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New York state Sen. John Liu introduced a bill last week that would ban texting while walking. Pedestrians could be fined between $25 and $250 if they're seen "using any portable device" while crossing a roadway, according to a copy of the bill obtained by The Guardian.
"Using" a device means looking at it, playing games, being online, sending emails, texting and more, according to the bill. The legislation makes exceptions for emergency first-responders and those trying to contact hospitals, fire departments, police and other emergency services.
The penalties for people who don't look up from their phones while crossing are already pretty high, aren't they?
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New York Might Fine You for Texting While Crossing the Street
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"In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognize terrorism if it
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-- Ross M. Greenberg
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snow on Tuesday May 21 2019, @08:19PM (38 children)
I can see ticketing people for texting while driving. That can kill someone, or cause a major accident.
On the other hand, texting while walking can only really get yourself killed, so the punishment is self-inflicting. You can't legislate away stupidity.
Not to mention the waste of tax payer dollars ticketing people for texting while walking.
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Tuesday May 21 2019, @09:03PM
Yes, please legislate that they may not be part of a minor accident. Phone-distracted people must be forced to have major accidents (with them being the major). Then, an annex to the legislation will automatically submit them for a Darwin Award. That would be a win-win-win situation.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 21 2019, @09:08PM (13 children)
> texting while walking can only really get yourself killed
Mess with the flow on the road, making someone swerve, end up with a dead biker. I've seen something similar (car pulling out a parking spot rather than a distracted pedestrian), that was unpleasant.
Someone overreacting can easily swerve away from the cell moron and right into an oncoming car, killing a few people.
If people were smart enough to put down their digital pacifiers, nobody would bother to think that they could be justified in making laws about it.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday May 22 2019, @12:48AM
If the pedestrian has the right of way, the swerving is completely on the driver. If the pedestrian doesn't have the right of way, make that the crime (which it already is, definitionally).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 22 2019, @11:30PM (11 children)
Once again, we have laws that harm everyone because there are stupid people in the world.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 23 2019, @12:13AM (10 children)
I'm not sure I see "Don't text while crossing the street" as much of a harm.
It's a sad thing that there are so many rules to try to prevent idiots from doing things that should be common sense, but without a law, in this individualistic paradise, would just tell you to fuck off and mind your own business, while endangering others.
The main problem is that people just keep generating ever more efficient idiots.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 23 2019, @01:02AM (9 children)
Why is your perception relevant? We could just not have the law and be better off for it.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 23 2019, @01:16AM (8 children)
Until you're the victim of a chain reaction caused by one of these morons, who then successfully argues in court that he wasn't breaking any law, leaving you with all the liabilities and costs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 23 2019, @11:19AM (7 children)
You were driving unsafely then. Plus, what liabilities and costs is he going to take on? It's a $200 fine, right? And it doesn't go to the alleged victims, right? In other words, it's no different liability-wise than what you had in the absence of the law.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 23 2019, @09:57PM (6 children)
> You were driving unsafely then.
Who said the "victim" caused it, or was even driving ? My neighbor got pinned against a wall by a car which got hit by someone else. He was on the sidewalk, and someone lost control. That wasn't because of a cellphone, but his shattered legs and months or rehab didn't really care.
A rule against texting allows to clearly assign blame to the person who causes an accident, when they would normally try to hide behind a pedestrian-is-always-right, blaming a driver whose actual responsibility will vary on a case-by-case basis.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 24 2019, @04:53AM (5 children)
Once again, I go back to my original point. Why are we harming millions of people (half who don't even live near NYC!) just because there are stupid people in NYC?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 24 2019, @07:19PM (4 children)
What is the harm ? "Don't be stupid!" isn't harmful. Nanny-state, but not harmful.
Unless it's an excuse for facial discrimination, or the department's budget is tight, the cops always have the choice to let people off with a warning,
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 24 2019, @11:55PM
Well, there you go. If your undesirable happens to have a smart phone when you frisk them, you can get them on this.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 25 2019, @12:08AM (2 children)
Nanny-state is pretty harmful. First, it's yet another case where someone imposes on the rights of millions because there are stupid people in the world. Notice how no one has even bothered to quantify how bad texting while crossing roads is.
Second, it creates yet more avenues for authorities to bully us. As I noted elsewhere, if police frisk me and find a smart phone, they now can claim I was attempting to cross a road while distracted and apply the appropriate fine. It's my word against theirs.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Sunday May 26 2019, @09:36AM (1 child)
You know, in the Soviet Union and in East Germany, the people who were worried about the abuse of the state were either doing illegal stuff, or suspecting their neighbors would invent charges to get rid of them. It took major purges for ordinary people to worry that the cops would make up stuff to round up a quota, because otherwise there were enough of the previous two categories to keep them busy.
Even North Korea these days seems to round up anyone who steps sideways, but the good obedient people just live their lives
The land of the free, in khallow's mind, is a hellscape of people trying to get you regardless of your behavior.
You're either sadly right, warranting immediate radical action to defend your precious constitution, or highly paranoid.
Pick one, and act swiftly.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 27 2019, @01:02AM
Sounds like a valid reason to be concerned about nanny state creep, doesn't it?
I don't think you get the point of this exercise. The authorities would make sure to occasionally pick up the ordinary people in order to maintain fear - hence, the point of the quota even in the absence of targets to enforce the quota on. Perhaps they would choose not to jail you this time... but the threat would always be there. That keeps the ordinary people in line. They always have something to hide.
And yet, this very story is documentation that the land of the free is under assault by people who want to govern our behavior merely because stupid people might get hurt with little to no concern over the actual risks and benefits. Meanwhile we have a number of stories here where law enforcement has outright faked evidence in order to secure a conviction. It's not some paranoid delusion, but fact that this is going on to some degree.
Let us keep in mind the two things that a tyranny needs: 1) a common enemy, and 2) fear. The best common enemies are the ones that can't go away, such as imaginary enemies of the state in the case of 20th Century Communism. Here, that common enemy is stupid people. No matter how many nanny laws are passed, there will continue to be stupid people doing stupid things. Hence, an eternal reason to pass more nanny laws.
And this growing plethora of nanny laws makes it likely that one will have to break a few of them in order to function. That's where the fear comes in. The police have the power to arbitrarily enforce these laws. After all, they're not going to enforce the cell phone law in the first place unless they feel like it. Hence, we have the fear that a budding tyranny needs to keep ordinary people in line.
Finally, what does "act swiftly" mean? Why am I not doing that right now?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday May 21 2019, @09:09PM (5 children)
This is exactly the same misguided argument I've heard against motorcycle helmet laws. When the person without the helmet, or the person whose texting and paying no attention end up sprawled out over the hood of your car, you find out how quickly it becomes your problem too.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday May 21 2019, @09:17PM (1 child)
How should this be enforced? Hide a cop in the garbage can on the corner? Plain clothes officers? Is that even a good use of resources?
It won't be enforced. Why create new laws that aren't even enforced?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by EvilSS on Tuesday May 21 2019, @09:58PM
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday May 21 2019, @09:17PM
And the problem of all the cars behind you, and probably ahead of you and to either side at an intersection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @09:30PM
How did that helmet law work? Oh what's that? We seem to now have a shortage of donated organs?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 22 2019, @11:34PM
Insurance covers that. And they receive a lesson on the wisdom of paying attention.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crunchy_one on Tuesday May 21 2019, @09:41PM (3 children)
Consider the emotional stress, not the mention the property damage, suffered by the person operating the vehicle that hits the phone-glued idiot that just walked in front of them.
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Wednesday May 22 2019, @02:28AM (2 children)
Every time you drive a motorized vehicle, you have to accept the possibility that you might kill someone, and that you are putting your own convenience ahead of the lives of others. Some of that stress is completely justified.
If someone jaywalks in front of you (regardless of using a phone), that person should be at fault in the eyes of the law. People already don't have a right to jaywalk. All this law does is take away the rights of people who are already crossing when and where they are supposed to, and encourages drivers to do the wrong thing because "that pedestrian sees me so will get out of my way" - something which sadly already happens far too often.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday May 22 2019, @03:04PM (1 child)
Unless they were in a crosswalk in a state where drivers must yield the right of way to such people. In which case the driver might deserve guilt for not following that part of it.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by boltronics on Wednesday May 22 2019, @03:31PM
Exactly. It's quite common for me to cross a road at a T-intersection, and cars that are supposed to give way to pedestrians simply won't. Where I live, it's at a point that pedestrians will very frequently wait for cars to go first, either out of habit or concern, despite the pedestrians legally having the right of way.
I'm against anything that encourages more people to drive and less people to walk. Not everyone can drive (eg. kids, people on low incomes) so I see laws that give more power to drivers or laws that inconvenience pedestrians and bicycles as being detrimental to society. Then there are environmental aspects, health aspects, social class aspects, etc. to consider.
I guarantee the people that pushed this bill through use their car as a primary mode of transportation.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday May 21 2019, @10:13PM
You have to change the rules and put the liability where it belongs.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @12:31AM (1 child)
Because it's totally impossible that a driver could try to avoid the clueless pedestrian, lose control of their vehicule and cause another accident or hit another innocent pedestrian...
Serious question: Is there actually some form of tought process that occurs in some people's brains before their fingers start tapping on the keyboard ?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday May 23 2019, @11:24AM
Or they could be better drivers and drive like people could step in front of their car at any time (just like all the other crazy stuff people do on or around roads). That's one of the basic ideas behind defensive driving [wikipedia.org], for example. If you're driving in such a way that you have a stark choice between creaming an inattentive pedestrian and a catastrophic accident, then you're doing it wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @04:35AM
There are people who waddle a half mile through the city on their phones. On crowded sidewalks they're constantly in the way dragging trails of bum and dog shit everywhere they go.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday May 22 2019, @02:06PM (7 children)
From TFS:
Not high enough. It's not just their own lives they're putting at risk.
It comes down to a fundamental issue of liberty:
Putting other people and/or their property at risk and/or harming them and/or their property absent their informed consent is exactly the kind of thing the law should punish harshly.
If person X wants to jump off a cliff onto the rocks below and there's no risk to anyone else, that's fine, go ahead, jump. But if person X walks in front of some non-consenting person's moving vehicle, that's not okay under any possible set of circumstances.
I suggest anyone who needs to think this through would benefit from taking a look at:
And from the parent comment:
A driver may be involved in a more extensive accident that is initiated by trying to avoid the idiot with their face in their device, injuring themselves and potentially others beyond the original idiot. The driver and/or passenger(s) may be killed; or injured by impact, loss of control of the vehicle, airbag or other safety measure, other vehicles also trying to avoid the idiot, etc.
In addition, the driver(s) and/or passengers may suffer stress, guilt and/or depression (misplaced no doubt, but nonetheless, many people would be horrified that they had killed or injured someone.)
And of course, the vehicle(s) involved may be damaged, incurring a financial penalty that may not be covered by the idiot pedestrian, and a potential loss of service of the vehicle, and a time-consuming interaction with law enforcement, insurance companies, and perhaps lawyers, that any sane individual would just as soon avoid.
--
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 22 2019, @11:40PM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday May 23 2019, @02:56PM (5 children)
The page attempts to describe a fundamentally correct approach for evaluating both existing law, and proposed law.
I have reasonable confidence that it is complete as it stands, at least on this issue. If you'll read the text that adjoins the post, I specifically pointed out that it can be applied to existing law.
--
It's not really how I look that reveals my age.
It's using complete sentences when I text.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 24 2019, @04:46AM (4 children)
And I fix the problems with that attempt.
And I already showed how that confidence is misplaced. Regulation is not zero cost - it can impose considerable costs well above that of intrusion on liberties (which let us note are enormous in this case).
Even if we take the chart at face value, we still end up with the situation that we're now regulating normal pedestrian behavior on very tenuous safety grounds. That intrusion on liberties thing, remember? What's next on that old slippery slope? Will you be prohibited from walking in public without a license?
One can always invent costs and downplay intrusions on liberty to rationalize a bit of tyranny. Perhaps, we should resist that by not doing it here?
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday May 24 2019, @08:57PM (3 children)
Must have been in some other thread. Not in this one, you didn't.
No, you didn't. You said something was missing, which you were incorrect about. The chart applies to both existing and proposed legislation, as specifically explained in the supporting text on the page. The question it answers is "should there be a law", which applies perfectly well to both existing laws or proposed laws. I provided specific examples of how to do both.
You know what a straw man is, right? That's where you beat on something your respondent didn't say, imply, or refer to. Specifically, I never claimed — ever, anywhere — that:
If you're trying to say that the chart leads to this, you'll have to provide a specific example of this; that claim, without anything to back it up, is meaningless. What pedestrian behavior, exactly? I'm all ears. Well, eye. :)
If you're just saying we have bad law / regulation now WRT personal liberty, well yes, of course. The chart is an attempt to help us identify bad law, existing or proposed, WRT personal liberty.
If you're trying to say something other than those two... well, you're being very unclear.
...you're still dealing with your excess straw inventory, I see. I suggest you find a grazer. I'm not in need of any straw, thanks.
--
No one said the joke would be funny.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 24 2019, @11:54PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday May 25 2019, @12:44PM (1 child)
Rebuttal? No. That's because the flowchart isn't about costs of regulation, nor is it relevant to the ideas presented.
Nor is it about, or does it incorporate: corruption; racism; misogyny; misandry; xenophobia; ignorance; classism; wealth/poverty; intelligence; jingoism; superstition; healthcare; homelessness; regulatory capture; pollution; urban congestion; banking of highway curves; false flags; espionage; dishonesty; contracts; intellectual property; food safety; etc.
All of these things, and many more, are factors in making, enforcing, and breaking laws, and all may incur effects on the validity of a law depending on what a particular law addresses. All should be considered when a law that would have any effect upon the relevant factors is looked at, again regardless if the law exists already, is a modification to an existing law, or is a proposal for a new law. Which is not to say that there aren't other things to consider as well, any one of which might make or break a decision that a law is appropriate, valid, etc. There may be — or there may not.
Every relevant factor deserves a similar decision making process to the one I outline for triaging law by its relationship to personal liberty. Any one of the relevant triaging processes could rule a law out, presuming it was considered honestly and with due diligence.
Personal liberty is one factor. The chart is obviously about that one factor. That's all. It would be nearly impossible to work out every matter needing consideration for any law in general in this chart, or any chart that wasn't about as large as the state of Alaska. However, when personal liberty is involved, the chart provides a reasonable means of triage; at least thus far, no one has pointed out any holes in the reasoning. Including you — you're distracted by another factor, and confused about its relevance. I can clear that up for you (again): It's not relevant to considering personal liberty.
I'm sorry you're been unable to understand what the page is trying to tell you. However, I've used up more than enough time attempting to explain this to you, and so I am done here.
--
Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit
amet, consectetur, adipisci velit...
Well, Cicero clearly didn't know some of the women I've known.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 25 2019, @09:19PM
Point is, that should be in there and it's not.
Then your ideas as presented aren't relevant to the discussion. One also wonders if you could be bothered to due diligence on the criteria you claim to care about like intrusions on liberties.
Apparently, your ideas involve attempts to create large schools of red herring. The great irony here is that a consideration of cost of regulation, as I proposed, automatically includes all these factors as they become relevant.
What I find remarkable is that you present, apparently without much effort, a variety of criteria, some of considerable importance, that should be included in any consideration of creation or increase in law and regulation, and yet you haven't backtracked on your claim that you have "a fundamentally correct approach". Sorry, it's quite obvious you do not when you are poking holes in your own arguments.
Then it is useless. Because there are other factors.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday May 22 2019, @03:02PM
It also causes a police and EMS response, possibly a hospital ER visit if the person isn't killed instantly, and if the person is fortunate enough to have life insurance would cost an early payout to that company thereby raising insurance rates.
It might be interesting to investigate how much of that cost is recouped and how much is passed off to the taxpayers. That might tell one whether the net cost of creating and enforcing this as a law is worth more than the costs lost when dude dies from it and doesn't have an estate that foots those bills.
This sig for rent.