide the risk by the amount of time you are driving or by how long you were distracted... it doesn't matter because the event that makes the difference occurs in a split second and without warning.
> > but apparently there's way less of a risk increase
> Where did you read that? I can only think that people don't understand why being distracted with anything even for a small amount of time increases the risk.
/u/Jacksambuck did the math. Everyone understands that being distracted greatly increases the risk of getting into an accident for the duration of the time when you were distracted. Tenfold approximately. Because nine out of ten unexpected things that turn into accidents when you're distracted don't when you're not, in a manner of explanation.
But you have to multiply the risk increase by the duration during which you were distracted, to get the actual lifetime risk increase. Or multiply the known lifetime risk by the ratio of increased risk duration to total activity duration.
> That's why you can't divide the risk by the amount of time you are driving or by how long you were distracted... it doesn't matter because the event that makes the difference occurs in a split second and without warning.
You said that you did statistics extensively. Can you please express this sentiment mathematically? Because it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
>Even briefly stopping to change the radio channel is enough.
Oh yes motherfucker that's it moral me, moral me right there don't you dare fucking stop
You know that making personal attacks won't actually change the facts, right?
I studied statistics too, pal.
>Your risk is not 'diluted' over time. Whenever you do something dangerous the risk is the same....
Obviously I don't mean that you won't kill someone until you've droven 7 million miles, it's a statistical average. You're either willfully misinterpreting or stupid.
>And of course you don't kill 100th of someone.
Oh really? Is it too much for you to understand that "killing one hundredth of someone" means one chance in hundred of killing someone?
[deleted]
Why are you telling me, man?
Oops, I'm still not really awake, apparently.
>Obviously I don't mean that you won't kill someone until you've droven 7 million miles
...that's exactly what you said...
>You have to drive 7 million miles to kill someone drunk driving
and...
> Oh really? Is it too much for you to understand that "killing one hundredth of someone" means one chance in hundred of killing someone?
Well, I was judging your understanding based on what you had previously said, so I didn't want to assume. Personally, I feel that a 1 in 100 chance of killing someone is pretty high... too high.
>> Obviously I don't mean that you won't kill someone until you've droven 7 million miles
>...that's exactly what you said...
I said this first:
>How long does it take on average to kill a person(including yourself) while driving drunk?
>[did some quick googling to get rough numbers]
>[...]
> I feel that a 1 in 100 chance of killing someone is pretty high... too high.
Except the chance is one in four million.
... well, if we use your new branch of statistics.
your reading comprehension is not my problem