It is the thinking process that distracts. Did no one see the test on one of the driving programs where they asked a racing driver to negotiate some cones while answering some maths questions? He went from a perfect result to knocking over nearly every cone! That is why tests have shown handsfree phones to be nearly as much of a distraction as handheld phones.

Maybe a compromise would be to ban using a phone while driving for more than one minute. I saw a woman recently starting driving her car in Johnsonville, immediately start talking on her cell phone and then proceed to make her way onto the motorway and drive all the way down the Ngaranga Gorge, talking the whole way and driving relatively slowly because she was concentrating on her conversation! I was stuck behind her and there wasn’t an opportunity to safely pass her.

The best research seems to show that overall cellphone related road crashes are a very very small proportion of the total (there will be under-reporting though).

Even so the glorious NZ media has embarked on the Liabore Party campaign to ban them. This is so Dear Leader can be seen to be “doing something”. This is much easier than asking the police to enforce road rules rather than sitting eating doughnuts in speed camera vehicles.

To me, it seems that as long as we keep campaigning against cellphones rather than assessing the evidence surrounding them then they must be eventually be banned for political reasons.

Even so. Texting on the move is surely plain dumb.

Obviously, especially with the answer options. Though in the context of your mood yesterday I wouldn’t be so sure it was just about “taking the piss”. A new day is upon us though

The NZ Herald’s regular questions to readers are interesting in this regard. They seem to be designed not to genuinely survey public opinion but to raise people’s blood pressure.

That’s the whole point. It’s good that you get it.

[DPF: Good God - that poll is obviously taking the piss and not pretending to be a scientific poll]

Do you think a law that makes something as cheap to grow as tomatoes worth $8,000 a kilo is a sensible law?

Would you grow tomatoes if you could sell them for $8,000/kilo?

Question 3 – why do Maori’s have the highest imprisonment rate in the world?

Question 4 – why are child abuse statistics appalling ?

I find almost all poll questions to be extremely poorly formulated and designed to favour a certain outcome. Why don’t poll companies provide more objective questions?? When their questions are so consistently badly formed, it only opens the door to allegations of political cronyism. Perhaps they should offer for each question a pro and an anti scenario.

For example-

Question 1- Do you believe the use of cellphones and texting whilst driving should be banned?

Question 2 (alternative) – Whilst crime is rife, violence is on the upswing, police are unable to provide even basic levels of civil protection and cannot respond in a timely fashion to emergency situations, should they be messed about by the introduction of even more useless unenforceable fucked in the head socialist style legislation???

How many people would say ‘yes’ to the question: ‘Should a Trade Union be obliged to register with the government at the beginning of each year before an election is called?’