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Honolulu, Hawaii police will begin to write tickets for people caught using their phones or other electronic devices while crossing at a crosswalk:
Police in Honolulu will begin writing tickets for people who get distracted by their cellphones while walking in a cross walk Wednesday. Honolulu is the first major city in the country to pass such a law, citing a high rate of pedestrians being hit in crosswalks.
"Starting today, texting while walking in a cross walk can get you a ticket," Hawaii Public Radio's Bill Dorman reports for our Newscast unit. "In fact, a downward glance at a screen of any kind will cost you—a phone, a tablet, a video game."
Under the new law, the only legal reason for a pedestrian to use a cellphone while crossing a street or highway would be to call 911 to report an emergency.
Minimum fines for breaking the new law start at $15; for repeat offenders, the penalty ranges from $75 to $99. Higher rates — up to $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second, and $500 for a third — had been considered earlier this year.
Also at the City and County of Honolulu. Bill 6 (2017).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 25 2017, @08:43PM (10 children)
Motorists must maintain situational awareness at all times while they are in control of their vehicles.
This includes when the vehicle is temporarily stopped at a traffic signal.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday October 26 2017, @12:05AM (7 children)
Ohh, bull fucking shit. The only thing they *need* to do is keep their feet on the brake. A vehicle can only move forward, unless you put it in reverse when you get to intersections. When the first at an intersection your only defensive response is to move forward, which may be the exact wrong thing to do, and problematic no matter which way you look at it. If you are not the first person, then you can move NOWHERE. If something happens, your only defensive response is to move *backward*, which is against the law. It's also pretty pointless if the danger is from directly behind. A T-Rex coming at you from the side does let you reverse, or go forward, but just how often how often do you visit Jurassic Park?
Most of the time when at an intersection you are somewhat safer with vehicles surrounding you. There is no reasonable justification to make somebody concentrate on something other than the brake, unless they are FIRST in line, lest they sit there like idiots wasting the light. In that case I recommend a law that lets us take those people out of their cars and beat them with wiffle bats for 5 minutes.
Everyone else realizes that sitting at an intersection for 90 seconds or more is the perfect time to check your messages or setup a phone call. There's nothing else you can do, and nowhere else you can go, and the only realistic and practical response to danger requiring immediate evacuation is to get out of the car and run. The people at the front and back of the queues may escape with a car, but the guy in the middle of line is going nowhere with his car.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kazzie on Thursday October 26 2017, @10:34AM (6 children)
Keep their foot on the brake? In our far away land we have this magic thing called a "handbrake". Lift the handbrake, put the gearbox in neutral, and you can be distracted to your heart's content.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:35PM (5 children)
Some of us have automatics, and you don't want to put the handbrake on like that. All you have to do is forget once and you start killing your brakes. It would be one thing if the handbrake actually stopped all motion, but it doesn't. There should be a loud annoying buzzer when you're driving with it on.
Putting it into neutral is an idea that helps, but it takes to long to shift the gears back. I know, the manual shift people are laughing, but I don't particularly enjoy nine million movements while driving. Keeping my foot on the brake isn't all that much effort really. I've got big heavy feet and boots on to the extent that if I relax my feet completely, my foot falls on the accelerator and I speed up. That's no joke, I passed out once and woke up at 130mph because my foot was heavy enough to do it. 11/10 on the pucker factor.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @08:36PM (1 child)
And we think being distracted by smart-phones is the problem?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday October 27 2017, @06:59PM
Oh fuck you.
People forget once in awhile, especially when you're doing this while in the middle of driving. Bit different when checking the emergency brake as part of a checklist when starting to drive, and suffering the distractions of a busy intersection. It's the number of selections you stupid fuck. I said, "All you to do is forget ONCE". Remember 999 times, you're fine. One the thousandth time you're damaging your fucking brakes and that's expensive.
The handbrake is for when you are parked and are going to get out of the car, or you want to do some crazy shit while driving. It's not for the intersections, certainly not in automatic transmissions.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday October 27 2017, @06:14AM (2 children)
I live in the land of manual gearboxes, and all cars have an indicator on the dash to show the handbrake is engaged. My current car (13 years old) will also beep at me if I drive off with the handbrake still (partially) engaged. A fully engaged handbrake will stop a car from moving off.
I know many in North America think of the handbrake as an automotive appendix. A family relative learned to drive manuals in the UK, and having moved to Canada they borrowed their parent's automatic car for a while. Following “good practice”, they used the “parking brake” when leaving the car (but just used the foot brake when stopped at lights). That parking brake hadn't been used often and it seized up on the drive. A mechanic came round to fix it, and gave her the advice “just don't use the thing”!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday October 27 2017, @07:05PM (1 child)
The car I have doesn't have the buzzer. That light doesn't help you in times of severe distraction either. I've driven with the handbrake for an extended period maybe twice in my life. The last time was maybe six months ago during some rather stressful and intense events, but it was for like 10 fucking miles. You don't even feel it on either, which was really surprising to me. I think it was mostly disengaged and only down enough to make the light go on, because there was very little damage and it was new brakes.
You're somewhat right about the appendix, but I've religiously used mine my whole life while parked. Never even considered using it while at an intersection. Thought it was a bizarre suggestion really.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday October 28 2017, @12:17PM
In the UK, standard practice (as taught by driving instructors) is that if you're going to be stationary for more than a few seconds, then you should engage the handbrake. When you're ready to move off, engage gear, press lightly on the accelerator, raise the clutch to biting point, then release the handbrake as you finish raising the clutch.
In practice some drivers will just hold their foot on the brake the whole time instead. If they're on level grown or a downward slope they can just release the foot brake and head off, but if you're on a slight incline, with one foot on the clutch and the other on the foot brake, there's no way you're not going to get your foot from the brake to the accelerator and then raise the clutch before the car starts to roll backwards! So you'll see some cars where the brake lights are on (foot brake) until a few seconds before they move off, when the driver has engaged the hand brake instead to release their foot for the accelerator.
(Most people in the UK pass their driving test in the UK on a manual vehicle. You can take your test on an automatic, but that then only entitles you to drive automatics. Automatic sales are rising, but 75% of new cars sold in the UK are still manuals.)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 26 2017, @12:08AM (1 child)
The motorist stopped in traffic at a stop sign is fully aware of roughly how long they will be there, and is fully aware of the fact that being stopped in bumper to bumper traffic there isn't a goddamned thing they can do even about anything that might happen until traffic starts to flow. Having the foot on the brake is all the control they need.
This is a perfect case of law enforcement extending the law simply because they want to.
You probably heard while growing up that it was against the law to drive barefoot, because you didn't have control of the vehicle when barefoot. The thing is, that was never the law in any state, and the idea that you didn't have control of the vehicle was just something the cops CLAIMED without a shred of evidence. No state tries to enforce the barefoot nonsense anymore.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:42AM
The barefoot thing was a law in Florida, may still be... had a trooper quote it to me once when I stepped out with no shoes on, but that was a "friendly" verbal warning only stop.
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