What are your reading habits?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

In which case:

Why is it reputable when the references that the data is taken from for many countries are only secondhand (or worse-hand) ones, including that for the USA; furthermore the specific secondhand reference used for USA data is not identified?

Why is the data for the USA reputable when it is different to the US own NHTSA's data?

Why is the data reputable when the data differs between the Wikipedia article linked to and other Wikipedia articles traversing related ground?

If you have a link to more reliable data, can you post it, please?

Thanks!

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you have a link to more reliable data, can you post it, please?

Thanks!

The NHTSA they have their own database.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

It's the official one so should be as accurate as the official Uk one
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...oad-fatalities

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

The NHTSA they have their own database.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

It's the official one so should be as accurate as the official Uk one
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...oad-fatalities

Excellent - thanks, Mike!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

The NHTSA they have their own database.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Fascinating. It looks like the economic crash of 2008 has saved about 9,000 Traffic Crash Fatalities in the US every year! (Going from about 42,000 every year from 1995 to 2007 to 33,000 per year from 2009 to 2013) I attribute this to the economic downturn because of the change at that time in the vehicle miles travelled from a rising trend (1995-2007) to a lower flat or much more slowly rising trend (2008-2013)

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Fascinating. It looks like the economic crash of 2008 has saved about 9,000 Traffic Crash Fatalities in the US every year! (Going from about 42,000 every year from 1995 to 2007 to 33,000 per year from 2009 to 2013) I attribute this to the economic downturn because of the change at that time in the vehicle miles travelled from a rising trend (1995-2007) to a lower flat or much more slowly rising trend (2008-2013)

Or working from home as broadband became popular

[pdurrant]

I wondered if there was a similar effect in the UK. There has been a big reduction in road deaths in the UK - far more, as a percentage, than in the US (2007-2013: UK -41%, US -20%)

And there was a slight reduction in vehicle miles.

But given the slower onset and the much bigger change, I think the UK reduction can't all be put down to the recession.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Or working from home as broadband became popular

That's wouldn't explain the step change during 2008. If it had been a gradual decline over a decade, you might have had a point.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Here's an example of a woman being prosecuted for drinking from a bottle of water while her car was stopped at traffic lights:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/774655.stm

I'm unable to discover what the outcome of the court case was, but this goes to show that you can indeed be fined for drinking water in a stationary vehicle.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

She didn't just drink at a red light, she was still holding the bottle as she started off from the lights.

She was convicted and got a £40 fine and £50 costs.

[Edit: I see others got there before me. I really should read to the end of a thread before posting!]

Just to add another late comment. It also mentions in the original report the following:

Mrs Smart's case came a month after Hampshire Police fined a motorist for eating a chocolate bar at the wheel. Kevin Storey, 33, was spotted munching a KitKat while driving on the M3 near Winchester.

He was issued with a £20 fixed penalty for not being in control of the vehicle. But police later gave Mr Storey, from Grantham, Lincolnshire, a break, admitting the fine was "inappropriate" and would be quashed.

So it's slightly a grey area. Obviously if you have or cause an accident while sipping a drink or eating something then you will be charged, but the same is true if that happens because you are changing stations on your car radio, or tapping your sat nav, it's all about being in control. Moving off from being parked while doing any of these things will mean you are not fully in control, whereas driving along on the motorway sipping a coffee doesn't mean you aren't in control - though you may take you eye of the road and drift into another lane while putting your cup down in the cup holder and then you're in trouble!

However, use of mobile phones is not a grey area at all. It's illegal to use a handheld mobile when driving and applies even if you’re stopped at traffic lights, you can only do so if you are safely parked (I think the engine needs to be stopped too?).

The use of mobile phones being made illegal, and as already mentioned the change in social attitude to drink driving has really made a difference here in the UK in the past decade.

Oh and just to keep the post slightly on topic, mostly in bed late at night.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by soulfuldog

...Obviously if you have or cause an accident while sipping a drink or eating something then you will be charged, but the same is true if that happens because you are changing stations on your car radio, or tapping your sat nav, it's all about being in control. Moving off from being parked while doing any of these things will mean you are not fully in control, whereas driving along on the motorway sipping a coffee doesn't mean you aren't in control - though you may take you eye of the road and drift into another lane while putting your cup down in the cup holder and then you're in trouble!...

It is good to see that there is at least one other person around here who has overtly shown that they understand what Situational Awareness and Spatial Awareness are and so are capable of making considered safe decisions appropriate to the circumstances.

Those incapable of making such decisions are a danger because while they may have inflexible rules for themselves to get over the incapability, sooner or later they will find they do not have a rule to cover a situation they find themselves in and end up involved in an otherwise avoidable fault or no fault accident.

A related thing that I do (having been exposed to both Bridge and Flight Deck Resource Management) is ask my front seat passenger to do things for me or bounce off them things like "Do you think he is going to stop?" I do this on my yacht too, even with inexperienced sailors for things they can be relied upon. I am happy to put their opinion with respect to a situation into the mix.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

It is good to see that there is at least one other person around here who has overtly shown that they understand what Situational Awareness and Spatial Awareness are and so are capable of making considered safe decisions appropriate to the circumstances.

Those incapable of making such decisions are a danger because while they may have inflexible rules for themselves to get over the incapability, sooner or later they will find they do not have a rule to cover a situation they find themselves in and end up involved in an otherwise avoidable fault or no fault accident.

If that little dig was aimed at me, you have wrongly understood the point I've been making. It's not a matter of "inflexible rules", but of being in a position at all times to properly control the vehicle in the anticipation of an unexpected event occurring which will require that control. If you're driving down a motorway holding a coffee cup in one hand, on 999 journeys out of 1000 you'll be absolutely fine, but on that 1000th journey you'll find yourself in a position where you're unable to react swiftly and appropriately to the situation, because you do not have both hands free to correctly control the vehicle.

"Expect the unexpected" should always be the attitude when performing any potentially hazardous activity, such as a driving a motor vehicle.

Should you be tempted to say "things like that don't happen", it's happened to me personally. Some years ago I was driving along the M6 motorway near Manchester. Good road conditions, sunny day, no reason in the world to anticipate any problems. A car in the outside line of the opposite carriageway suddenly veered wildly, hit the central reservation, catapulted over it, and ended up upside down across the two outer lines of my side of the road. I had to swerve violently into the inside lane (I had been in the middle lane) to avoid it. Had I had my hands full of coffee cups there's no way in the world that I could have avoided hitting it. Things like that really make you realise just how aware you need to be as to the potential to have to take sudden emergency action, regardless of how calm and safe the road appears to be at the time.

[Cinisajoy]

Hey HarryT,
Would you be willing to accept the fact that some people don't think beyond a less than 1 meter zone.
Or in other words, they will still drink their coffee while texting and driving.
And yes we now know you have an aversion to coffee cups in cars.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Hey HarryT,
Would you be willing to accept the fact that some people don't think beyond a less than 1 meter zone.
Or in other words, they will still drink their coffee while texting and driving.
And yes we now know you have an aversion to coffee cups in cars.

I have nothing whatsoever against coffee cups in cars; that is, after all, the reason that cars have cup-holders . My aversion is to drinking coffee (or anything else) while actually driving.

[cvkemp]

Harry I will have water or something else in the car. But never drink it while the car is moving. When I stop for a red light or stop sign then yes I will take a drink or I will pull into a rest stop to take care of matters and drink some water. I do not drink coffee, I just do not like it. As for as that goes I do not to drink anything hot or even warm.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cvkemp

Harry I will have water or something else in the car. But never drink it while the car is moving. When I stop for a red light or stop sign then yes I will take a drink or I will pull into a rest stop to take care of matters and drink some water. I do not drink coffee, I just do not like it. As for as that goes I do not to drink anything hot or even warm.

A very sensible attitude .

[Ricky D'Angelo]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Well, I usually start from the front, and read towards the back. I think this method provides the best story experience. I prefer black letters on a white background, though at night, when my wife is sleeping, I will go crazy and use white letters on a black background. I figure, what she doesn't know, won't hurt her. And as a native English speaker, I find books in English to be the easiest books to read.

Hope this helps.

I also read from left to right then go down the page/screen. . . it also helps to have the page/screen facing you when reading.