You may not want to eat and drive, either

[makoti]

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/nj-could-ban-drivers-eating-drinking-behind-wheel-n626186

One less distraction is ok by me.

[p nut]

I'm all for less distractions while behind the wheel, but that is just stupid.

[unterhausen]

I usually don't eat when I'm driving unless it's really easy to manipulate the food. I have had bad experiences while driving and eating a burger, for example. Fries seem perfectly safe. A ban on drinking is a little ridiculous, you'll have crashes due to dehydration. I'm sure there are accidents due to coffee, maybe you should have to practice having the lid fall off your coffee as part of the driving test

[weisan]

you can take away my phone, radio, shaver, nose picker, make up kit, even the porns....but STAY AWAY ...far, far away from my fries, spicy chicken, Popeyes and frosty!

[slidey]

Seems a tad too paternalistic

[chiasticon]

I agree with the direction and general sentiment of this. every day when I take the freeway to work, I'll see at least one woman with her visor all the way down, so the mirror is visible but the road barely is, doing her makeup, occasionally taking glances at the 10 feet of road she can see in front of her, while doing about 80mph. so I'd say that ticketing people for distracted driving isn't generally a bad idea. that said, I'm not sure I'll be able to wake up at 5 am and make it into work without coffee and water in the car. or ever take a drive over one hour anywhere again, because I generally need something to snack and eat when driving. I'm not talking eating a steak with knife and fork, but some pretzels and dr pepper or something. not too distracting, I don't think :rolleyes:

[nesteel]

Its New Jersey. They don't even trust you to pump your own gas, this comes as no surprise.

[AngryScientist]

we are just getting stupider as a society if we need laws like this.

my state too, wonderful.

they should just keep the law at "distracted driving" and leave it up to the discretion of the officer, and ultimately a court of law to decide if the behavior is appropriate or distracting.

i dont commute to work anymore by car, but good heavens - you cant take peoples morning coffee away!

[kevinvc]

This brings up one of my pet peeves. Whenever there's an auto / bike collision, the local paper will mention if the police report indicates whether alcohol / other drugs or speeding was a factor. They don't do the same regarding distractions, which I think are more frequent contributors. I don't know if the police check cell phone records as a standard practice when investigating an injury collision, but it sure seems like something that should be done. It won't catch everything, such as people messing with their on-phone GPS, but it could indicate if someone was talking or texting.

[torquer]

they should just keep the law at "distracted driving" and leave it up to the discretion of the officer, and ultimately a court of law to decide if the behavior is appropriate or distracting.

My initial reaction, too. But I worry about that discretion part.

Passing a law (and getting headlines) gets the attention of those appliance pilots, at least for one news cycle; OTOH, enforcement becomes even more random (and arbitrary.)

I'd rather not leave it to anyone's discretion. A half-eaten Whopper flattened against a driver's airbag should be evidence enough to convict.

[54ny77]

what could possibly go wrong?

https://www.geico.com/more/wp-content/uploads/7-bad-driving-habits.jpg

[chiasticon]

seriously guys, food is important :no:

http://thenewswheel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/homer_car_acessories.jpg

[makoti]

you can take away my phone, radio, shaver, nose picker, make up kit, even the porns....but STAY AWAY ...far, far away from my fries, spicy chicken, Popeyes and frosty!

POPEYE'S! Now we are talking!

[seanile]

so i assume they would subsequently ban all the drive-throughs?
dumb

[William]

I was finishing a ride last week and I pulled up into my driveway and dismounted my bike. I reached down and grabbed a water bottle to get a drink when I notice a guy cruising by the house in a pick up truck going pretty slowly...left hand on the wheel, right hand holding his cell phone under his left arm resting on the door. It looked like he was videoing my place and he drove by. I'm thinking what the hell was that about?

I mentioned it to my family and said to keep an eye out for a white pick up truck in the area. A couple days later my son tells me he saw another guy driving by slowly with his phone out in a similar fashion. I'm thinking ***, is someone casing our house?

Then on Sunday my son and I are driving up our road and we pass a guy driving with his cell phone hanging out the window. "Did you see that?" I said to my son who acknowledged he saw it as well. When we got home we walked in the house and told my wife and daughter about it. My daughter replied, "oh yeah so and so up the street told me there is a Pokemon hot spot right around our place." Something like four of them in the area. :eek:

On the one hand I'm glad it wasn't someone casing the place, but on the other hand...now I have to consider another distraction to people driving their cars when I'm out on the bike!!

Dolt: "Sorry your honor, I didn't see him because there where four Pokemon's right there, I had to catch them!"

Judge: "Well, in that case I'll let you off with a warning. He shouldn't have been riding his bike in the road anyway."





Pokemon No!!
:roll eyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:






William

[bikinchris]

Some countries have a blanket law stating that you must pay attention to your driving. It's simpler.
When Porsche was asked once why they didn't have cup holders in their cars, their answer was "Because you are just supposed to drive it." I guess they added them to their cars under pressure.

[Davist]

huh, when I lived in NJ in the early '90s a friend who was a cop in ?Randolph, Morris County, would pull people over for eating, I thought it was already a law.. Currently would say Pokémon/phones are a bigger problem, but that's covered..

[oldpotatoe]

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/nj-could-ban-drivers-eating-drinking-behind-wheel-n626186

One less distraction is ok by me.

They can't enforce texting, no way they will enforce this. Junk law.

[soulspinner]

They can't enforce texting, no way they will enforce this. Junk law.

You have hit on it 4 me. No enforcement is a waste of our money and time. I see so much phone use while driving its become my #1 fear just ahead of people that should not be driving cause they are impaired by age related issues.

[Ti Designs]

The law bing enforceable or not aside, this issue is a study of self perception and cognitive bias. The state of NJ is saying that a significant portion of the driving population isn't competent to eat and drive at the same time - a statement I agree with. If you polled drivers in NJ, almost all of them would claim that they are competent to eat and drive, but others can't. There is a test for the minimum driving competence in NJ, you could grab a coffee and breakfast burrito and head to your local driving school to take a practice test - seems like the scientific of answering this question, but nobody does it. Instead people use the old cognitive bias, the mind's way of doing an end run around reason.

There's a professor at some well known university who has been giving the same quiz to his students at the beginning of the class for over a dozen years. The key question hidden in the test asks where they see themselves ranked against their class mates. Nobody in the class ever rates themselves below the top 10%. Statistically this is impossible, and it is a statistics class. One year he explained to the class that unless they had information about their classmates, the correct answer would have been the 50th percentile. They all got very upset about this, he hasn't done it since.

People tend to get upset when you point out their irrational thinking. Instead of pointing out the flaws in their logic, it just gets ugly. Unless the person finds the error in their thinking themselves, they'll never change. So here's what I think we should do. Have a meals on wheels day in NJ, everybody has a big plate with eggs, toast, bacon, hash browns, more bacon (I like bacon), OJ and coffee, while driving down the turnpike. If it works and everybody gets to work without incident and well fed, they can shove that new law up their... If it doesn't work and there are massive pile-ups, with blood and coffee all over the roads, at least 1 person in NJ will have to admit that they can't eat and drive a car at the same time. It's a start...

[shovelhd]

Everyone thinks they belong in the A group :)