Thursday, July 30, 2009

Ignoring reports

It's sometimes hard to tell the differerence between a worthwhile and truthful research report and one that's just a load of ... and I am unsure about this one. Apparently truck drivers who text while driving are 23 times more likely to be in a crash or just miss being in a crash than an undistracted driver. For car drivers (and it pains me to say this M) the greatest danger seems not to be texting while driving but dialing while driving. So ... just how helpful are reports like this? Would you feel safer today texting while driving? The report is based on research conducted between 2004 and 2007 by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. There was no mention in the report I read if there could be a cultural, geographic or technological differential with the results - afterall, phone technology has come a long way since 2007. And did it look at types of phones - for example, and wouldn't this be interesting to know - leaving out the obvious no-texting while driving option - is it safer to text with an iPhone than a Nokia? Hmmmm. Or should that be Mmmmmm - iPhone. (And could there be any truth to the rumours hitting the tech press this morning that Apple is going to release a tablet device - somewhere between the iPod Touch and laptop size - before year end? Could this finally be the 10-inch touch screen device I asked for months ago?)

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