Banning driver distractions - Part II

In my previous post I favoured the banning cell phones and other driver distractions. Yesterday a National Post editorial came out against the new Ontario law. The Post thinks we should just be trusted to be responsible citizens. It would be nice if that were a realistic expectation - we could apply it to drinking and driving as well.

Today, Kelly McParland’s column in the Post, "Silencing the tools of stupidity" , is much more to my liking. The only quibble I might have with Mr. McParland's argument is that he doesn’t go quite far enough. He seems to suggest that "drinking coffee and eating jelly donuts or putting on lipstick while driving" shouldn’t or can’t also be banned. I don’t see why not. They all constitute "driving without due care and attention", they’re just as great a distraction and it’s no more difficult to enforce a ban than for cell phones.

If the Post editorial board wants to come out against laws that fly in the face of individual freedom and personal responsibility they ought to write an editorial that calls for the repeal of seatbelt and cycle helmet laws. These paternalistic laws only 'protect' people from themselves and they distract police from real safety issues. For example, in Victoria I regularly see cops harassing citizens by handing out seatbelt tickets. But I’ve NEVER, not once, seen them enforcing the law requiring drivers to stop at pedestrian crosswalks. Violations at crosswalks are frequent and result in many deaths and injuries each year. If that isn’t clear evidence of skewed priorities I don’t know what is.

Ban distractions in the driver’s seat

Ontario is set to ban cell phone use (and other distractions) by drivers. Normally I’m against government interference with private activities like, for example, wearing seatbelts and cycle helmets. It’s none of their damn business and such bans grease the slope.

But I make exceptions where other people’s activities may endanger my life and property. So I support banning the use of cell phones and other portable distractions (including wolfing down Big Macs and juggling hot coffee) by drivers whilst driving. Since so many people do these things banning them often meets with resistance. For example, a popular local radio host once opined (quoting from memory): "anyone who can’t handle a car while using a cell phone shouldn’t be on the road." Now there’s a certain logic to that and I tend to agree - any licensed driver should be capable of driving and phoning under most normal circumstances.

But there’s the problem. Under most normal, benign circumstances people get away with all sorts of behaviour. Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of the time careless driving habits don’t result in a crash. It’s that .001% that gets you. In a quickly evolving, hazardous situation a tiny difference in a driver’s attention and reaction time can make a huge difference. Within the last two months I experienced two such incidents. It was obviously a bad couple of months:

(1) driving home on a city street, nearing my turnoff I started signaling a left turn about a block ahead of the turn and a short time later started braking. There was an oncoming car so I had to wait - foot on the brake. Then I heard a horrible screeching of tires behind me and in my rear-view mirror was this big black pickup truck sliding towards me with his trailer whip-sawing side-to-side behind him. I thought that was it. All I could do was floor the gas pedal and try to avoid being rear-ended. Luckily, I did, but not by much. Now, that idiot truck driver had to have been distracted. My tail-lights and brake-lights were functioning (I checked later) and he had lots of time to see them so he’d have had no excuse. Perhaps he was on his cell-phone, I don’t know, but that kind of distraction would easily have been enough to explain his last-second panic braking and locked-wheel slide.

(2) on a city street again, the traffic light turned yellow and, as I often do, I proceeded through the intersection. A car in the intersection, in the on-coming turn lane, was signaling a left turn. I wasn’t quite half way through the intersection when the oncoming driver decided she had to beat the yellow light and, like a squirrel, turned right across my path. Only because I was fast enough to hit my brakes, tires screeching, did I avoid hitting her. All I can say is that if I’d been the slightest bit distracted, by anything, there’d have been a crash.

So go ahead, Ontario, ban the use of all those electronic do-dads in the driver’s seat. And I hope BC soon follows suit.

Update: Blue Like You has lots of commentary on this subject.

In a judicial 'recount' what do they 'count'?

In my riding of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca the Conservative candidate Troy DeSouza lost the election to Liberal Keith Martin by 68 votes. DeSouza requested a judicial recount which is to be held tomorrow and Tuesday.

I've always assumed that every ballot was checked and re-tallied. Not so, apparently.

Joanne at True Blue was aghast to discover that in the "recount" done in Vancouver South (Dosanjh vs Wei Young) the presiding judge decided not to open all the poll boxes:

... Tory candidate Wai Young said she was disappointed because Associate Chief Justice Partrick [sic] Dohm, who was in charge of the recount, elected not to open all the ballot boxes .

Joanne notes that it seems "sampling is allowed." Quoting a Canadian Press report:

…The Canada Elections Act gives the judge presiding over a recount the option of recounting votes from some or all of the ballot boxes, along with spoiled and rejected ballots - 259 of them in the case of Vancouver South. The results of the recount are considered final …

If true, this sucks, big-time! It's not a 'recount', but a somewhat arbitrary 'estimate' that's possibly less accurate than the original count. With contests this close (22 votes) unless they check and recount all the ballots there's no way to know with a certainty that satisfies the losing candidate. Not much wonder Wai Young says she is "disappointed".

There have already been suggestions of Elections Canada bias. This non-counting 'recount' can only further diminish voters' confidence in the process. Inevitably questions arise as to a judge's integrity, party affiliation, etc.

I'll be watching to see how the 'recount' goes in my riding tomorrow.

More at Climbing Out of the Dark, Crux of the Matter, Unambiguous and elsewhere.

Update (Oct 27): Blue Like You, sda, DAWG, Jack's Newswatch, Maclean's. Sda commenter Oz provides a relevant quote from a great champion of freedom:

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." ~Joseph Stalin

Upperdate(27 Oct) EJDF Recount confirms Martin win:

... Conservative challenger Troy DeSouza called off the recount after it became
apparent that the number of disputed ballots would not bridge the gap between
him and Martin.

... The Times Colonist won a precedent-setting decision to attend and report on the judicial recount. It's believed to be the first time a media organization has been allowed to witness the Elections Canada proceedings, which have previously been held in secret.

And there's a little more here.

UpperUpperdate (Oct 28): The Times Colonist provides the anatomy of the EJDF Martin/DeSouza recount. I still don't understand why DeSouza terminated the recount. According to the story: "Around 5:20 PM, with all the votes counted...". So why not let the the hard work of the 100 or so volunteers "count" as the final result?
More at Blue Like You.

Tory “attack” ads “poisoned” the election!

"Research" by Angus Reid pollsters Andrew Grenville and Mario Canseco proves that Conservative TV ads "poisoned" the election. (Canseco also appeared on CBC’s Politics (Friday, Oct 24 - about 17 minutes in) where he held Don Newman’s rapt attention.) This has to be some of the lamest, most idiotic drivel I’ve ever seen. According to their "research" the "attack" ads:

... persuaded 11 per cent of Canadian respondents not to vote for any candidate at all.

... were key to producing the lowest voter turnout in Canadian electoral history...

... were part of a disturbing trend that is "poisoning the well" of Canadian politics.

It’s hard to imagine people being this stupid. If I was otherwise neutral but extremely offended by one party’s ‘vicious’ "attack" ads I’d make damn sure I voted for someone else. One can’t help wondering whether the Angus Reid "researchers" controlled for the possibility that their poll questions might have suggested yet another lame excuse for respondents’ not bothering to vote - which they wouldn’t have anyway.

And oh, those ultra-sensitive lefty souls:

... Many supporters of Canada's centre-left parties tend to be more idealistic than Conservatives, said Grenville. Idealists, people who dream of a better world, are prone to drop out of the electoral process if they believe it has become corrupt or unethical, Grenville said.

What a load of unmitigated hooey! "Idealists" who "dream of a better world" and "drop out". Are they serious?! Also, these "idealistic" lefties are well known for their tendency to be violent should they happen to ‘disagree’ with their political opponents. For example, (and) they firebombed BC Premier Gordon Campbell’s wife’s school office, firebombed his constituency office and harassed him during a commercial flight ("So! He’s in a democracy.") The Angus Reid "researchers" are based in Vancouver so they have no excuse for not being aware of these events.

"More idealist than conservatives"? Methinks that’s the "researchers" nuanced way of keeping the "Conservatives are meanies" meme alive and well. Then, for good measure, they add the blatant insinuations - "corrupt or unethical".

And didn’t Grenville and Canseco watch the leaders’ debates? Never mind a few seconds of TV commercials, Stephen Harper was subjected to two full hours of sustained attacks from four of his "idealistic" rivals. They called him a "fraud" (May), uncaring and incompetent (Layton), a liar (Dion), a Bush stooge (many times, all of them). And these debates were replayed several times in full and segments were repeated in TV news stories.

This is all reminiscent of the loopy sympathy many media pundits developed for poor, sad Stephane Dion. Dion’s thrice restarted interview exposed his obvious ineptitude. Instead of keying on the obvious they turned it into an attack on that meany, Harper. And let’s not forget that moronic Andrew Coyne’s weeping over the "disgraceful" treatment of Dion - that "kind and decent man". What is this, election politics or the Oprah f***ing Winfry Show?

The ridiculous whining from a severely biased MSM peanut gallery has gotten way beyond tiresome.

Jennifer Lynch - how'd she get her CHRC appointment?

Ezra Levant finds it "hard to believe" that Jennifer Lynch, Chief of the scandal plagued Canadian "Human Rights" Commission, is a Conservative appointee. Delving deeper into her background Ezra notes that she's had a long association with the Progressive Conservatives; for example she was once Joe Clark's chief of staff. That's bad enough but Ezra has lot's more to say, reasonably concluding with: "Fire. Them. All. Starting with Lynch."

So, it's not really surprising that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson appointed her in 2007 and that he'd be reluctant to get rid of her.

Now let's hope that when PM Harper forms his new cabinet: (1) Nicholson will no longer be Justice Minister, and (2) the new Minister is a lot more inclined to clean house at the CHRC.

It's rumoured that Nicholson is being considered for the Foreign Affairs portfolio.

Denny Crane on gun control

Thank God for guns!


[H/t: Vinney]

What global warming?

Lawrence Solomon believes environmentalism is on the wane:

Stock market indexes have plummeted from their inflated peaks. Oil and other commodities have likewise plummeted. The next commodity to tumble from unsustainable peak levels: environmentalism.

Three reasons:

... For the same reason that clothes go out of fashion after the masses embrace them, mass-marketed environmentalism will come to be disdained. That won’t sell for long.

... Much of [environmentalism] is misguided, based on misunderstanding and vacuity. Global warming is by far the biggest such example.

... A third reason for my prediction that environmentalism has peaked is the instinct for self-preservation among the political leadership.

And Lorne Gunter’s column amplifies the global warming case:

"It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there
just isn't any global warming." Eg:

... Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with CO2."

... An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming
is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ? This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."

... Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ? cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."