What can you do on Windows 10 that you can't do on Windows XP or Windows 7?

On Sun, 6 May 2018 01:53:59 +0000 (UTC), Bob J Jones
wrote:

In , Eric Stevens
wrote:

not reliably, it isn't.

The telco records will have that information.

Think about the logic of that intuitive statement. Think. Really think.

While I applaud your desire to fit your intuition with facts directly from
the Telco, you have to realize that even if you could PROVE that every
accident in the USA from the ten-year period that cellphone ownership rates
exploded, you STILl have to account for the fact that the accident rate is
completely unaffected by the number (and presumed use) of cellphones while
driving.

All the telco records on the planet can't over ride that simple fact.

You are welcome to argue that in court. You might even get away with
it.

Your argument above reminds me of Macarthyism of the 1950s.
You have latched on to a flawed theory, and you'll prosecute to the end
anyone who disagrees with your flawed theory.

How did nospam disagree?
He simply spoke logic.

You, Eric Stevens, are only speaking intuition.

Nope. Real world experience.

You don't have to agree with logic, but you should be an adult about logic
in that your logic should fit the facts.

I may be wrong, but you seem to dislike logic (am I right about that?), so,
it seems (if you dislike basic logic), that the discussion with you can't
proceed further as an adult discussion, using facts and logic.

Until you start thinking logically, you'll never understand the facts.

What facts?
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Sun, 6 May 2018 01:44:32 +0000 (UTC), Bob J Jones
wrote:

In , nospam
wrote:

what you're missing is that there are *many* other activities that can
cause a distraction, including drinking coffee, eating food, fussing
with the radio, dealing with kids and much, much more.

distracted drivers don't need cellphones to be distracted.

Usually I am at odds with nospam, but on James Comey and cellphones, we're
in violent agreement.

So far, in this thread, only nospam has progressed to the SECOND STAGE of
understanding of why cellphone use has zero effect on accident rates.

It's like understanding the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Intuition won't help here.

Lots of people intuit a lot of things, and one of those intuitive things
that any person can intuit is that cellphone use MUST be causing accidents.
It must! It has to! Right?

Well, no.
The fact is clear.

They don't.
Nobody on this planet can find those accidents in the "good data".
They don't exist.

It's like the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle where intuition made
Einstein think "God doesn't play dice". But he does.

The "good data" shows that God does play dice with the universe.
So even Einstein's intuition was wrong.

You have to throw intuition out the window to UNDERSTAND what nospam said.

Nope.

Only once you start thinking logically and accept the facts, can you then
progress to the second stage of WHY cellphone use has absolutely zero
effect on the overall accident rate.

I commend nospam for having gotten to the second stage, and, if you know
me, that's a big deal since I only speak logical fact.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

absent dashcam video of both the road *and* the driver, there is no way
to know exactly what happened and when.

matching up cellphone call logs with the *assumed* time of the crash
(which is what they do now) means nothing.

You are welcome to argue that in court. You might even get away with
it.

there's nothing to get away with. call logs are meaningless.

Tell that to the judge.

no need. he'll know it has no merit.

Wrong. Many cases in the UK (and in other countries) have used call logs as
evidence to support the prosecution case. Convictions for careless or
dangerous driving involving phones are common.

then the defense team are incompetent.

Hardly. They can't argue there wasn't an accident.

as i said:
[Snip]

if it was, a ****load of people would be in jail.

Most people don't end up getting caught or having accidents.

which means phones aren't a direct cause of crashes.

Erroneous logic. Just because many people get away with not having
accidents whilst using a phone (due to other circumstances) doesn't mean
phones can't ever be the cause of an accident.

and why focus *only* on phones but not all of the *other* forms of
distraction, including eating food, fiddling with the radio, reading
paper maps (which is no longer common but once was) and many other
things.

In court cases they don't only look at phones. Twiddling the radio or
drinking coffee can also be causes and used to show careless driving. If
the police saw you reading a map you would most definitely have been pulled
over.

bad drivers don't need phones to be bad.

Agree.

Doesn't mean "good" drivers should get away with bad habits. A good driver
is only one accident away from becoming a bad driver.

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sun, 06 May 2018 00:10:02 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

It may be true that no one has been able to extract from
the overall noisy data evidence of cell phones influencing
the accident rate. But it also possible determine whether
or not a person was using a cell phone at the time of an
accident.

not reliably, it isn't.

The telco records will have that information.

the telco records don't show what the driver did or did not do or what
road hazards may have existed at the time.

I never claimed they did.

actually, you did:
The telco records will have that information.

"that information", as you will see if you read above, was "But it
also possible determine whether or not a person was using a cell phone
at the time of an accident."

again, not normally, it isn't.

That's because normally nobody tries. However I used to investigate
accidents for a living and I know from experience what can be learned
when you try. Suffice it to say that in this part of the world (New
Zealand) the Serious CRash Investigation Unit of the NZ Police always
obtains cellphone records if there is a cellphone in a car involved in
the crash. It's standard practice.

In our country - The Netherlands - similar procedures are followed
and, as you say, often several pieces of information can be gathered and
- together - can often determine - beyond a reasonable doubt - whether or
not mobile phone use was the cause of the crash.

People have been convicted - to jail time or/and damages or/and a
fine -, but according to nospam and his twin brother that can't/doesn't
happen.

[...]

nospam wrote:
In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

"that information", as you will see if you read above, was "But it
also possible determine whether or not a person was using a cell phone
at the time of an accident."

again, not normally, it isn't.

simple example:

a driver could have answered a call and told the caller that he's
driving and he'll call back later.

15 seconds later, a drunk swerves into his path, resulting in a
collision.

is the cellphone the cause of the crash? no. it was the drunk driver.

They can both be guilty. Had the non-drunk driver not been distracted he
may have reacted quicker and avoided the collision. Obviously, just being
drunk is already an offence, but it doesn't necessarily mean the driver
caused the accident.

In , Eric Stevens
wrote:

Just as with cellphones, you can't deny the "good data".
The accident rate is completely unaffected by cellphone laws.

Not quite. It is not possible to detect the effect of cellphones on
the accident rate. That is not the same as saying cellphone use has
had no effect on the accident rate.

By the way - I agree with you - so you're one of the few on this thread who
is beginning to use adult logical thought processes to fit their thinking
process to the actual good data out there.

Do you know why the first gravitational waves that were directly measured
were from one of the most violent collisions in the entire universe?

Really. Do you know why?
It's because the effect is massive.

Something that is massive "can" be detected, even if it's 13 billion light
years separated from today.

The problem is that the effect is 10 to the minus 43, which is tiny.

Same with cellphone ownership rates (and presumed use while driving).

The collision in time of cellphones and driving is massive.
And yet, if there is any effect, it's so tiny that it's below the noise
level.

Think about that fact.

You'll note that if there is any effect, it's below the noise level, which
is what I said in the original post that started this tangent, when I said:
"The fact is that nobody on this entire planet (and, trust me,
everyone has looked) can find any relationship whatsoever (up, down,
or otherwise) in the overall accident rate in each of the 50 states
of the USA (together or separately) to the absolutely astoundingly
utterly huge explosion in cellphone ownership rates when cellphone
existence (and presumed use) in vehicles skyrocketed from 0 percent
to almost 100% in just a few years - and which has plateued (due to
saturation)."

You see, I know something that hasn't dawned on most of you here, although
some of you are coming to your senses simply because you're beginning to
understand that intuition doesn't solve the conundrum.

The conundrum is that the good data very clearly shows no measurable effect
on the accident rate - but what you're realizeing is that there might be an
effect (and there probably is an effect) but it's so small as to be
undetectable over the noise level.

Think about the logic of that statement please.

This isn't about intuition, since everyone (including me) automatically
intuits that there must be an increase in accident rates corresponding to
the amount of use while driving, perhaps dampened by those people who are
naturally able to handle the distractions better (remember the hint about
how insurance rates are set).

Let's go back to that hint about insurance rates, and how they're set.

Only nospam hazarded a guess as to what insurance companies deem a greater
risk of accidents, but since nospam already knows the facts, I didn't
respond because I'm trying to get the rest of you to UNDERSTAND.

Think about how insurance companies assess risk.

That is a key to the answer of why cellphones have no measureable effect on
the accident rate.

In news
Erroneous logic. Just because many people get away with not having
accidents whilst using a phone (due to other circumstances) doesn't mean
phones can't ever be the cause of an accident.

Intuition is fine - we all have it - and we all intuit that cellphone use
while driving must be an "added distraction" that didn't exist before which
must, therefore, "increase" the accident rate. Right?

Nobody (not even me) intuits otherwise.
The problem is in scale.

Remember the detection of gravitational waves?
The initial cause of the gravitational wave was massive right?
I mean, two neutrons stars, combined about 60 times the mass of the sun,
crashed together, losing a handful of suns of massenergy in a split second,
causing the waves to ripple outward for the past 13 billion years until
they were detected on earth.

The waves that were detected were something like 10 to the minus 43 of the
background noise.

So what you have is two things:
1. A massive change,
2. That barely causes a ripple in spacetime.

Think about that becuase the analogy is the same to cellphone use while
driving.

The intuition that cellphone use while driving is an added distraction is
actually correct - but the ramifications to the sudden and massive
collision in time of cellphones existing prior to cellphones existing
caused no measurable change whatsoever in the accident rate in the good
data that the US Census Bureau collects and has been collecting since the
dawn of automobiles. So that's good data you can't just throw out with the
bath water.

Any theory adults have on the effect of cellphone use on the accident rate
has to fit the good data.

And it does fit.
You just don't understand how it fits yet.

Until you realize what nospam said, and what I'm trying to get you to
understand is reality, you'll be fueling all your theories on pure
intuition, which, remember, we all have.

Nobody has intuition that is wrong in this case.
The question is just as it is in the gravitational waves.

The effect is about 10 to the minus 43, remember?
The effect is in the noise level.

Once you realize that fact, and I don't think most people here have
progressed yet to that realization, any further explanation will be to no
avail.

I will remind you though, that insurance companies know who is going to
have an accident (so to speak), so I will remind you that there "is" a way
to tell who is most affected by this cellphone effect you speak of and that
we all intuit.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, since you have to first come to the adult
logical realization that the cellphone-caused accidents are so low as to be
hidden within the noise level of the good accident statistics.

That's why everyone instantly resorts to bad data, i.e., anecdotal data,
and why everyone is desperately trying to figure out a way to get the Telco
data so as to "prove" their hypothesis.

And yet, the obvious is so obvious that they don't even see it.
Yet.

In court cases they don't only look at phones. Twiddling the radio or
drinking coffee can also be causes and used to show careless driving. If
the police saw you reading a map you would most definitely have been pulled
over.

Once we bring in "laws" to the equation, we have to realize that the good
data show that the only first-order effect of *all* safety related laws is
to revenue generation.

There is no safety effect, overall, in the good data, the data that
aggregates over all 50 states over a period of decades, over something like
15,000 studies, each of which has its flaws and strengths, but overall, the
picture is extremely clear.

The *only* first-order relationship anyone has ever found reliably for all
safety-related laws is in revenue generation (NJ and California generate
the most, by the way, per mile driven, in revenue generation from cellphone
laws, as I recall from a prior Usenet conversation on this topic).

The non-first-order effect of all safety related laws is only in length of
hospital stay, which makes sense, and which is so far removed from the
accident that it's a complexity that nobody here is prepared to handle yet,
since very few people here have progressed past their initial intuition
that cellphones in use while driving "must" be causing accidents at an
alarming rate.


bad drivers don't need phones to be bad.

Agree.

Doesn't mean "good" drivers should get away with bad habits. A good driver
is only one accident away from becoming a bad driver.

Ah. You're getting closer to understanding WHY there is zero measurable
effect on the accident rate due to the utterly stupendously huge and sudden
skyrocketing of cellphone ownership rates (and presumed use while driving).

I think you've progressed such that you're ready for another hint.

HINT: What are the top X (say, 10? or maybe 20? or maybe even 100?) common
distractions while driving, and what is their *individual* effect on the
accident rate?

In news wrote:

Yes it means that you have failed to understand the background to the
statistics.

Hehhehheh ... you have obviously never looked at the good data.
Since I've had this argument in the past, nospam knows, at least, that if
and when we're ready to actually show you the good data, we can.

But you're not ready for actual data yet.
You haven't progressed to that stage.

BTW, your intuition is correct that cellphone-related distractions must be
causing additional accidents - and - guess what? EVERYONE intuits that.

Right?
Nobody doesn't intuit that.
Not even me.

The only difference between you and me is that you've stopped thinking the
moment you intuited that cellphone-related distractions must be causing
accidents.

You turned your brain off at that point.
The only difference between you and me is that I kept my brain on after I
intuited that.

I looked for the accidents in the good statistical data.
They don't exist.

That's the elephant in the room that any theory you have has to account
for.

BTW, my theory accounts for that - and it still posits that cellphone use
must be causing accidents - but you're not ready for an adult theory until
you accept the fact that the data of the elephant in the room is good data.

Just as Einstein posited in the very paper that proposed that massenergy
moving through the spacetime fabric would never be measured above the noise
level, you have to progress in thought before you can understand why the
effect you so dearly intuit isn't measured yet above the noise level of the
good accident rate statistics.

The problem is that there are so many badly measured data about motor
accidents that it is not possible to reach meaningful conclusions
about the role of cellphones. The bad data starts with the accident
investigation and from there it gets worse.

Ah. You're getting much closer now to what is really happening with the
accident rate and what the relationship is to cellphone-related
distractions!

I applaud you for your logical reasoning.

You're getting closer to understanding WHY there is zero measurable
effect on the accident rate due to the utterly stupendously huge and sudden
skyrocketing of cellphone ownership rates (and presumed use while driving).

I think you've progressed such that you're ready for another hint.

HINT: What are the top X (say, 10? or maybe 20? or maybe even 100?) common
distractions while driving, and what is their *individual* effect on the
accident rate?

Even if you prove there is no elephant poop in the elevator, you still have
to explain what the elephant is doing in the room.

Is it pink? Maybe it's a halucination.

Jokes aside, there is a reason I keep bringing up quantum mechanics and the
elephant in the room.

The elephant in the room in quantum mechanics was the gold-foil experiment,
or the double-split experiment, or the peculiar orbit of Mercury, where the
elephant in the room had to be accounted for by people who intuited
otherwise.

In all three cases, everyone intuited wrong. Everyone.
(Well, Einstein intuited right - but he was wrong on the cosmological
constant, he was wrong on uncertainty, he was wrong on measurement of
gravitational waves, etc.)

So what made everything think outside their intuition?
The answer is the elephant in the room.

1. The elephant in the room on the shape of the atom was the gold-foil
experiment. Everything people intuited about the shape of the atom was
wrong up until that point - so people had to figure out how to explain the
elephant in the room, which is that a canon ball bounced back after hitting
a piece of tissue paper.

2. The elephant in the room in the double slit experiment is that the
photons seemed to *know* that they were being watched! They somehow changed
from wave to particle based on whether they were being observed. The
elephant in the room was to explain how that could possibly be, since the
fact of the experiment is easily reproduced.

3. The elephant in the room in the orbit of Mercury was actually proved not
by intuition of Einstein, but by Sir Arthur Eddington who measured the
bending of the light around the sun during an eclipse in 1919.

Likewise, nobody here who is fueled entirely by intuition will ever
understand why their intuition doesn't fit the facts.

BTW, the irony is that cellphone use *does* affect accident rates - but
very few people here are yet ready to understand the magnitude of that
effect until they accept that their intuition has stopped their thinking
process just outside the door.

As in the case of Shroedinger's cat, you won't know if the elephant is in
the room or not, until you actually think about how to figure out what is
really going on.

[That's the first time of saying]

Yep. It's a halucination.

Here's where I have to stop talking to you as an adult would, since you
clearly call the "good data" a "hallucination".

What you're saying, in effect, is what Einstein said when he said he
preferred to think the moon is still there when he's not looking, or when
he said God doesn't play dice.

Remember, Einstein worked mainly on intuition - so - even he had to admit
his "biggest blunder" was the cosmological constant, where he intuited that
the universe was static and hence he missed out on what Hubble found by
simple observation of fact.

Likewise, you're missing out since you call the observation of fact a
"hallucination".

Until you grow up past that feeling that anything you didn't intuit must be
a hallucination, you'll never progress to the level of an adult factual and
logical discussion.

Popeye had a friend who was a boson.

Until you grow up past that feeling that anything you didn't intuit must be
a hallucination, you'll never progress to the level of an adult factual and
logical discussion.

Please: say it one more time and then it will be true.

Until you grow up past that feeling that anything you didn't intuit must be
a hallucination, you'll never progress to the level of an adult factual and
logical discussion.

In , nospam
wrote:

the point is that apps running in the background on a phone in
someone's pocket could be using cellular *data* (not calling a voice
number), with zero effect on the driver.

Both Eric and nospam (and everyone else) is correct.

Hence, this post is going to go to the next level, for those who have an
adult enough logical thought process to progress to that next level.

I'm not disagreeing with either nospam or Eric when I point out that even
if all cellphone apps all the time *caused* accidents in cars, then that
still has to account for why there is no measurable effect whatsoever from
the utterly stupendous explosion in both time and magnitude of cellphone
ownership (and presumed use while driving) in the United States.

For argument's sake, let's assume what most people assume, which is that
the use of cellphones while driving is "causing" accidents (which, by the
way, is true - but not in the sense that most people think it is - but I
can't explain that to people yet because they haven't progressed yet in
their thinking to understand what I just said).

So, let's "assume" these two are facts:
1. All accidents from about 1993 onward, are "caused" by cellphones in use.
2. And yet, the accident rate hasn't shown a measurable blip.

Think about that everyone.
Think.

Think again.
What does that tell you?

HINT: List all the distractions that you think "cause" accidents, and then
rank cellphones on that list. The list is about 100 meaningful ones, but
for simplicity, just limit it to the first dozen or first score of
distractions that you feel "causes" accidents.

In , Eric Stevens
wrote:

That's because normally nobody tries. However I used to investigate
accidents for a living and I know from experience what can be learned
when you try.

Einstein studied physics for a living, and he was wrong a boatload of
times.

Intuition only carries you so far when that intuition falls flat in the
face of facts.

Any theory you come up with has to account for the fact that the elephant
in the room is that there are no measurable differences in the accident
rates in the USA (or Australia, as we've shown but let's just stick to the
USA) due to cellphone ownership rates skyrocketing (and presumed use while
driving).

What you're proposing is akin to proposing that the brakes failed on a car
where there is absolutely zero evidence that the brakes failed.

You intuit that the brakes failed.
And yet, you can't supply a single supporting fact that the brakes failed.

I'd say that's a trait of a very bad accident investigator, whose
conclusion doesn't even come close to fitting the facts.

Suffice it to say that in this part of the world (New
Zealand) the Serious CRash Investigation Unit of the NZ Police always
obtains cellphone records if there is a cellphone in a car involved in
the crash. It's standard practice.

Even if you could prove that EVERY SINGLE ACCIDENTG since about 1993 was
caused by cellphones, you'd still have the problem if fitting that data to
the facts.

The facts are in the good data.
1. Mercury does have an orbit that doesn't fit Newtonian equations
2. Shooting a canon ball at a tissue paper did bounce back
3. Light behaves both as a particle & a wave & it depends if you're looking
And ...
4. There is zero measurable effect on accident rates in the USA.

If you really were an accident investigator, you'd actually realize that
you can't intuit everything, especially when the facts directly controvert
what you (and everyone else on the planet) intuits.

BTW, there *is* an effect on accidents due to cellphone-related
distractions, but you're not yet at the level of understanding for me to
explain that to you.

Could he have avoided the drunk if he wan't distracted by the phone
call?

Whenever someone has no argument that is based on fact, they resort to a
good story that is the kind told around the campfire to PROVE their facts.

Stories are great for showing an EXAMPLE of a concept (I use them to
explain that intuition doesn't get you far enough in Physics) - but
campfire stories are not statistical fact.

That they are using data will show up in the Telco's log.

The whole "telco log" approach is a red herring, simply because of the
facts of logical thought processes.

Even if you could easily prove that ALL ACCIDENTS from about 1993 onward
are caused by cellphone-related distractions, that still doesn't explain
why the good data of the accident rate shows zero measurable perturbations
due to the utterly massive explosion of cellphone ownership rates (and
presumed use while driving).

Think about that.
Think.
Think again.

When you realize why that statement is true, then you will have progressed
to the next stage of understanding WHY your intuition is actually correct
and yet - your conclusion doesn't fit the facts of the elephant in the room
(yet).

In news wrote:

In our country - The Netherlands - similar procedures are followed
and, as you say, often several pieces of information can be gathered and
- together - can often determine - beyond a reasonable doubt - whether or
not mobile phone use was the cause of the crash.

People have been convicted - to jail time or/and damages or/and a
fine -, but according to nospam and his twin brother that can't/doesn't
happen.

Frank Slootweg - you're acting like a child acts.

You don't like the facts, so what you're doing is saying that since the
laws convicted someone of an act, that this somehow fits the facts?

It's as if you say that in the Netherlands they made a law against gravity,
and then you say...
"People have been convicted - to jail time or/and damages or/and a
fine -, but according to Einstein that can't/doesn't happen"

You can't outlaw the laws of gravity in the Netherlands.
You just can't.

The church tried to outlaw the Copernican model, where they "jailed"
Gallileo for simply stating the truth.

You seem to be very much like those historical truths.
You think exactly like the Church did, when they burned heretics.

That's a bit scary that you profess to be an adult, and yet, your thinking
is exactly that of a child.

The rest of us are attempting an adult dialog, which uses facts, where the
fact that there is a law in the Netherlands that outlaws X, Y, or Z,
doesn't constitute a fact that X, Y, or Z, have any measurable effect
whatsoever on the accident rates.

Your argument is that of a child.
That's a fact.

In article , Chris
wrote:


and why focus *only* on phones but not all of the *other* forms of
distraction, including eating food, fiddling with the radio, reading
paper maps (which is no longer common but once was) and many other
things.

In court cases they don't only look at phones. Twiddling the radio or
drinking coffee can also be causes and used to show careless driving. If
the police saw you reading a map you would most definitely have been pulled
over.

have you seen a campaign to not twiddle the radio while driving?

have you seen a campaign about no babies in cars? a crying baby is a
very big distraction.

have you seen a ban on restaurant drive-thrus? and why do vehicles come
with cupholders if it's distraction to drink coffee while driving?

have you seen restrictions on elderly drivers, who are no longer safe
to be in control of a vehicle?

the answer to those are no, and you won't.

all you see/hear are campaigns to not use phones, ignoring the
*numerous* other (and often more dangerous) factors.

bad drivers don't need phones to be bad.

Agree.

Doesn't mean "good" drivers should get away with bad habits. A good driver
is only one accident away from becoming a bad driver.

a crash caused by a bad driver does not make a good driver a bad driver
and i'm not saying anyone should get away with anything.

all i'm saying is that cellphone call logs are meaningless.

there is *no* way to know if a driver was actively using a phone and
therefore distracted, versus if it was a passenger using a phone or if
the phone was in the driver's pocket and automatically answered a
call/text or had an app running in the background, with no effect on
the driver. in fact, the driver might not even know such activity took
place until later.

In article , Chris
wrote:

"that information", as you will see if you read above, was "But it
also possible determine whether or not a person was using a cell phone
at the time of an accident."

again, not normally, it isn't.

simple example:

a driver could have answered a call and told the caller that he's
driving and he'll call back later.

15 seconds later, a drunk swerves into his path, resulting in a
collision.

is the cellphone the cause of the crash? no. it was the drunk driver.

They can both be guilty. Had the non-drunk driver not been distracted he
may have reacted quicker and avoided the collision.

he wasn't distracted.

the call occurred well before there was a drunk driver swerving into
his path.

Obviously, just being
drunk is already an offence, but it doesn't necessarily mean the driver
caused the accident.

in that example, the call had no effect.

it was entirely due to a drunk driver swerving into the path of
oncoming traffic.

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


"that information", as you will see if you read above, was "But it
also possible determine whether or not a person was using a cell phone
at the time of an accident."

again, not normally, it isn't.

That's because normally nobody tries. However I used to investigate
accidents for a living and I know from experience what can be learned
when you try. Suffice it to say that in this part of the world (New
Zealand) the Serious CRash Investigation Unit of the NZ Police always
obtains cellphone records if there is a cellphone in a car involved in
the crash. It's standard practice.

of course it's standard practice. that doesn't make it accurate.

simple example:

a driver could have answered a call and told the caller that he's
driving and he'll call back later.

15 seconds later, a drunk swerves into his path, resulting in a
collision.

Could he have avoided the drunk if he wan't distracted by the phone
call?

he wasn't distracted.

in the example, the call was 15 seconds earlier, long before a drunk
driver was even an issue.

assume he was traveling at 60mph, or a mile per minute, to make the
math easy. in 15 seconds, he'd have covered 1/4 mile, or 1320 feet (402
meters), more than 4 football fields worth of distance.

is the cellphone the cause of the crash? no. it was the drunk driver.

the call could also have been auto-answered without the driver doing
anything, so despite there being a call log, the driver *wasn't* using
the phone.

That he hadn't answered would show in the log.

what part of auto-answer is not clear?

tl;dr cellphone logs won't show that it was a drunk driver.

It probably was if the accident occurred in Russia.

dashcams are popular there, so what happened would be on video.




even if you could match it up, it could have been the passenger using
the phone, or the phone could have been in use *without* any human
input due to an app running in the background while the phone is in a
pocket or bag.

I agree, it could be a passenger or even an app, but the number called
can often help sort that out.

apps don't call numbers.

You try telling my domestic power meter that.

wtf does a domestic power meter have to do with driving?

It has an app which makes and receives calls on the cellphone network.

that doesn't answer the question.

the point is that apps running in the background on a phone in
someone's pocket could be using cellular *data* (not calling a voice
number), with zero effect on the driver.

That they are using data will show up in the Telco's log.

exactly!

what *won't* show up is when a phone is using data while it's in the
driver's pocket, with zero effect on the driver.

in other words, call logs can't prove the driver was using a phone.

In news
They can both be guilty. Had the non-drunk driver not been distracted he
may have reacted quicker and avoided the collision. Obviously, just being
drunk is already an offence, but it doesn't necessarily mean the driver
caused the accident.

I'm going to try to take everyone to the next level, so bear with me since
you will see adult logical thought processes in use below...

Everyone who is trying to DESPERATELY reason out why their intuition
doesn't fit the facts is actually correct (e.g., those desperately trying
to obtain Telco logs to prove their point are, in actually, correct in one
respect).

Ironically, their intution DOES fit the facts - but - their intuition isn't
yet at the level of understanding of why it fits the facts.

Everyone intuits, for example, that cellphone use while driving is an
"added" distraction (and they are).

Everyone intuits, for example, that distractions "cause" accidents (and
they do).

And yet, there's that elephant in the room.
1. A canonball does bounce back after hitting tissue paper.
2. Light does act strangely when the slits are close together.
3. The universe is exanding at an ever-increasing rate.
etc.
4. And, the accident rate shows zero measureable effect of cellphones.

The only difference between me and most of you is that I started EXACTLY
where most people are right now, in desperately trying to prove (with Telco
logs perhaps?) that accidents are being "caused" by the distraction of the
use of cellphones while driving - but I progressed - in logical thought.

Until people realize that there is no measureable effect on the overall
accident rate, they will never even understnad why their intuition was
correct in the first place.

The whole Telco log issue is a red herring.

They'll only realize that once they accept that there is an elephant in the
room, just as physicists had to accept that the orbit of Mercury did not
follow Newtonian calculations.