I - Cell Phones or Booze... Tough Call

NTSB Proposes Cell Phone Ban

I have not generally been a fan of a total ban on cell phone use while driving, but the more I watch how people seem to be infected with a total stupidity virus when behind the wheel the more I consider it. The real problem is that it is a type of behavior that is very hard to catch people at so is very difficult to get any real traction in enforcing. Without strong enforcement there is really little chance of changing behavior. Here in Oregon they outlawed talking on hand-held phones and for a few months people pretty much stopped, or at least got a lot more cautious about it. Now my observations show that probably around 10% of the drivers around here are on their phones, which is about what it was before the ban.

What really gets me about this issue is the regular citing of a study that showed that people were more dangerous driving while talking on their phones than they were driving drunk. That study has been bantered around all over the place, but no one ever seems to really think through the evidence. All the test really showed is that someone fully engaged in talking on their phone is less aware of their surroundings than is someone who is drunk and fully engaged in their driving. The problem is that virtually no one who is driving drunk is really as engaged as they are for the study. In the study they knew that they were drunk and knew that they were being observed. Those on the phone were also being told to stay on the phone and talk. The real-world situations are going to be a bit different, as most people who are on their phones are going to respond to traffic issues by stopping or interrupting their conversations. They aren't going to do as well as they might if they weren't on the phone, but they won't do as badly as they did in the test. Likewise, one of the major dangers of drunk drivers is that they are not aware that they are impaired, so they don't try to concentrate on their driving. Instead they are busy talking, messing with the radio, racing other cars, using poor judgement and taking excessive risks - all factors that the test effectively removed from their behavior. So let's just throw out that whole "cell phones are more dangerous than booze" thing and consider the real issue.

Fundamentally, the problem is not cell phones, it is concentration and distraction. Distraction is actually a pretty nebulous area since what constitutes being dangerously distracted at one time, say on a busy freeway at rush hour, may be quite different in another time and place, like a quiet rural road with no other traffic. There are a lot of ways people distract themselves while they drive. I've seen people using their laptops, programming their GPS, fixing their makeup, eating lunch and even reading the newspaper while driving. Actually I've seen all of that in one day. The problem is obviously not the device, but the operator.

Now banning the device may prove to be an effective interim solution, although history would tend to indicate that it won't be, but the ultimate solution is one of education and training. After seat belts started to come into use it took at least a full generation before they were widely accepted and used. I still know people who will hook the belt over their shoulder to fool the cops but won't buckle up because they are afraid of getting trapped in a burning car or feel that they are safer getting thrown out. But younger people seem to just automatically buckle up when they get in a car, especially when they are in the front seats. The difference is education changing cultural understanding and expectation. There will probably be more results from a long-term media campaign than from any legislation. Only when people decide to change will the law be effective.

Texting while driving is a different animal, however. I can think of no circumstance where I would consider it to be even remotely acceptable. The problem again comes down to social training. We have become trained to answer the phone when it rings and to respond to a text ASAP. That training puts us in danger when we are driving because even when we know the risks it is hard to resist the urge of social pressure. This is where our instant society has conditioned us to expect instant gratification, so we can't stand having it delayed. Imagine a room full of young people - say, 16-30 years old - who all have cell phones and who are all receiving a variety of calls and texts during a 1 hour period but are not allowed to answer any of them. They know they are coming in and they know that none of them are critical, and they know that at the end of the hour they will be able to answer them, but they can't do it when they ring. That crowd will go nuts. They have been trained since the days of Alexander Graham Bell to answer the ring as soon as it comes in. What we have to find a way to do is to re-train ourselves as a society to be able to delay that gratification when we know that satisfying it is a higher risk than it is worth.

I don't know how to do that, but that's also not my job. My job is just to point out where society is getting weird.

And more on it from Time.

R - One Man's Wilderness

One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey, By Sam Keith from the journals and photographs of Richard Proenneke

In 1968 Dick Proenneke was flown into the Twin Lakes in Alaska and started to build a cabin. Dick was 51 years old and had a lifetime of working with his hands behind him. He possessed the type of skills that were essential to making his dream of living in the Alaska wilderness possible.

This book, taken from Dick's journals and re-worked by Sam Keith, chronicles the construction of the cabin and the first two years that Dick spent there. I ended up reading it because my wife has a strong attraction to Alaska and told me it was a "must read". Roughly the first two-thirds of the book are devoted to the process of building the cabin and the challenges he faced during that period. The last part is mostly concerned with some of his explorations around the area and the wildlife he encountered.

I have to admit that I found the first part of the book far more interesting than the latter part. That probably reflects how I tend to get very involved in books that are focused on the engineering aspects of life, the "how do we do this?" kind of thing. There are some rather interesting thoughts that occurred to me while reading those pages. First, I thought about how I would have done some of it a bit differently. There are a lot of ways to build a log cabin and there is certainly nothing wrong with how Dick did it, but it provides me with a great deal of enjoyment to visualize alternate approaches that might have taken less labor, yielded better (in my mind) results, and possibly made less use of non-natural materials. Case in point is that Dick assembled many parts using nails where I would have used wooden pegs. He also used tar paper and plastic sheeting on the roof under a thick layer of moss. His method worked very well, but I would have probably split shakes instead.

The other thought that kept coming to my mind was that he was in phenomenal physical condition (and obviously remained that way since he lived in the cabin all or part of each of the next 30 years). I kept thinking that there was no way on earth I could do what he did. I might have the skills, but I no longer have the strength or stamina, and that was a bit of a melancholy thought.

If you have an interest in the Alaskan wilderness and in log cabins and isolation then I think you would find this a very good read. There are also a couple of follow-up books and the journals are available on-line in PDF format. I'll post the links as I find them.

The book on Amazon.com

More Readings From One Man's Wilderness - A huge PDF file of Dick's journals from 1974-1980

Alone in the Wilderness - a web site by Bob Swerer about Dick Proenneke

R - Blood Red Snow by Günter K. Koschorrek

The Eastern Front was a pretty grim place for any German soldier at any time during the Second World War. Even when things were going well it was a hard-fought battle and when things started to go badly they quickly became very, very bad. I've long been interested in that Eastern Front experience and this is another of my books that covers it. Günter Koschorrek actually kept a diary during the war, even though that was forbidden by army rules, and that diary is the basis of his account. He did not fight in the actual Stalingrad battle, but basically fought throughout the long retreat. He was wounded several times and saw most of his friends die, so he basically writes this as a memorial to all those who died on both sides and to honor their memories.

Overall I can't rate this as the best WWII Eastern Front narrative I've ever read, although it is very personal in feeling. The major drawback for me is that there is very little explanatory material to put the local events into the context of the entire battle. The viewpoint is definitely solely that of the individual soldier in the trench, crouched behind his machine gun. Because of this and the diary format of the narrative (it is almost just a transcription of his diary in many places) the account seems rather disjointed to me and often left me trying to figure out just what was going on. Despite this I found it an overall good read with plenty of detail about both the daily lives of the soldiers and what they were thinking at the time.

I give this book a moderate recommendation with the caveat that if you have a particular interest in the Eastern Front or first-person WWII narratives in general then it is a worthwhile read if not addition to your library.