• How will the police find me.

    From micky@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 19 21:46:15 2024
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my
    ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I
    break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be
    a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person.

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to
    its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try
    the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use
    it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do.
    I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really
    have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work?
    OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really
    show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe
    they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From knuttle@21:1/5 to micky on Sun May 19 21:58:37 2024
    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be
    a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person.

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to
    its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try
    the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use
    it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do.
    I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really
    have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work? OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really
    show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe
    they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.
    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods
    without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or
    finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your batteries expire.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?J=C3=B6rg_Lorenz?=@21:1/5 to micky on Mon May 20 06:47:20 2024
    On 20.05.2024 03:46, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    *OT*

    --
    "Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant!"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?J=C3=B6rg_Lorenz?=@21:1/5 to knuttle on Mon May 20 06:49:23 2024
    On 20.05.2024 03:58, knuttle wrote:
    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my
    ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I
    break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected
    criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be
    a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person.

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to
    its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try
    the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use
    it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do.
    I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really
    have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work?
    OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really
    show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe
    they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your batteries expire.

    Phantastic! THX!

    --
    "Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant!"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Mon May 20 01:11:51 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 19 May 2024 21:58:37 -0400, knuttle <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my
    ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I
    break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected
    criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be
    a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person.

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to
    its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try
    the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use
    it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do.
    I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really
    have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work?

    OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really
    show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe
    they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods >without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or >finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your >batteries expire.

    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.

    I've been hiking in the woods alone since I was 6 years old. I never
    get lost, I especially like hikes with only deer trails or no trails at
    all. For example I led a hike through the Crownsville Hospital forest
    years before it opened to the public. As well as the Rocky Gorge
    Reservoir, which still has no trails at all. When I camp, I rarely use
    a tent and on one occasion, I camped without a sleeping bag and slept
    totally without clothes (and that was in a campground!) I've spent the
    night atop Mt. Katahdin, even though it was against the rules. (wanted
    to watch the sun rise.)

    And I eat my meat raw.

    I know all about blazed trails, but I don't limit myself to them. OTOH,
    I don't want my half-day hike to last an extra hour because I miss a
    turn.

    Do you hike alone? On weekdays when you are likely the only person
    there? When I was 60, I wasn't concerned about this but at age 77, I
    know it's possible I'll break a leg or have a heart attack, and it's
    foolish not to take a phone. In case I'm unconscious or my phone is
    broken, it's foolish not to take advantage of the tech marvels of the
    age, so that if I don't come back when I plan to, a friend can send
    someone to look for me, rather than my lying there all night (possibly
    in the rain). But I guess you're a real man and dying alone in the
    woods won't bother you.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?J=C3=B6rg_Lorenz?=@21:1/5 to micky on Mon May 20 07:47:51 2024
    On 20.05.2024 07:11, micky wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 19 May 2024 21:58:37 -0400, knuttle <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my >>> ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I >>> break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected >>> criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be
    a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person.

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to
    its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try
    the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use
    it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do.
    I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really
    have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work? >>>
    OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really
    show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe
    they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods
    without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or
    finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your
    batteries expire.

    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.

    I've been hiking in the woods alone since I was 6 years old. I never
    get lost, I especially like hikes with only deer trails or no trails at
    all. For example I led a hike through the Crownsville Hospital forest
    years before it opened to the public. As well as the Rocky Gorge
    Reservoir, which still has no trails at all. When I camp, I rarely use
    a tent and on one occasion, I camped without a sleeping bag and slept
    totally without clothes (and that was in a campground!) I've spent the
    night atop Mt. Katahdin, even though it was against the rules. (wanted
    to watch the sun rise.)

    And I eat my meat raw.

    I know all about blazed trails, but I don't limit myself to them. OTOH,
    I don't want my half-day hike to last an extra hour because I miss a
    turn.

    Do you hike alone? On weekdays when you are likely the only person
    there? When I was 60, I wasn't concerned about this but at age 77, I
    know it's possible I'll break a leg or have a heart attack, and it's
    foolish not to take a phone. In case I'm unconscious or my phone is
    broken, it's foolish not to take advantage of the tech marvels of the
    age, so that if I don't come back when I plan to, a friend can send
    someone to look for me, rather than my lying there all night (possibly
    in the rain). But I guess you're a real man and dying alone in the
    woods won't bother you.

    Even more *OT*. Has nothing to do with Android.
    And this is not therapy group for nutty hikers.

    --
    "Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant!"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to micky on Mon May 20 06:34:38 2024
    micky wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 01:11:51 -0400 :

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?

    There are many solutions to the problem you posited above, one of which is
    that Andy Burns in a recent thread mentioned a US carrier that will switch
    to satellite communications if there isn't any cellular connection.

    However, if you have a cellular connection, we've discussed on this
    newsgroup many times the typical SOS apps which will send your latitude & longitude (and even a map with your pre-prepared text if you like) to
    anyone listed as your emergency contact.

    Offhand, one is SOS Alert where you press a homescreen button to send a pre-prepared SOS message & your GPS location to up to 5 contacts).
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.main.contacts.smsmanager>

    Another one which requires more button presses but which is more useful in day-to-day hiking situations is this app which sends the GPS by SMS.
    *GPS to SMS* - location sharing by Tralchonok Labs
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.perm.trubnikov.gps2sms>
    <https://github.com/tral/GPS2SMS>
    <https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-2-2-gps-to-sms-location-sharing.2994187/>

    Of course, you have to be alive for that to happen, and you need cellular signal, although if you're still ambulatory, it will send when you
    eventually move into a cellular coverage area.

    If you don't have a cellular connection, that's why I keep a HAM radio in
    my pack when I'm on off trail hikes in the mountains.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris in Makati@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 20 11:55:59 2024
    On Sun, 19 May 2024 21:58:37 -0400, knuttle <[email protected]>
    wrote:

    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my
    ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I
    break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected
    criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be
    a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person.

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to
    its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try
    the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use
    it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do.
    I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really
    have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work?
    OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really
    show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe
    they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods >without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or >finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your >batteries expire.

    It's not so easy to do all that with a broken leg.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Newyana2@21:1/5 to knuttle on Mon May 20 08:06:37 2024
    On 5/19/2024 9:58 PM, knuttle wrote:

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods without a electronic device of any type.� You would learn about mark or finding marks so you could retrace your path.� You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone.� Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your batteries expire.

    Also of note is that Micky's sample scenario starts
    with him having his cellphone either broken or stolen.
    He then goes on to enjoy a high-tech trail map and expects
    the police to find him via GPS, presumably because his
    cellphone number alone always shows where he is.

    I think that the way it turns out is that Micky's ex
    figures out the GPS and helps the police track down the
    criminal who stole Micky's cellphone. She ends up a hero.
    Meanwhile, Micky has a broken leg. He's stuck on the
    trail, bending the ear of a weary grizzly bear who's trying
    desperately to find an excuse to leave. "Whoa! Sorry Micky.
    I think I just saw a salmon walk by. Gotta go!"

    But Micky
    does finally get saved, because an alien spaceship on
    patrol in those woods happens to notice that Micky's
    cellphone number has been stopped on a trail for hours
    without moving. In the end it all ends well. Micky is awarded
    an honorary Eagle Scout medal and gets a lucrative contract
    working as a translator at Area 51....

    Don't miss Season 2 of Micky Gets By, when Micky struggles
    with humidity possibly affecting his computer and takes his
    emergency to 9 newsgroups. It's non-stop action.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bill Bradshaw@21:1/5 to micky on Mon May 20 10:06:34 2024
    micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to
    my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst,
    that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is
    broken or stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I
    still haven't texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's
    location using the simple instructions I found on the web.

    When I am out alone I always run a track on my GPS (not phone) which I can follow back so I do not get lost because I am 78 years old. If you are
    really worried you should look at something like a Garmin inReach.
    --
    <Bill>

    Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From knuttle@21:1/5 to Chris on Mon May 20 16:00:46 2024
    On 05/20/2024 2:38 PM, Chris wrote:
    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.
    No I was not kidding. Today people have put their whole lives in a
    cellphone. They depend on it to maintain their financial records, their shopping list. They use it to find the places they go. They feel they
    do not need to know basic, because they think the can use
    google/siri/etc when ever they need information. I sometime wonder if
    they need to google to tie their shoes.

    I think it is a recipe for disaster. They are depending for everything
    in their lives based on being able to access a cell tower. Hurricane, tornado, earthquake and the cell system being significantly interrupted,
    they will be helpless.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Bill Bradshaw on Mon May 20 21:42:52 2024
    Bill Bradshaw wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 10:06:34 -0800 :

    micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to
    my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst,
    that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is
    broken or stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I
    still haven't texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's
    location using the simple instructions I found on the web.

    When I am out alone I always run a track on my GPS (not phone) which I can follow back so I do not get lost because I am 78 years old. If you are really worried you should look at something like a Garmin inReach.

    I use something like that for finding my car in mall parking lots.
    *GPS Waypoint Finder* by keuwlsoft
    free, ad free, gsf free, 3.9 star, 1.35K reviews, 100K+ Downloads
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keuwl.gpswaypoints>

    *Parked Car* by Myroslav Kolodii
    free, ad free, requires gsf, 4.4 star, 179 reviews, 10K+ Downloads
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unagit.parkedcar>

    *GPS to SMS* - location sharing by Tralchonok Labs
    free, ad free, gsf free, 3.6 star, 787 reviews, 100K+ Downloads
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.perm.trubnikov.gps2sms>
    <https://github.com/tral/GPS2SMS>
    <https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-2-2-gps-to-sms-location-sharing.2994187/>

    In addition, there are park maps in the free outerspacial which will
    show the location of every park ranger office in the United States.
    *OuterSpatial* by OuterSpatial
    free, ad free, requires gsf, rated 3.4 out of 113 reviews @ 10K+ Downloads
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trailheadlabs.outerspatial>
    <https://www.outerspatial.com/>
    <https://apps.apple.com/us/app/outerspatial/id1254161962>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to knuttle on Mon May 20 21:35:50 2024
    knuttle wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 16:00:46 -0400 :

    On 05/20/2024 2:38 PM, Chris wrote:
    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.
    No I was not kidding. Today people have put their whole lives in a cellphone. They depend on it to maintain their financial records, their shopping list. They use it to find the places they go. They feel they
    do not need to know basic, because they think the can use
    google/siri/etc when ever they need information. I sometime wonder if
    they need to google to tie their shoes.

    I think it is a recipe for disaster. They are depending for everything
    in their lives based on being able to access a cell tower. Hurricane, tornado, earthquake and the cell system being significantly interrupted,
    they will be helpless.

    Well, to be fair, cellphones make people safer, and, in fact, cellphones
    are one reason traffic safety has steadily improved year after year after
    year since traffic accident rates steadily went down while cellphone
    ownership rates skyrocketed (contrary to the myth by most morons out there
    that cellphone use while driving raises the accident rate).

    None of those morons who claim that have ever looked at the accident rates.

    In addition to the SOS apps, Satellite communications and HAM radio
    previously discussed in this group (assuming a broken leg, for example),
    for the OP, there's a free geofence app on iOS & Android which will alert anyone he wants to alert the instant his phone goes into our out of the
    area (of course, it needs to have cellular coverage at sending time).

    https://www.iamherezone.com/ by SyncIt
    "This app allows users to send pre-generated messages based on
    their geofence location area, thus informing other users when
    they enter or leave a geographical area. The user defines the
    geographical area by drawing it on the map. The app supports
    SMS messaging, WhatsApp, email, and push notifications."

    1. Draw a zone (on OpenStreetMap)
    2. Write your text message
    3. Select recipients

    Create multiple zones
    Store multiple recipients
    Send default and customized messages
    Setup recurring and one-time messages
    Add icon and color to each zone

    iOS:
    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/im-here-zone/id1452495641
    Android:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.syncitgroup.android.iamhere

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Chris in Makati on Mon May 20 21:47:34 2024
    Chris in Makati wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 11:55:59 +0100 :

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your >>batteries expire.

    It's not so easy to do all that with a broken leg.

    As Chris said, if you're not ambulatory, your options are limited to being
    found, which we already covered with the SOS apps, satellite connections
    and HAM radio communications (all of which will need signal of some sort).

    In addition, if you can drag yourself out, often the way you came in is the
    best route so it helps, as Keith suggested, to habitually save your track.

    I've never found a GPS track saver that I liked, but here are the ones I
    tested, which all do the job but which have issues in them I don't like.

    FOSS GPS Logger by BasicAirData 4.3 star 2.37K reviews 100K+ Downloads free adfree https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.basicairdata.graziano.gpslogger

    FOSS OpenTracks by Dennis Guse 4.0 star 53 reviews 500+ Downloads free adfree https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.dennisguse.opentracks.playstore
    https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.dennisguse.opentracks/
    (it's payware on the google play store but open source freeware on F-Droid)

    GPSLogger II - AIO by Matthias Marquardt 4.3 star 127 reviews 10K+ Downloads free adfree
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emacberry.gpslogger

    FOSS OSMTracker for Android by Laboratorio Experimental 3.8 star 228 reviews 50K+ Downloads free adfree
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmtracker

    Geo Tracker - GPS tracker by Ilya Bogdanovich 4.6 star 88K reviews 5M+ Downloads free adfree inapp purchases
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ilyabogdanovich.geotracker

    GPSLogger A lightweight GPS logger, battery efficient, GPX/KML, add notes, share, upload.
    https://gpslogger.app/
    https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.mendhak.gpslogger/ https://github.com/mendhak/gpslogger

    FOSS GPS Logger by BasicAirData 4.3 star 2.37K reviews 100K+ Downloads free adfree
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.basicairdata.graziano.gpslogger

    FOSS OpenTracks by Dennis Guse 4.0 star 53 reviews 500+ Downloads free adfree https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.dennisguse.opentracks.playstore
    https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.dennisguse.opentracks/
    (it's payware on the google play store but open source freeware on F-Droid)

    GPSLogger II - AIO by Matthias Marquardt 4.3 star 127 reviews 10K+ Downloads free adfree
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emacberry.gpslogger

    FOSS OSMTracker for Android by Laboratorio Experimental 3.8 star 228 reviews 50K+ Downloads free adfree
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmtracker

    Geo Tracker - GPS tracker by Ilya Bogdanovich 4.6 star 88K reviews 5M+ Downloads free adfree inapp purchases
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ilyabogdanovich.geotracker

    GPSLogger A lightweight GPS logger, battery efficient, GPX/KML, add notes, share, upload.
    https://gpslogger.app/
    https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.mendhak.gpslogger/ https://github.com/mendhak/gpslogger

    LD-Log Lite - GPS Logger by A.Wedemeyer - Outdoor & Sailing Apps 4.4 star 231 reviews 10K+ Downloads
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aw.ldlogFree

    Wadlbeisser by Marco Pfattner 4.6 star 778 reviews 50K+ Downloads https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.pfattner.speedo.android

    Trailblazer by Andrew and Derek 4.7 star 7 reviews 100+ Downloads https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewandderek.trailblazer

    GPSToolbox by Beijing Tele Industry Information Technology Ltd. 1K+ Downloads https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.gotele.gpsbox

    OSC - Hiking, Running, Cycling by Eliakim Schuenemann 1K+ Downloads https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eschuenemann.outdoorsportscompanion

    Earth Explorer by software1001developer 50+ Downloads https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.earth.explorer

    Sondel-Buddy pro - Tool for m by Django's Android Apps 100+ Downloads https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.DjangoLaunchpad.Sondel_Buddy

    Here's a free ad free inapp free app for SPEAKING GPS directions (when walking).
    Trail Guide by Jordi Boixadera Planas 3.2 star 13 reviews 1K+ Downloads https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jordiboixadera.trailGuide

    And here's a free ad free inapp free app for DRAWING & EDITING GPS tracks GPXLAB - The GPS Track Editor by LCX Ventures Ltd 4.1 star 8 reviews 100+ Downloads
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lcxventures.gpxlab.app

    BikeGPX is a super simple app for putting GPX route files on your phone
    and following them on your bike. Download it now free for iPhone and Android. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bikegpx
    https://bikegpx.com/

    RunGo is the most popular running app for discovering the best routes in
    the world with turn-by-turn voice navigation. Build your own route. https://www.rungoapp.com/ https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?hl=en&id=com.rungo

    Bike Tracker https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pcability.biketracker

    GPX Viewer
    Topo GPS by rdzi

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From knuttle@21:1/5 to Andrew on Mon May 20 20:34:36 2024
    On 05/20/2024 5:35 PM, Andrew wrote:
    knuttle wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 16:00:46 -0400 :

    On 05/20/2024 2:38 PM, Chris wrote:
    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.
    No I was not kidding. Today people have put their whole lives in a
    cellphone. They depend on it to maintain their financial records, their
    shopping list. They use it to find the places they go. They feel they
    do not need to know basic, because they think the can use
    google/siri/etc when ever they need information. I sometime wonder if
    they need to google to tie their shoes.

    I think it is a recipe for disaster. They are depending for everything
    in their lives based on being able to access a cell tower. Hurricane,
    tornado, earthquake and the cell system being significantly interrupted,
    they will be helpless.

    Well, to be fair, cellphones make people safer, and, in fact, cellphones
    are one reason traffic safety has steadily improved year after year after year since traffic accident rates steadily went down while cellphone ownership rates skyrocketed (contrary to the myth by most morons out there that cellphone use while driving raises the accident rate).

    None of those morons who claim that have ever looked at the accident rates.

    In addition to the SOS apps, Satellite communications and HAM radio previously discussed in this group (assuming a broken leg, for example),
    for the OP, there's a free geofence app on iOS & Android which will alert anyone he wants to alert the instant his phone goes into our out of the
    area (of course, it needs to have cellular coverage at sending time).

    https://www.iamherezone.com/ by SyncIt
    "This app allows users to send pre-generated messages based on
    their geofence location area, thus informing other users when
    they enter or leave a geographical area. The user defines the
    geographical area by drawing it on the map. The app supports
    SMS messaging, WhatsApp, email, and push notifications."

    1. Draw a zone (on OpenStreetMap)
    2. Write your text message
    3. Select recipients

    Create multiple zones
    Store multiple recipients
    Send default and customized messages
    Setup recurring and one-time messages
    Add icon and color to each zone

    iOS:
    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/im-here-zone/id1452495641
    Android:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.syncitgroup.android.iamhere
    This is another statistic.
    In the past 50 years the government has mandated 100's of safety devices
    on automobiles. Each device was to reduce traffic accidents because it
    would reduce death by 10%.

    SO assume there were 100 devices added each reducing the traffic
    accidents. accidents reduced 10% for each device, and 100 device, means
    there are no traffic accidents on cars that had all of those devices implemented.

    (if there were 100 lost lives, after the 1st device there were 90 death,
    after the 2nd 81, the 3rd 73, and so on until 100 devices )

    So much for the published statistics on the lives saved by each new
    device added to the car, it means nothing in the real world.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to knuttle on Tue May 21 03:12:49 2024
    knuttle wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 20:34:36 -0400 :

    This is another statistic.
    In the past 50 years the government has mandated 100's of safety devices
    on automobiles. Each device was to reduce traffic accidents because it
    would reduce death by 10%.

    SO assume there were 100 devices added each reducing the traffic
    accidents. accidents reduced 10% for each device, and 100 device, means
    there are no traffic accidents on cars that had all of those devices implemented.

    (if there were 100 lost lives, after the 1st device there were 90 death, after the 2nd 81, the 3rd 73, and so on until 100 devices )

    So much for the published statistics on the lives saved by each new
    device added to the car, it means nothing in the real world.

    Clearly you jumped to conclusions by understanding nothing of what I said.

    You need to be careful that I constantly said "accident rate" which is an extremely accurate statistic compiled by the US Census Bureau for each of
    the fifty states since the 1920's (well, 48 states in those days), and
    which is reported by police & insurance companies and normalized by miles driven and as such is extremely well respected data for reliability.

    Every single state reported similar trends of the accident rate going
    steadily down (for very good reasons, mind you) during the entire time that phone ownership rates were skyrocketing - laying proof to the lie that cellphones have any negative effect on the accident rate.

    If anything, they have a positive effect by reducing the accident rate
    (e.g., reducing sudden unexpected traffic, re-routing traffic, warning of construction and congestion, fewer confused turnarounds, etc.).

    You didn't understand a single word of what an "accident rate" means.

    What you spoke about were "injuries" which is a second-order function of tremendously different metrics, e.g., seatbelts, padded dashboards,
    airbags, safety tempered glass, stronger door locks, crush zones,
    break-away sign posts, yielding guardrails, sand barrels, etc.

    In fact, injuries are even lessened by cellphones, given the first
    responder call can be made within minutes of an injury accident, where time
    is of the essence in reducing the length of the hospital stay.

    You won't understand any of that because you only believe in unsound myths.

    It's a myth that cellphones raise the accident rate.
    There is zero evidence for it in the United States.

    I'm not saying a lot of morons don't believe they increase the accident
    rate, as there are many morons who say exactly what you just said.

    The only people "saying it", besides fools who are morons, are entities
    with something to gain, mainly lawyers, insurance companies & police.

    Nobody else would ever claim that cellphone use had any effect on the
    accident rate in the USA when the US Census Bureau already said otherwise.

    Note that there are aggregate studies of the efficacy of safety laws also, which would knock your socks off if you read them (as I have).

    But if you think cellphones raised the accident rate, you're not ready to
    read the scientific facts about the first order and second order effect of safety laws in the past 25 years in terms of length of hospital stay.

    Suffice to say, morons always believe in myths.
    Because morons never question common myths.

    They hear them. They believe them. They never question them.

    Find a cite, not from the three biased sources (lawyers, insurance & cops)
    on the net about the US accident rate and tell me what you found.

    If you find it, I'll read it - but not from those biased three sources.
    HINT: You won't find it.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From AJL@21:1/5 to micky on Tue May 21 03:44:40 2024
    On 5/19/24 10:11 PM, micky wrote:

    In case I'm unconscious or my phone is
    broken, it's foolish not to take advantage of the tech marvels of the
    age, so that if I don't come back when I plan to, a friend can send
    someone to look for me, rather than my lying there all night (possibly
    in the rain).

    <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/climber-dead-denali-north-america-tallest-peak-rcna153197>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Arno Welzel@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 21 10:29:50 2024
    micky, 2024-05-20 03:46:

    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    An Android device can not help you in an emergency if it breaks or the
    battery is dead.

    Therefore do not go alone!

    [...]
    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?

    You can share your location on Google Maps with another user either for
    a limited time period or until you turn off this option again:

    <https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7326816?hl=en>

    Besides that, OSMAnd also supports location sharing.

    <https://osmand.net/docs/user/plugins/osmand-tracker/>

    Regardless which solution you use - the other person also needs Google
    Maps or OSMAnd to view your current location.

    But keep in mind that having GPS enabled all the time and sending
    location updates drains your battery quite fast. So also keep a big
    power bank with you. Also keep in mind that the device can fail and/or batteries can get empty.

    Therefore do not go alone!


    --
    Arno Welzel
    https://arnowelzel.de

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to AJL on Tue May 21 12:40:20 2024
    AJL wrote on Tue, 21 May 2024 03:44:40 -0000 (UTC) :

    <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/climber-dead-denali-north-america-tallest-peak-rcna153197>

    Data from a satellite communication device indicated the device hadn�t
    changed locations since Thursday, suggesting a fall from the Denali Pass traverse took place on that day, Denali National Park and Preserve said.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Arno Welzel on Tue May 21 12:46:04 2024
    Arno Welzel wrote on Tue, 21 May 2024 10:29:50 +0200 :

    Therefore do not go alone!

    That's not bad advice, but he's not climbing Mount Denali either.
    He's just hiking. Hiking alone is what millions of people do.

    There's nothing wrong with it. It's like driving alone.
    Or like reading alone. Or watching TV alone.

    Accidents can happen anywhere.
    You just need to be prepared for the most likely ones.

    An Android device can not help you in an emergency if it breaks or the battery is dead.

    Or if there isn't any cellphone service in the area, which is why I had suggested a ham radio or satellite service (which I know is rarely used).

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?

    You can share your location on Google Maps with another user either for
    a limited time period or until you turn off this option again:

    <https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7326816?hl=en>

    Besides that, OSMAnd also supports location sharing.

    <https://osmand.net/docs/user/plugins/osmand-tracker/>

    Regardless which solution you use - the other person also needs Google
    Maps or OSMAnd to view your current location.

    I didn't know about OSMAnd. That's a nice feature if it works well.
    "OsmAnd Tracker is a modified Telegram client created for flexible
    monitoring and sending messages with GPS locations in real-time."
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand.telegram>

    But keep in mind that having GPS enabled all the time and sending
    location updates drains your battery quite fast. So also keep a big
    power bank with you. Also keep in mind that the device can fail and/or batteries can get empty.

    A second radio seems to me to be a safe bet although I have a (rather
    heavy) battery pack for charging a phone with foldout solar cells.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Also I on Tue May 21 12:36:18 2024
    Newyana2 wrote on Tue, 21 May 2024 08:16:49 -0400 :

    Here we have a classic case of advanced, terminal cellphone
    addiction. A vehement, irrational -- even religious -- belief that
    cellphone distraction while driving reduces accidents.

    Many people believe in myths, but very few question them, and even fewer
    ask why there is no solid evidence in the government record for them.

    You aren't at the level to answer the question of "why" yet, because you
    still believe in the myth. In fact, you "religiously believe" in the myth.

    It's you who owns the religious belief.
    Not me.

    I believe in facts.

    Notice I never said cellphones aren't a distraction. They are.
    I never said distractions don't cause accidents. They do.

    I simply said that the accident rate trend (slowly going down, year
    over year) was wholly unaffected by cellphone ownership rates going up.

    There's a reason for that.
    But you first have to understand the data.

    Also I said nothing about injuries, as they're a second-order effect.

    This is closely
    related to the vehement geek belief that playing murderous video
    games all day has no effect on mental health. "Cigarettes help your
    lungs by reducing coughing." "Alcoholism is just the name used by
    teetotalers to describe people who can hold their liquor." "I don't know
    how she got pregnant. We never had sex... I don't think."

    But you have to understand that there are hundreds (nay, thousansd) of distractions while driving, e.g., using the car radio (if you have one).

    If you can't be honest with yourself about your cellphone
    dependency, that's addiction. Can you just set it aside for a couple
    of weeks without any big problems? Then that's addiction. If you
    think that you can pay attention driving while on your cellphone,
    you're fooling yourself. Those of us who are paying attention are
    preventing the accidents. We watch you carefully while your
    speed changes, you make sudden movements, you brake for no
    reason, you drive like an old lady and then suddenly speed up....
    We try to get away from you as soon as possible because you drive
    like a drunk, only vaguely aware of what you're doing.

    And yet, what you're doing is justifying the myth without ever looking at
    the data, which clearly shows in the USA, where accurate government
    statistics have existed since the 1920's, the accident rate was wholly unaffected by the skyrocketing years of cellphone ownership rates.

    The last accident I was in was due to someone on a cellphone.
    A man was driving while getting directions on his phone from friends
    who he was going to pick up. He was in the left of 2 lanes, signalling
    a left turn. I was passing in the right lane. Suddenly his friends told him he was turning at the wrong street, he overcorrected with his one
    free hand and veered into me.

    Anecdotal evidence is not science.

    We locked mirrors for a few yards. The man first swore that
    I'd hit him. Then he insisted there were not two lanes! He called the
    police. He called his insurance company. He truly believed that I had
    hit him while he was minding his own business. All the while he never got
    off his cellphone. Luckily a sharp cop showed up and pointed out that
    all the broken side mirror glass was in my lane, so I couldn't have
    hit him... That accident wouldn't have been recorded as being caused
    by cellphone usage. Anyone causing an accident by cellphone distraction
    is likely to say they weren't on their phone. And we don't have breathalyzer tests for cellphone mania.

    BTW, notice I said cellphones are clearly a distraction, nay, even a "new" distraction... which went from zero percent in vehicles to 100% in only a
    few years.

    I saw a funny story the other day. I forget where it was. A young man
    was tracked by a cop using his cellphone while driving, then pulled into
    a fast food restaurant. The cop followed, walked over to his window, and
    gave him a ticket for using a cellphone while driving. The young man
    insisted
    that he had just then pulled out his cellphone to let the drive-through
    clerk
    scan a coupon.

    And yet, the accident rate trend was unaffected. There's a reason for that,
    but you first have to comprehend the facts before you can understand them.

    Less amusing was the documentary made by Werner Herzog, about
    Amish people in a buggy killed by a texting driver. https://slate.com/culture/2013/08/werner-herzog-texting-while-driving-documentary-from-one-second-to-the-next-is-worth-watching-video.html

    I never once said that there were no accidents. What I said was accurate
    data clearly shows in all fifty states the accident rate trend was
    unaffected by the skyrocketing rates of cellphone ownership.

    To even imagine that you can safely drive while using a cellphone is feeblemindedness. Cellphone addicts feel like they're on top of things, handling all sorts of input at once. Their cellphone is their cockpit. The trouble is that the one thing they're not tracking is the here and now. They're not where their body is. It's like those old Hollywood movies where the mogul is answering 2 or 3 phones at once, too busy to relate to
    any of the calls properly.

    Many people believe in myths, but very few question them, and even fewer
    ask why there is no solid evidence in the government record for them.

    You aren't at the level to answer the question of "why" yet, because you
    still believe in the myth.

    Notice I never said cellphones aren't a distraction. They are.
    I never said distractions don't cause accidents. They do.

    I simply said that the accident rate trend (slowly going down, year
    over year) was wholly unaffected by cellphone ownership rates going up.

    There's a reason for that.
    But you first have to understand the data.

    Also I said nothing about injuries, as they're a second-order effect.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Newyana2@21:1/5 to Andrew on Tue May 21 08:16:49 2024
    On 5/20/2024 11:12 PM, Andrew wrote:

    Every single state reported similar trends of the accident rate going steadily down (for very good reasons, mind you) during the entire time that phone ownership rates were skyrocketing - laying proof to the lie that cellphones have any negative effect on the accident rate.

    If anything, they have a positive effect by reducing the accident rate
    (e.g., reducing sudden unexpected traffic, re-routing traffic, warning of construction and congestion, fewer confused turnarounds, etc.).


    Here we have a classic case of advanced, terminal cellphone
    addiction. A vehement, irrational -- even religious -- belief that
    cellphone distraction while driving reduces accidents. This is closely
    related to the vehement geek belief that playing murderous video
    games all day has no effect on mental health. "Cigarettes help your
    lungs by reducing coughing." "Alcoholism is just the name used by
    teetotalers to describe people who can hold their liquor." "I don't know
    how she got pregnant. We never had sex... I don't think."

    If you can't be honest with yourself about your cellphone
    dependency, that's addiction. Can you just set it aside for a couple
    of weeks without any big problems? Then that's addiction. If you
    think that you can pay attention driving while on your cellphone,
    you're fooling yourself. Those of us who are paying attention are
    preventing the accidents. We watch you carefully while your
    speed changes, you make sudden movements, you brake for no
    reason, you drive like an old lady and then suddenly speed up....
    We try to get away from you as soon as possible because you drive
    like a drunk, only vaguely aware of what you're doing.

    The last accident I was in was due to someone on a cellphone.
    A man was driving while getting directions on his phone from friends
    who he was going to pick up. He was in the left of 2 lanes, signalling
    a left turn. I was passing in the right lane. Suddenly his friends told him
    he was turning at the wrong street, he overcorrected with his one
    free hand and veered into me.

    We locked mirrors for a few yards. The man first swore that
    I'd hit him. Then he insisted there were not two lanes! He called the
    police. He called his insurance company. He truly believed that I had
    hit him while he was minding his own business. All the while he never got
    off his cellphone. Luckily a sharp cop showed up and pointed out that
    all the broken side mirror glass was in my lane, so I couldn't have
    hit him... That accident wouldn't have been recorded as being caused
    by cellphone usage. Anyone causing an accident by cellphone distraction
    is likely to say they weren't on their phone. And we don't have breathalyzer tests for cellphone mania.

    I saw a funny story the other day. I forget where it was. A young man
    was tracked by a cop using his cellphone while driving, then pulled into
    a fast food restaurant. The cop followed, walked over to his window, and
    gave him a ticket for using a cellphone while driving. The young man
    insisted
    that he had just then pulled out his cellphone to let the drive-through
    clerk
    scan a coupon.

    Less amusing was the documentary made by Werner Herzog, about
    Amish people in a buggy killed by a texting driver. https://slate.com/culture/2013/08/werner-herzog-texting-while-driving-documentary-from-one-second-to-the-next-is-worth-watching-video.html

    To even imagine that you can safely drive while using a cellphone is feeblemindedness. Cellphone addicts feel like they're on top of things, handling all sorts of input at once. Their cellphone is their cockpit. The trouble is that the one thing they're not tracking is the here and now.
    They're not where their body is. It's like those old Hollywood movies where
    the mogul is answering 2 or 3 phones at once, too busy to relate to
    any of the calls properly.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Frank Slootweg@21:1/5 to Bill Bradshaw on Tue May 21 15:33:59 2024
    Bill Bradshaw <[email protected]> wrote:
    micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to
    my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst,
    that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is
    broken or stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I
    still haven't texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's
    location using the simple instructions I found on the web.

    When I am out alone I always run a track on my GPS (not phone) which I can follow back so I do not get lost because I am 78 years old. If you are really worried you should look at something like a Garmin inReach.

    We also have an old (non-phone) GPS (Garmin), which can lay
    'breadcrumbs' for backtracking. Got us out of a mess in outback
    Australia where there was a maze of non-signposted dirt tracks and our
    maps (paper and offline smartphone ones) failed us.

    Two-way (text/SMS) satellite communication like the Garmin InReach is
    of course better, but also more expensive, because of the monthly costs
    for the subscription.

    When we're in the boonies of Australia, we have a PLB (Personal
    Locator Beacon). That gives only a signal - not a message - and your
    location to the satellite, but doesn't need a costly subscription.

    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radiobeacon#Personal_Locator_Beacon>

    --
    Frank Slootweg, smartphone, maps, GPS, compass and PLB.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bill Bradshaw@21:1/5 to Frank Slootweg on Tue May 21 08:49:15 2024
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    Bill Bradshaw <[email protected]> wrote:
    micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location
    to my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the
    worst, that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the
    phone is broken or stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's
    6PM and I still haven't texted her to say I'm done, she can see my
    phone's location using the simple instructions I found on the web.

    When I am out alone I always run a track on my GPS (not phone) which
    I can follow back so I do not get lost because I am 78 years old.
    If you are really worried you should look at something like a Garmin
    inReach.

    We also have an old (non-phone) GPS (Garmin), which can lay
    'breadcrumbs' for backtracking. Got us out of a mess in outback
    Australia where there was a maze of non-signposted dirt tracks and our
    maps (paper and offline smartphone ones) failed us.

    Two-way (text/SMS) satellite communication like the Garmin InReach is
    of course better, but also more expensive, because of the monthly
    costs for the subscription.

    When we're in the boonies of Australia, we have a PLB (Personal
    Locator Beacon). That gives only a signal - not a message - and your
    location to the satellite, but doesn't need a costly subscription.

    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radiobeacon#Personal_Locator_Beacon>

    I am sending this to you and Andrew. If you do not have cell phone service
    how can you send somebody your location and problem?

    <Bill>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Newyana2@21:1/5 to Andrew on Tue May 21 12:34:16 2024
    On 5/21/2024 8:36 AM, Andrew wrote:

    Many people believe in myths, but very few question them, and even fewer
    ask why there is no solid evidence in the government record for them.


    I told you why... if it's even true. Cellphone use is not
    typically something that's investigated and cellphone users
    are not likely to offer the information.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Frank Slootweg@21:1/5 to Bill Bradshaw on Tue May 21 17:31:22 2024
    Bill Bradshaw <[email protected]> wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    Bill Bradshaw <[email protected]> wrote:
    micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location
    to my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the
    worst, that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the
    phone is broken or stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's
    6PM and I still haven't texted her to say I'm done, she can see my
    phone's location using the simple instructions I found on the web.

    When I am out alone I always run a track on my GPS (not phone) which
    I can follow back so I do not get lost because I am 78 years old.
    If you are really worried you should look at something like a Garmin
    inReach.

    We also have an old (non-phone) GPS (Garmin), which can lay
    'breadcrumbs' for backtracking. Got us out of a mess in outback
    Australia where there was a maze of non-signposted dirt tracks and our
    maps (paper and offline smartphone ones) failed us.

    Two-way (text/SMS) satellite communication like the Garmin InReach is
    of course better, but also more expensive, because of the monthly
    costs for the subscription.

    When we're in the boonies of Australia, we have a PLB (Personal
    Locator Beacon). That gives only a signal - not a message - and your location to the satellite, but doesn't need a costly subscription.

    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radiobeacon#Personal_Locator_Beacon>

    I am sending this to you and Andrew. If you do not have cell phone service how can you send somebody your location and problem?

    Huh?

    Please (re-)read my response and reference.

    As I mentioned, with a PLB you can send a signal - i.e. the fact that
    you have a severe problem - and your location. As a result, the
    emergency services will come looking for you (they are required to
    respond).

    And no, as I said, with a PLB you can not send a message, so you can
    not tell *which* problem you have, but the signal indicates that you
    have a severe problem. I.e. if you trigger the PLB because you're out of
    beer, you will get a hefty fine and might have to pay all the expenses
    for the bogus rescue operation.

    So: A device like the Garmin InReach is more expenswive and has
    continuous subscription costs. A PLB is cheaper and has no subscription
    costs, but can not send/receive messages. Nothing has only advantages
    and no disadvantages and life isn't fair. News at eleven.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 21 13:44:32 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 06:49:23 +0200, J�rg Lorenz <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 20.05.2024 03:58, knuttle wrote:
    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my >>> ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I >>> break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected >>> criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be
    a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person.

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to
    its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try
    the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use
    it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do.
    I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really
    have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work? >>> OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really
    show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe
    they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    You're pretty funny, Jorg. In another post you complain that this post
    is off-topic (even though the first two paragraphs, the important part,
    are not), but then below you call knuttle's post, which is entirely
    off-topic, "Phantastic!" and you say THX!. You don't seem to know if
    you like off-topic posts or not, so I don't see how anyone can use your standards for anything.

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods
    without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or
    finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your
    batteries expire.

    Phantastic! THX!

    See? You like off-topic stuff. People should remember that when you
    complain about somethiung the next time.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 21 13:46:26 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 07:47:51 +0200, J�rg Lorenz <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 20.05.2024 07:11, micky wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 19 May 2024 21:58:37 -0400, knuttle
    <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my >>>> ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I >>>> break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't >>>> texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected >>>> criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be >>>> a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person. >>>>
    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to >>>> its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try >>>> the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use >>>> it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do. >>>> I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really >>>> have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work? >>>>
    OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really >>>> show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe >>>> they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods
    without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or
    finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending >>> on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your >>> batteries expire.

    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.

    I've been hiking in the woods alone since I was 6 years old. I never
    get lost, I especially like hikes with only deer trails or no trails at
    all. For example I led a hike through the Crownsville Hospital forest
    years before it opened to the public. As well as the Rocky Gorge
    Reservoir, which still has no trails at all. When I camp, I rarely use
    a tent and on one occasion, I camped without a sleeping bag and slept
    totally without clothes (and that was in a campground!) I've spent the
    night atop Mt. Katahdin, even though it was against the rules. (wanted
    to watch the sun rise.)

    And I eat my meat raw.

    I know all about blazed trails, but I don't limit myself to them. OTOH,
    I don't want my half-day hike to last an extra hour because I miss a
    turn.

    Do you hike alone? On weekdays when you are likely the only person
    there? When I was 60, I wasn't concerned about this but at age 77, I
    know it's possible I'll break a leg or have a heart attack, and it's
    foolish not to take a phone. In case I'm unconscious or my phone is
    broken, it's foolish not to take advantage of the tech marvels of the
    age, so that if I don't come back when I plan to, a friend can send
    someone to look for me, rather than my lying there all night (possibly
    in the rain). But I guess you're a real man and dying alone in the
    woods won't bother you.

    Even more *OT*. Has nothing to do with Android.

    How come you praised knuttle when his post was entirely off-topic

    And this is not therapy group for nutty hikers.

    I think knuttle is a lot more knutty. Not counting you, of course.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 21 14:10:33 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 18:38:25 -0000 (UTC), Chris <[email protected]> wrote:

    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 19 May 2024 21:58:37 -0400, knuttle
    <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my >>>> ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I >>>> break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't >>>> texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected >>>> criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be >>>> a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person. >>>>
    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to >>>> its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try >>>> the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use >>>> it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do. >>>> I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really >>>> have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work? >>>>
    OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really >>>> show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe >>>> they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods
    without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or
    finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending >>> on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your >>> batteries expire.

    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.

    I've been hiking in the woods alone since I was 6 years old.

    Then you should know that before you head off to tell someone your route
    and approximate time you will be done by. Then if you're not back by the
    time you said you would be that person can alert mountain rescue.

    I thought it was clear from my post that I did all that.

    This has always been the case with no need for technology.

    No, the post revolved around knowing with some precision where I was,
    not just somewhere, anywhere, on a 2 to 10 miles trail, so that on a
    loop trail rescuers can go clockwise or counter-clockwise from the trail
    head, whichever is quicker. Or with yesterday's trai that went from one
    road to another 3 miles away and then via another route back to the
    first road, they can start at whichever road is closer to the person
    being rescued.

    Or, especially relevant yesterday when much of the trail on a hill near
    a river, even the path itself sloped to the side, if the person has
    rolled down a hill off the trail, so the rescuers don't walk right by
    him.

    If you want to depend on fallible technology - requires battery, wifi, gps,

    Only GPS and battery, and I have plenty of battery and GPS is exceedinly reliable. There was no cell signal on 90% of the trail, and certainly
    no wifi.

    But I challenge your use of "depend on". You missed the part that I had
    told my friend where I was going on and how long it would take me. The technology part is a supplement, so that they will be find me faster.

    I don't know what someone on an Android group would have against using technology.

    to work - then you share live location. You still need to pre-arrange with >someone to notify the authorities if you're not back when you said you
    would be.

    Yes, of course.

    If you can't trust your ex to be able to read a map for the police then ask >someone else.

    I've thought about calling 311 to find out what the police do in this situation, but I think I know the ansewr. If a child is missing, I'm
    sure they go to the parents' home and look at the phone themselves. And
    that's probably what they would do for a hiker too, at least if the
    friend with his location is fairly nearby. I'll cover technical
    possibilities in another post.

    A non-map based option is WhatThreeWords. See if you can suit your needs.
    The system has covered the whole planet surface in a grid of 3x3m squares >each defined by a unique combination of three words e.g.
    The White House

    ///metals.rated.purely
    https://w3w.co/metals.rated.purely

    It is ideal for giving directions where there's no points of reference.

    I never
    get lost,

    No-one does. Until they do.

    knuttle assumed with no basis that I was likely to get lost. You seem
    to think it's the problem too. What I said would be a problem was a
    broken leg or being unconscious, nothing to do with being lost.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 21 14:23:00 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 20:34:36 -0400, knuttle <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 05/20/2024 5:35 PM, Andrew wrote:
    knuttle wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 16:00:46 -0400 :

    On 05/20/2024 2:38 PM, Chris wrote:
    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.
    No I was not kidding. Today people have put their whole lives in a
    cellphone. They depend on it to maintain their financial records, their >>> shopping list. They use it to find the places they go. They feel they >>> do not need to know basic, because they think the can use
    google/siri/etc when ever they need information. I sometime wonder if
    they need to google to tie their shoes.

    I think it is a recipe for disaster. They are depending for everything
    in their lives based on being able to access a cell tower. Hurricane,
    tornado, earthquake and the cell system being significantly interrupted, >>> they will be helpless.

    Well, to be fair, cellphones make people safer, and, in fact, cellphones
    are one reason traffic safety has steadily improved year after year after
    year since traffic accident rates steadily went down while cellphone
    ownership rates skyrocketed (contrary to the myth by most morons out there >> that cellphone use while driving raises the accident rate).

    None of those morons who claim that have ever looked at the accident rates. >>
    In addition to the SOS apps, Satellite communications and HAM radio
    previously discussed in this group (assuming a broken leg, for example),
    for the OP, there's a free geofence app on iOS & Android which will alert
    anyone he wants to alert the instant his phone goes into our out of the
    area (of course, it needs to have cellular coverage at sending time).

    https://www.iamherezone.com/ by SyncIt
    "This app allows users to send pre-generated messages based on
    their geofence location area, thus informing other users when
    they enter or leave a geographical area. The user defines the
    geographical area by drawing it on the map. The app supports
    SMS messaging, WhatsApp, email, and push notifications."

    1. Draw a zone (on OpenStreetMap)
    2. Write your text message
    3. Select recipients

    Create multiple zones
    Store multiple recipients
    Send default and customized messages
    Setup recurring and one-time messages
    Add icon and color to each zone

    iOS:
    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/im-here-zone/id1452495641
    Android:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.syncitgroup.android.iamhere
    This is another statistic.
    In the past 50 years the government has mandated 100's of safety devices
    on automobiles. Each device was to reduce traffic accidents because it
    would reduce death by 10%.

    I don't believe that anyone ever said that each of the safety devices
    developed for cars would reduce the death rate by 10%. For one thing
    it's ridicilous to expect, and no one would claim, that each device
    would be of the same value as each of the others. Seat belts are
    probably higher than 10% and some devices are 1% or less.

    We learned in the 50's that car makers were very slow in implement most
    safety measures unless forced to by law.

    SO assume there were 100 devices added each reducing the traffic
    accidents. accidents reduced 10% for each device, and 100 device, means
    there are no traffic accidents on cars that had all of those devices >implemented.

    (if there were 100 lost lives, after the 1st device there were 90 death, >after the 2nd 81, the 3rd 73, and so on until 100 devices )

    So much for the published statistics on the lives saved by each new
    device added to the car, it means nothing in the real world.

    Since it was never claimed, of course all this multiplication means
    nothing

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to Bradshaw" on Tue May 21 14:48:53 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 10:06:34 -0800, "Bill
    Bradshaw" <[email protected]> wrote:

    micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to
    my ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst,
    that I break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is
    broken or stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I
    still haven't texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's
    location using the simple instructions I found on the web.

    When I am out alone I always run a track on my GPS (not phone) which I can >follow back so I do not get lost because I am 78 years old. If you are >really worried you should look at something like a Garmin inReach.

    This reminds me of the abandoned chromium mine at Soldiers Delight**,
    not far from here. There is a string running from the entrance into the
    mine, left by someone who wanted to find his way out. Unfortunately the
    mine has been flooded when I've been there.

    **Used to be the biggest producer of chromium in the world, back when
    there was little use of chromium.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 21 14:44:09 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 06:47:20 +0200, J�rg Lorenz <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 20.05.2024 03:46, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my
    ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I
    break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    *OT*

    Of course it's on topic. (and far, far more than knuttle's post that you praised.) Google maps is an Android app that everyone has, and how to
    relay to the police what the maps app says about a missing person's
    location is a question about more than the maps app. It's about Android
    usage in general.

    I think the only current way to do this would be to take a screen shot,
    or several at different levels of zoom, and send that to some police
    number that accepts email. I think I've heard that 911 will accept
    emails at least in parts of the country/world, but if it won't, the
    police will give you a number that will.

    How to take a screenshot and then find the file or the file name and how
    to "share" that with the police is another set of Android questions.

    My friend is one county away from where I live, so I think the easiest
    thing in my case would be to send the Carroll County or state police to
    her home and look at the map there. If someone used a friend 1000 miles
    away, when a friend is missing, it would then be worth learning how to
    take and email screenshots.

    Or one could borrow another cellphone and photograph the screen of the
    first one and send that picture.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?J=C3=B6rg_Lorenz?=@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 21 21:28:16 2024
    Am 21.05.24 um 19:44 schrieb micky:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 06:49:23 +0200, Jörg Lorenz <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 20.05.2024 03:58, knuttle wrote:
    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my >>>> ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I >>>> break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't >>>> texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.

    But if she's unable to explain to the police where I am, how do the
    police figure it out? Can they see everyone's location just by
    knowing their phone number? This would be bad if it were for suspected >>>> criminals and they didn't have a warrant, but if it's to save me, I'd
    sort of like for them to know where I am. And I don't want there to be >>>> a lot of time required to enable it each time for each new lost person. >>>>
    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?


    BTW, I started doing this last fall, without realizing the plan was
    incomplete. Since then the AllTrails app has added the same feature to >>>> its maps. It probably piggybacks on Google maps. I'll know when I try >>>> the two tomorrow. The AllTrails app is fantastic in that you can use >>>> it for free if you have cellular signal where you are walking, and if
    you pay for a year, you can download all the maps you'll want to use
    (which I think continue to work even after your subscription has
    expired) and you can use them without a cell signal. AND, they show
    where on the trail you are. The maps zoom in more than google maps do. >>>> I think they'll even tell you when it's time to turn, but that's not
    something I'd likely want to use.

    I've come across a couple other non-Google maps that include GPS. I
    think the Yorktown battlefield in Virginia was one of them. You really >>>> have to give a lot of credit to the USA government for putting those
    satellites up there. Who would even have thunk it that this could work? >>>> OTOH, i've read that the whole thing is a scam, and GPS doesn't really >>>> show where you are. It just sends random locations, and people believe >>>> they are accurate. People are so suggestible. Many have drunk the
    kool-aid and they believe in GPS and vaccines. It's sad.

    You're pretty funny, Jorg. In another post you complain that this post
    is off-topic (even though the first two paragraphs, the important part,
    are not), but then below you call knuttle's post, which is entirely off-topic, "Phantastic!" and you say THX!. You don't seem to know if
    you like off-topic posts or not, so I don't see how anyone can use your standards for anything.

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods
    without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or
    finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending >>> on your cellphone. Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your >>> batteries expire.

    Phantastic! THX!

    See? You like off-topic stuff. People should remember that when you complain about somethiung the next time.

    Like almost always: *You do not get the message*.

    --
    "Gutta cavat lapidem." (Ovid)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 21 16:03:28 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on 21 May 2024 19:19:06 GMT, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]d> wrote:

    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    [...]

    Of course it's on topic. (and far, far more than knuttle's post that you
    praised.) Google maps is an Android app that everyone has, and how to
    relay to the police what the maps app says about a missing person's
    location is a question about more than the maps app. It's about Android
    usage in general.

    I think the only current way to do this would be to take a screen shot,
    or several at different levels of zoom, and send that to some police
    number that accepts email. I think I've heard that 911 will accept
    emails at least in parts of the country/world, but if it won't, the
    police will give you a number that will.

    How to take a screenshot and then find the file or the file name and how
    to "share" that with the police is another set of Android questions.

    My friend is one county away from where I live, so I think the easiest
    thing in my case would be to send the Carroll County or state police to
    her home and look at the map there. If someone used a friend 1000 miles
    away, when a friend is missing, it would then be worth learning how to
    take and email screenshots.

    Or one could borrow another cellphone and photograph the screen of the
    first one and send that picture.

    I assume you use the location sharing feature of Google Maps.

    Yes.**

    Assuming your ex-girlfriend knows how to use Google Maps, she can see
    your last known location. She can 'pin' that location by long-pressing
    it and then she can 'Share' (see bottom of screen) that location by any
    of the available sharing methods, i.e. SMS, email, instant messaging >(WhatsApp), etc., etc..

    Aha, this is just the sort of answer I was looking for! This sounds
    great. Almost worth getting stuck on the trail to try it out. (FWIW,
    I've never been on the receiving end of location sharing.)

    BTW, location sharing itself used to be much like this, specifically, long-pressing one's own location. When I tried last month to show it
    to another friend, it didn't work, and it turns out they had changed the instructions. Now the instructions are to tap your atavar or initial in
    the upper right corner of the map and then tap Location Sharing. It's conceivable to me that if you are giving the method by memory, that the
    current instructions for it have also changed. But it's easy enough to remember both methods.

    The sharing goes via the Google Maps URL [1] of the location. Sadly, I do
    not see a method to share the actual coordinates, which would be better.
    Also see Chris' earlier reference to WhatThreeWords.

    BTW, do *not* use a screenshot if the above methods are available. The
    screenshot might not contain enough of the surroundings to pinpoint the >location and even if it does, it's uneccessarily hard to determine the
    actual coordinates (within some reasonable accuracy).

    Not only that. the AllTrails map showed my location and it zigzagged
    near the trail I was supposed to take, even though I was almost always
    right on the trail I was supposed to take. I think this was because GPS
    is not perfect

    If your ex-girlfriend does not know how to use Google Maps, it's best

    She does. She even uses it. She just doesn't know which direction is
    north and which is south. She has to go by landmarks. At least that's
    what she says. (I've tried telling that A is south of B and she says she doesn't understand, so i have to say it's closer to downtown. She knows
    where downtown is.) But she's ahead of me on a lot of phone stuff. I
    think she knows a lot more than she admits, but when I say that, she's
    silent, neither confirming nor denying.

    if she goes to the police or they come to her, and take it from there.

    [1] Example: <https://maps.app.goo.gl/2TpN5LggxDJNQN7F6> (which is The
    White House).

    Google has its own location notation/sysem, in this case
    VXX7+39 Washington, District of Columbia
    That is, the VXX&+39 part. That's unrelated to WhatThreeWords, right?


    **(I mentioned that AllTrails also had location sharing (that might
    just piggyback on Google***), but it didn't offer it to me yesterday
    like it had the night before. Not sure why, but I didn't go looking for
    it and so I didn't test it like I wanted to. Ah, here it is. It's
    called Live Share, and it didn't work yesteday, I suppose, becaues I had
    no cell signal on the trail. I had sent the ext about google's before I started.)

    ***No, not Google. It ssems to send your friend a link to an AllTrails
    page, and I suppose AllTrails can know your current location as well as
    google does even though iiuc it won't when you have no cellular signal.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Frank Slootweg@21:1/5 to micky on Tue May 21 19:19:06 2024
    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    [...]

    Of course it's on topic. (and far, far more than knuttle's post that you praised.) Google maps is an Android app that everyone has, and how to
    relay to the police what the maps app says about a missing person's
    location is a question about more than the maps app. It's about Android
    usage in general.

    I think the only current way to do this would be to take a screen shot,
    or several at different levels of zoom, and send that to some police
    number that accepts email. I think I've heard that 911 will accept
    emails at least in parts of the country/world, but if it won't, the
    police will give you a number that will.

    How to take a screenshot and then find the file or the file name and how
    to "share" that with the police is another set of Android questions.

    My friend is one county away from where I live, so I think the easiest
    thing in my case would be to send the Carroll County or state police to
    her home and look at the map there. If someone used a friend 1000 miles away, when a friend is missing, it would then be worth learning how to
    take and email screenshots.

    Or one could borrow another cellphone and photograph the screen of the
    first one and send that picture.

    I assume you use the location sharing feature of Google Maps.

    Assuming your ex-girlfriend knows how to use Google Maps, she can see
    your last known location. She can 'pin' that location by long-pressing
    it and then she can 'Share' (see bottom of screen) that location by any
    of the available sharing methods, i.e. SMS, email, instant messaging (WhatsApp), etc., etc..

    The sharing goes via the Google Maps URL [1] of the location. Sadly, I do
    not see a method to share the actual coordinates, which would be better.
    Also see Chris' earlier reference to WhatThreeWords.

    BTW, do *not* use a screenshot if the above methods are available. The screenshot might not contain enough of the surroundings to pinpoint the location and even if it does, it's uneccessarily hard to determine the
    actual coordinates (within some reasonable accuracy).

    If your ex-girlfriend does not know how to use Google Maps, it's best
    if she goes to the police or they come to her, and take it from there.

    [1] Example: <https://maps.app.goo.gl/2TpN5LggxDJNQN7F6> (which is The
    White House).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 21 16:08:15 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 08:06:37 -0400, Newyana2 <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 5/19/2024 9:58 PM, knuttle wrote:

    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods
    without a electronic device of any type.� You would learn about mark or
    finding marks so you could retrace your path.� You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    Learn to be in the woods before you go off wandering on a hike depending
    on your cellphone.� Knowledge of the Woods will save your life when your
    batteries expire.

    Also of note is that Micky's sample scenario starts
    with him having his cellphone either broken or stolen.

    Yeah, it was silly to include "stolen". If someone steals my phone
    maybe they can track down the thief and he can tell the police where he
    left me lying in the woods. OTOH, I don't think getting my phone
    stolen while hiking is much of a risk.

    If the phone is broken, I think it continues to show the last location
    when it worked.

    He then goes on to enjoy a high-tech trail map and expects
    the police to find him via GPS, presumably because his
    cellphone number alone always shows where he is.

    I think that the way it turns out is that Micky's ex
    figures out the GPS and helps the police track down the
    criminal who stole Micky's cellphone. She ends up a hero.
    Meanwhile, Micky has a broken leg. He's stuck on the
    trail, bending the ear of a weary grizzly bear who's trying
    desperately to find an excuse to leave. "Whoa! Sorry Micky.
    I think I just saw a salmon walk by. Gotta go!"

    Could be.

    But Micky
    does finally get saved, because an alien spaceship on
    patrol in those woods happens to notice that Micky's
    cellphone number has been stopped on a trail for hours
    without moving. In the end it all ends well. Micky is awarded
    an honorary Eagle Scout medal and gets a lucrative contract
    working as a translator at Area 51....

    Don't miss Season 2 of Micky Gets By, when Micky struggles
    with humidity possibly affecting his computer and takes his
    emergency to 9 newsgroups. It's non-stop action.

    LOL

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 21 17:05:43 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 06:34:38 -0000 (UTC), Andrew <[email protected]> wrote:

    micky wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 01:11:51 -0400 :

    Or is my friend supposed to somehow send the location information she
    can see on her phone to their phone? How?

    There are many solutions to the problem you posited above, one of which is >that Andy Burns in a recent thread mentioned a US carrier that will switch
    to satellite communications if there isn't any cellular connection.

    However, if you have a cellular connection, we've discussed on this
    newsgroup many times the typical SOS apps which will send your latitude & >longitude (and even a map with your pre-prepared text if you like) to
    anyone listed as your emergency contact.

    Offhand, one is SOS Alert where you press a homescreen button to send a >pre-prepared SOS message & your GPS location to up to 5 contacts).
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.main.contacts.smsmanager>

    Another one which requires more button presses but which is more useful in >day-to-day hiking situations is this app which sends the GPS by SMS.
    *GPS to SMS* - location sharing by Tralchonok Labs <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.perm.trubnikov.gps2sms> <https://github.com/tral/GPS2SMS> <https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-2-2-gps-to-sms-location-sharing.2994187/>

    Of course, you have to be alive for that to happen, and you need cellular >signal,

    I was alive, but I didn't have a cell signal 80% of the time.

    although if you're still ambulatory, it will send when you
    eventually move into a cellular coverage area.

    If you don't have a cellular connection, that's why I keep a HAM radio in
    my pack when I'm on off trail hikes in the mountains.

    I was a little surprised how close I was to the road when the cell
    signal ended (and it was closer than that because I was listenning to
    webradio and that is spooled for up to 10 minutes worth.)

    But I guess cells are not very big.

    And 5G cells are even smaller. When 5G is well-established, won't they
    still have to keep 4G to reach into the woods, mountains, and deserts as
    far as it goes now?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 21 21:21:13 2024
    Newyana2 wrote on Tue, 21 May 2024 12:34:16 -0400 :

    Many people believe in myths, but very few question them, and even fewer
    ask why there is no solid evidence in the government record for them.


    I told you why... if it's even true. Cellphone use is not
    typically something that's investigated and cellphone users
    are not likely to offer the information.

    Science is weirder than the religious myths people make up.

    Doesn't matter since the measurement I'm informing you of which is
    extremely reliable is the accident rate for every state for every year,
    which is accurately compiled by the US Census Bureau and which has been accurately compiled since the 1920's - so it's not skewed data.

    You simply look at those accident rates during the years just prior to the skyrocketing cellphone ownership rates and during those years and after.

    There is no effect.

    That's just a fact.

    You hold on to your religious argument that it "must" be there, which is
    fine since most people believe in these myths - but it's religion.

    Not science.

    The science shows the accident rate is wholly unaffected (it just steadily
    goes down in all fifty states over all those years).

    Once you accept the data - then you'll realize why it is so.
    But you're not ready for the why yet.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Bill Bradshaw on Tue May 21 21:19:05 2024
    Bill Bradshaw wrote on Tue, 21 May 2024 08:49:15 -0800 :

    If you do not have cell phone service
    how can you send somebody your location and problem?

    Please re-read what I wrote (and what Frank wrote) where we took into
    account that problem, in various ways - because we understood the problem
    set and, as a result of that understanding, we kindly provided the OP with
    a variety of purposefully helpful workarounds.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Frank Slootweg@21:1/5 to micky on Wed May 22 13:39:35 2024
    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    [...]

    Not only that. the AllTrails map showed my location and it zigzagged
    near the trail I was supposed to take, even though I was almost always
    right on the trail I was supposed to take. I think this was because GPS
    is not perfect

    Was this in a tree covered area or/and with overcast weather? Both
    tend to weaken the GPS signal, which is already a very weak signal to
    start with. (Imagine the satellites transmitting from some 20,000km
    (12,500mi) above the earth to your smartphone.)

    Moral: Get out of the woods and only hike on a sunny day! :-)

    [...]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed May 22 11:13:03 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on 22 May 2024 13:39:35 GMT, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]d> wrote:

    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    [...]

    Not only that. the AllTrails map showed my location and it zigzagged
    near the trail I was supposed to take, even though I was almost always
    right on the trail I was supposed to take. I think this was because GPS
    is not perfect

    Was this in a tree covered area or/and with overcast weather? Both

    Yes, both of those.

    tend to weaken the GPS signal, which is already a very weak signal to
    start with. (Imagine the satellites transmitting from some 20,000km >(12,500mi) above the earth to your smartphone.)

    But it isn't the strength of the signal that matters, it's the time
    delay iirc. Does Going through clouds and leaves delay the signal?


    Moral: Get out of the woods and only hike on a sunny day! :-)

    [...]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Frank Slootweg@21:1/5 to micky on Wed May 22 15:28:22 2024
    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on 22 May 2024 13:39:35 GMT, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]d> wrote:

    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    [...]

    Not only that. the AllTrails map showed my location and it zigzagged
    near the trail I was supposed to take, even though I was almost always
    right on the trail I was supposed to take. I think this was because GPS >> is not perfect

    Was this in a tree covered area or/and with overcast weather? Both

    Yes, both of those.

    tend to weaken the GPS signal, which is already a very weak signal to
    start with. (Imagine the satellites transmitting from some 20,000km >(12,500mi) above the earth to your smartphone.)

    But it isn't the strength of the signal that matters, it's the time
    delay iirc. Does Going through clouds and leaves delay the signal?

    The signal strength does matter, because if it's too low, the
    smartphone can't pick it up. I.e. similar to a 'cell' signal, if it's
    too weak, you won't get a connection.

    In my experience, both with 'real' GPSs - i.e. dedicated devices - and smartphones, trees and clouds are the main problems for getting a fix.

    Indoors is also a problem, but it's not often needed in such
    circumstances. In a vehicle, it's mostly not a problem, because of the
    amount of glass. I even successfully used it in a normal commercial
    airplane. (The plane didn't have a screen showing its current position,
    etc., so I took my tablet, fired up OsmAnd+ and held the tablet somewhat
    close to the window.)

    Moral: Get out of the woods and only hike on a sunny day! :-)

    [...]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Frank Slootweg on Wed May 22 16:36:36 2024
    Frank Slootweg wrote on 22 May 2024 15:28:22 GMT :

    I even successfully used it in a normal commercial
    airplane.

    Agree my Samsung's GPS also works just fine in the windows seat of a
    commercial airplane.

    What I do, when I hike, is send periodic texts, which magically work even without cellular signal, if you're ambulatory and if you eventually get to
    an area that has cellular signal - because they're queued up by the phone.

    *GPS to SMS* - location sharing by Tralchonok Labs
    free, ad free, gsf free, 3.6 star, 787 reviews, 100K+ Downloads
    <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.perm.trubnikov.gps2sms>
    <https://github.com/tral/GPS2SMS>
    <https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-2-2-gps-to-sms-location-sharing.2994187/>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bill Bradshaw@21:1/5 to Andrew on Wed May 22 08:59:36 2024
    Andrew wrote:
    Bill Bradshaw wrote on Tue, 21 May 2024 08:49:15 -0800 :

    If you do not have cell phone service
    how can you send somebody your location and problem?

    Please re-read what I wrote (and what Frank wrote) where we took into
    account that problem, in various ways - because we understood the
    problem set and, as a result of that understanding, we kindly
    provided the OP with a variety of purposefully helpful workarounds.

    They just found the body of a solo climber that fell on Denali several days
    ago by following his inReach track.

    <Bill>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed May 22 14:02:44 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on 22 May 2024 15:28:22 GMT, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]d> wrote:

    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on 22 May 2024 13:39:35 GMT, Frank Slootweg
    <[email protected]d> wrote:

    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    [...]

    Not only that. the AllTrails map showed my location and it zigzagged
    near the trail I was supposed to take, even though I was almost always
    right on the trail I was supposed to take. I think this was because GPS >> >> is not perfect

    Was this in a tree covered area or/and with overcast weather? Both

    Yes, both of those.

    tend to weaken the GPS signal, which is already a very weak signal to
    start with. (Imagine the satellites transmitting from some 20,000km
    (12,500mi) above the earth to your smartphone.)

    But it isn't the strength of the signal that matters, it's the time
    delay iirc. Does Going through clouds and leaves delay the signal?

    The signal strength does matter, because if it's too low, the
    smartphone can't pick it up. I.e. similar to a 'cell' signal, if it's
    too weak, you won't get a connection.

    In my experience, both with 'real' GPSs - i.e. dedicated devices - and
    smartphones, trees and clouds are the main problems for getting a fix.

    There were definitely loads of trees and clouds.

    Indoors is also a problem, but it's not often needed in such
    circumstances.

    Usually I know where I am when I'm indoors. Especially in buildings
    that don't move.

    In a vehicle, it's mostly not a problem, because of the
    amount of glass. I even successfully used it in a normal commercial
    airplane.

    Witht the same phone I've tried it in several airplanes. First time or
    two, didn't work at all. Then worked in two planes. Then didn't work.
    Always window seat. Havent' figured out the difference yet. The first
    time, when it didn't work was flying from JFK in NY to BWI Baltimore.
    Over the water, I guess, but that relates to cellular data, not GPS. (I
    would normally drive but this was the 2nd leg of a flight.)

    (The plane didn't have a screen showing its current position,
    etc., so I took my tablet, fired up OsmAnd+ and held the tablet somewhat >close to the window.)

    Moral: Get out of the woods and only hike on a sunny day! :-)

    [...]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed May 22 20:52:26 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 21:35:50 -0000 (UTC), Andrew <[email protected]> wrote:

    knuttle wrote on Mon, 20 May 2024 16:00:46 -0400 :

    On 05/20/2024 2:38 PM, Chris wrote:
    I presume you're kidding, but just in case, I'll answer as if you
    weren't.
    No I was not kidding. Today people have put their whole lives in a
    cellphone. They depend on it to maintain their financial records, their
    shopping list. They use it to find the places they go. They feel they
    do not need to know basic, because they think the can use
    google/siri/etc when ever they need information. I sometime wonder if
    they need to google to tie their shoes.

    I think it is a recipe for disaster. They are depending for everything
    in their lives based on being able to access a cell tower. Hurricane,
    tornado, earthquake and the cell system being significantly interrupted,
    they will be helpless.

    Well, to be fair, cellphones make people safer, and, in fact, cellphones
    are one reason traffic safety has steadily improved year after year after >year since traffic accident rates steadily went down while cellphone >ownership rates skyrocketed (contrary to the myth by most morons out there >that cellphone use while driving raises the accident rate).

    Are you saying that no one texts or reads texts or articles on their
    cellphone while driving? And that that isn't dangerous? that it
    doesnt' cause accidents?

    None of those morons who claim that have ever looked at the accident rates.

    How do you know that?

    There are dozens of factors that have an effect on the accident rate.

    In addition to the SOS apps, Satellite communications and HAM radio >previously discussed in this group (assuming a broken leg, for example),
    for the OP, there's a free geofence app on iOS & Android which will alert >anyone he wants to alert the instant his phone goes into our out of the
    area (of course, it needs to have cellular coverage at sending time).

    The fact that cellphones are helpful, and can call the police or an
    ambulance better than having no phone*** can does not mean that at other
    times cellphones are the danger. Right?

    ***But those tasks only start after there is an accident and/or only
    after the car has stopped.

    https://www.iamherezone.com/ by SyncIt
    "This app allows users to send pre-generated messages based on
    their geofence location area, thus informing other users when
    they enter or leave a geographical area. The user defines the
    geographical area by drawing it on the map. The app supports
    SMS messaging, WhatsApp, email, and push notifications."

    1. Draw a zone (on OpenStreetMap)
    2. Write your text message
    3. Select recipients

    Create multiple zones
    Store multiple recipients
    Send default and customized messages
    Setup recurring and one-time messages
    Add icon and color to each zone

    iOS:
    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/im-here-zone/id1452495641
    Android:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.syncitgroup.android.iamhere

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to micky on Thu May 23 02:05:48 2024
    micky wrote on Wed, 22 May 2024 20:52:26 -0400 :

    Are you saying that no one texts or reads texts or articles on their cellphone while driving? And that that isn't dangerous? that it
    doesnt' cause accidents?

    Thanks for asking. It's only fools who don't question common myths.
    I'm a scientist. My words below are written very clearly around facts.

    I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the
    start) states since the 1920s, and their data on accident rates for each
    and every one of the fifty states show NO ADVERSE EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the accident rate for any state and for all states in the periods before cellphones, during cellphone ownership skyrocketing, and afterward.

    The accident rate is slowly going down; but it certainly didn't go up
    *That's just a fact.*

    Only fools dispute facts (that's why they're fools).


    None of those morons who claim that have ever looked at the accident rates.

    How do you know that?
    There are dozens of factors that have an effect on the accident rate.

    Nay, thousands. We covered this.

    We covered that the NHTSA focused on and listed distractions, where in the
    top 10 distractions were cellphone use while driving (understandably so).

    There were and are *always* distractions while driving, where cellphones
    merely moved one of those old top ten distractions to position number 11.

    In addition to the SOS apps, Satellite communications and HAM radio >>previously discussed in this group (assuming a broken leg, for example), >>for the OP, there's a free geofence app on iOS & Android which will alert >>anyone he wants to alert the instant his phone goes into our out of the >>area (of course, it needs to have cellular coverage at sending time).

    The fact that cellphones are helpful, and can call the police or an
    ambulance better than having no phone*** can does not mean that at other times cellphones are the danger. Right?

    What you have here is a fact. The accident rate is unchanged.
    What you need to figure out is why.

    The fact is simple (as only fools dispute facts).
    The why isn't so simple - but there are reasons why.

    But until you agree with the fact, you have no business working on the why.
    You should just look up the old threads which contained the URLs.

    I'm tired of digging them up because this is old news that cellphones never changed the accident rate in the United States (or Australia, by the way).

    ***But those tasks only start after there is an accident and/or only
    after the car has stopped.

    There's a reason I spoke about accident rates.
    a. First off, they're normalized by miles driven
    b. Which itself is a complicated function of very many things
    c. And secondly, you can't have injuries without accidents first

    So injuries (including fatalities) are a second-order effect.

    If we don't know the first order effects, we have no business discussing second-order effects (which also knock your socks off if you knew them).

    In summary, every moron on the planet believes that cellphones increased accident rates - because they're morons - and because three entities take anecdotal evidence (that accidents occur) and blow them up out of
    proportion.
    1. Personal injury lawyers (who benefit from the lawsuits)
    2. Insurance companies (who benefit from raising rates)
    3. Police (who benefit from ticketing)

    Try to find a cite please that is NOT from one of those three that shows reliable data before, during & after cellphone ownership skyrocketing
    rates, regarding the accident rate in the United States.

    And yet when you look for the accident rates from the US Census Bureau (who keeps good data) - they didn't go up. They just steadily went down in the United States in the reliable records (which have been kept since the 1920s
    and are the best there is).

    Secondly, cellphones certainly are a distraction - no doubt about it. The
    NHTSA listed the top ten distractions and cellphones kicked one of them off
    the list and replaced them (which should give you a hint as to why the
    accident rate remained unchanged - but nobody is ready for the real science yet).

    Thirdly, any talk about injuries/fatalities is premature because that's a second-order effect. First you have to understand the first-order issues.

    And lastly, even I, a trained scientist, *would have thought* that
    cellphones must be such a distraction that even I (a trained scientist)
    would have thought they certainly would have raised the accident rate.

    And yet, when I looked, I found out that they didn't.
    And then I looked for why.

    Where the why turned out to be obvious - once you realize there have always been top ten distractions while driving - and where cellphones merely
    swapped one of them and pushed another into position 11.

    But nobody is ready for the why until they look at the facts.
    Google it. We've discussed this many times on this very newsgroup.

    The links are in those threads (I'm not bothering to look them up for you).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Thu May 23 00:46:56 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Thu, 23 May 2024 02:05:48 -0000 (UTC), Andrew <[email protected]> wrote:

    micky wrote on Wed, 22 May 2024 20:52:26 -0400 :

    Are you saying that no one texts or reads texts or articles on their
    cellphone while driving? And that that isn't dangerous? that it
    doesnt' cause accidents?

    There are three questions above and afaict you didn't answer any of
    them. Maybe somewhere in your text you have answers, but I didn't see
    them, so do me a favor and answer each of the 3 questiosn above.

    I'll fully phrase them individually, and add one:

    Are you saying that no one texts or reads texts or articles on their
    cellphone while driving?

    Are you saying no one does anything on his cell phone that take takes
    his attention away from his driving?

    If you agree that they do do things that take their attention, are you
    saying it's not dangerous?

    Are you saying it doens't cause accidents?


    Thanks for asking. It's only fools who don't question common myths.
    I'm a scientist. My words below are written very clearly around facts.

    I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been >publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the

    You said this already and I don't find it of value, because lots of
    things can make the accident rate go down, while cell phones could still
    be a danger. That's why I want you to answer each of the 4 questions
    at the top.

    start) states since the 1920s, and their data on accident rates for each
    and every one of the fifty states show NO ADVERSE EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the >accident rate for any state and for all states in the periods before >cellphones, during cellphone ownership skyrocketing, and afterward.

    The accident rate is slowly going down; but it certainly didn't go up
    *That's just a fact.*

    Only fools dispute facts (that's why they're fools).


    None of those morons who claim that have ever looked at the accident rates. >>
    How do you know that?
    There are dozens of factors that have an effect on the accident rate.

    Nay, thousands. We covered this.

    We covered that the NHTSA focused on and listed distractions, where in the >top 10 distractions were cellphone use while driving (understandably so).

    There were and are *always* distractions while driving, where cellphones >merely moved one of those old top ten distractions to position number 11.

    In addition to the SOS apps, Satellite communications and HAM radio >>>previously discussed in this group (assuming a broken leg, for example), >>>for the OP, there's a free geofence app on iOS & Android which will alert >>>anyone he wants to alert the instant his phone goes into our out of the >>>area (of course, it needs to have cellular coverage at sending time).

    The fact that cellphones are helpful, and can call the police or an
    ambulance better than having no phone*** can does not mean that at other
    times cellphones are the danger. Right?

    What you have here is a fact. The accident rate is unchanged.
    What you need to figure out is why.

    I just want to figure out what you're saying.

    The fact is simple (as only fools dispute facts).
    The why isn't so simple - but there are reasons why.

    But until you agree with the fact, you have no business working on the why.

    I'm not working on the why; I'm not working on any fact. I'm only
    asking what you are saying.

    You should just look up the old threads which contained the URLs.

    I'm tired of digging them up because this is old news that cellphones never

    You don't have to dig them up, because they will not answser the
    questions I asked.

    No comments on the rest of your post.




    changed the accident rate in the United States (or Australia, by the way).

    ***But those tasks only start after there is an accident and/or only
    after the car has stopped.

    There's a reason I spoke about accident rates.
    a. First off, they're normalized by miles driven
    b. Which itself is a complicated function of very many things
    c. And secondly, you can't have injuries without accidents first

    So injuries (including fatalities) are a second-order effect.

    If we don't know the first order effects, we have no business discussing >second-order effects (which also knock your socks off if you knew them).

    In summary, every moron on the planet believes that cellphones increased >accident rates - because they're morons - and because three entities take >anecdotal evidence (that accidents occur) and blow them up out of
    proportion.
    1. Personal injury lawyers (who benefit from the lawsuits)
    2. Insurance companies (who benefit from raising rates)
    3. Police (who benefit from ticketing)

    Try to find a cite please that is NOT from one of those three that shows >reliable data before, during & after cellphone ownership skyrocketing
    rates, regarding the accident rate in the United States.

    And yet when you look for the accident rates from the US Census Bureau (who >keeps good data) - they didn't go up. They just steadily went down in the >United States in the reliable records (which have been kept since the 1920s >and are the best there is).

    Secondly, cellphones certainly are a distraction - no doubt about it. The >NHTSA listed the top ten distractions and cellphones kicked one of them off >the list and replaced them (which should give you a hint as to why the >accident rate remained unchanged - but nobody is ready for the real science >yet).

    Thirdly, any talk about injuries/fatalities is premature because that's a >second-order effect. First you have to understand the first-order issues.

    And lastly, even I, a trained scientist, *would have thought* that
    cellphones must be such a distraction that even I (a trained scientist)
    would have thought they certainly would have raised the accident rate.

    And yet, when I looked, I found out that they didn't.
    And then I looked for why.

    Where the why turned out to be obvious - once you realize there have always >been top ten distractions while driving - and where cellphones merely
    swapped one of them and pushed another into position 11.

    But nobody is ready for the why until they look at the facts.
    Google it. We've discussed this many times on this very newsgroup.

    The links are in those threads (I'm not bothering to look them up for you).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Thu May 23 02:12:55 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 18:38:25 -0000 (UTC), Chris <[email protected]> wrote:



    A non-map based option is WhatThreeWords. See if you can suit your needs.

    I looked at it quite a bit and it woudln't be suitable for me. I don't
    have any way to generate the 3 words while I'm hiking, and every 10 feet
    I'd need another set of 3 words. Plus there is no relationship between
    the words for one location and the adjacent locations.

    Plus if I could generate the words, my friend would not know what they
    mean, and I doubt the local police would understand them either. So how
    could they rescue me?

    However, it's definitely interesting

    The system has covered the whole planet surface in a grid of 3x3m squares >each defined by a unique combination of three words e.g.
    The White House

    ///metals.rated.purely
    https://w3w.co/metals.rated.purely

    It is ideal for giving directions where there's no points of reference.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to Bradshaw" on Thu May 23 02:23:03 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Tue, 21 May 2024 08:49:15 -0800, "Bill
    Bradshaw" <[email protected]> wrote:


    I am sending this to you

    Frank

    and Andrew.

    But I will answer anyhow!

    If you do not have cell phone service
    how can you send somebody your location and problem?

    That's the advantage of GPS based reporting. I can't send my problem.
    All anyone would know is that I haven't returned home, or to the car,
    but I can send my location.

    BTW, I would say the odds of my needing this are less than 1 in 50,000.

    I've had a couple physicals and I'm very very unlikely to have a heart
    attack or stroke, and after breaking each of my legs in two incidents
    long ago, I'm pretty careful not to do that. But I would sure feel
    stupid if the unlikely happened and I was lying there and hadn't let
    anyone know where I was, or what to do if I didn't come home. It
    would be worse if I were conscious because then I would spend the hours
    before my demise kicking myself with my one good leg for being
    unprepared.

    Even though it was a weekday, there were 15 cars in the parking lot
    (many of whom I later realized had taken a trail in the opposite
    direction), and I was 200 and 300 yards behind other walkers, and bumped
    into 3 people and two dogs coming the other way, but after 15 minutes, I
    never saw anyone else until 10 minutes from the end.

    <Bill>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to micky on Thu May 23 14:56:19 2024
    micky wrote on Thu, 23 May 2024 00:46:56 -0400 :

    There are three questions above and afaict you didn't answer any of
    them. Maybe somewhere in your text you have answers, but I didn't see
    them, so do me a favor and answer each of the 3 questiosn above.

    What I'm saying is based on facts, not myth.

    I'll fully phrase them individually, and add one:

    Are you saying that no one texts or reads texts or articles on their cellphone while driving?

    Of course not. Nobody said that.

    Are you saying no one does anything on his cell phone that take takes
    his attention away from his driving?

    Of course not. Nobody said that.

    If you agree that they do do things that take their attention, are you
    saying it's not dangerous?

    Of course not. Nobody said that.

    Are you saying it doens't cause accidents?

    Of course not. Nobody said that.

    Thanks for asking. It's only fools who don't question common myths.
    I'm a scientist. My words below are written very clearly around facts.

    I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been >>publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the

    You said this already and I don't find it of value, because lots of
    things can make the accident rate go down, while cell phones could still
    be a danger. That's why I want you to answer each of the 4 questions
    at the top.

    I'm a scientist.

    It's good that you understand a few things which is that the accident rate
    is based on a variety of things - but what you have to understand is the accidents that are caused by cellphones would have happened anyway in the statistical record.

    You will NEVER understand that statement, if you don't understand why I
    kept advising you that all cellphones did was replace an existing
    distraction out of the top ten that was already causing most accidents.

    Cellphones merely pushed number 10 of the top ten, into number 11.
    Cellphones accomplished nothing else that would raise the accident rate.

    And, on the flip side, they lowered the accident rate in many ways.
    It's not a simple 1 + 1 = 2 equation.

    But anyone who claims the accident rate went up, is a fool.
    Because that is a myth.

    At least in the USA it is, as the reliable data shows otherwise.

    What you have here is a fact. The accident rate is unchanged.
    What you need to figure out is why.

    I just want to figure out what you're saying.

    I'm a scientist. I base assessments on facts. Not myths.
    a. I completely understand that cellphones are a distraction.
    b. I completely understand they didn't exist and now they're everywhere.
    c. I completely understand why people believe the myth.

    But when you look at the reliable data, the accident rate remained
    unchanged (steadily trending down) in each of the 50 states before, during
    and after the sky rocketing cellphone ownership rates.

    The difference between a scientist and a moron is a moron believes the
    myths without checking them but the scientist looks for the facts first.

    The fact is simple (as only fools dispute facts).
    The why isn't so simple - but there are reasons why.

    But until you agree with the fact, you have no business working on the why.

    I'm not working on the why; I'm not working on any fact. I'm only
    asking what you are saying.

    Simple. The reliable records show no effect of cellphones on accidents if
    you look at the reliable accident rate statistics of the USA by the CB.

    What happened was there were always distractions while driving.
    And there were always a top ten (or whatever) cause of accidents.

    My hypothesis on the why is all cellphones did was displace one of the top
    ten. As such, they had no effect on the accident rate.

    But it's open to your assessment as to the why.
    Thanks for asking questions - as I'm a scientist so I welcome questions.

    Most people just believe in myths without ever checking the data.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Harry S Robins@21:1/5 to All on Thu May 23 10:19:12 2024
    I have been using SPOT which does what you want, for a fee. https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/about-spot/company-info�

    It works everywhere on the globe as a small device similar to a ship
    beacon. Your location is set to the Google map that SPOT will maintain for every subscriber. SPOT can be set to transmit your location at intervals.

    It can be set to send a message via text when you turn it on where that
    message can have the tracking URL where people can then watch your
    progress.

    The subscription allows it to send a text to any phone world wide.

    The beacon has an SOS button which activates the worldwide beacon system
    used for aircraft and ships with an automated distress message & location.

    The service will notify local rescue groups (local police usually).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Thu May 23 12:28:44 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Thu, 23 May 2024 14:56:19 -0000 (UTC), Andrew <[email protected]> wrote:

    micky wrote on Thu, 23 May 2024 00:46:56 -0400 :

    There are three questions above and afaict you didn't answer any of
    them. Maybe somewhere in your text you have answers, but I didn't see
    them, so do me a favor and answer each of the 3 questiosn above.

    What I'm saying is based on facts, not myth.

    I'll fully phrase them individually, and add one:

    Are you saying that no one texts or reads texts or articles on their
    cellphone while driving?

    Of course not. Nobody said that.

    Are you saying no one does anything on his cell phone that take takes
    his attention away from his driving?

    Of course not. Nobody said that.

    If you agree that they do do things that take their attention, are you
    saying it's not dangerous?

    Of course not. Nobody said that.

    Are you saying it doens't cause accidents?

    Of course not. Nobody said that.

    In that case, I wish you had just answered me when I asked 3 of these 4 questions in the previous post.

    Better than that, when you first said that cellphones have lowered the
    accident rate, it would have been very good if you'd mentioned that they
    also cause accidents. Just giving the total accident rate is not going
    to prove anything to anyone, especially given that you yourself say
    there are hundreds of things that affect the accident rate.


    Thanks for asking. It's only fools who don't question common myths.
    I'm a scientist. My words below are written very clearly around facts.

    I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been >>>publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the

    You said this already and I don't find it of value, because lots of
    things can make the accident rate go down, while cell phones could still
    be a danger. That's why I want you to answer each of the 4 questions
    at the top.

    I'm a scientist.

    Being a scientist is great, but writing in a way that convinces people
    of things is a separate skill. It helps a lot to make the affirmative
    points one thinks supports his position, but it ALSO MATTERS A LOT to
    foresee the objections readers will have and deal with them. In this
    case that would be admitting that cellphones caause accidents and trying
    to convince readers that they lessen the number of accidents more than
    they increase them. A) I don't know how anyone can do that if the
    readers are not going to spend hours and hours looking at detailed
    accident data, B) I don't think it matters, because cellphoners have so
    many advantages unrelated to traffic accidents, and because this is
    supposed to be a free country, so that few are going to object to the
    use of cellphones, and also few will object ot enforcing laws against
    using them while driving in ways that make accidents more likely. Which
    is the situation we have now.

    It's good that you understand a few things which is that the accident rate
    is based on a variety of things

    Yes, I understand that. I feel so good about that.

    - but what you have to understand is the
    accidents that are caused by cellphones would have happened anyway in the >statistical record.

    Huh? What is the difference between "would have happened anyway" and
    "would have happened anyway in the statistitical record"?
    First, if there's a difference, I want to talk about real-life
    accidents, not some statistical record which you seem to say disguises
    the cause of cell-phone-caused accidents.
    Second, if there is no substantial difference, you seem to be
    backtracking on the answers you gave to my 4 questions above. No, the
    accidents caused by cellphones would not have happened anyway if there
    were no cellphones or if people didn't use them while driving.


    You will NEVER understand that statement, if you don't understand why I
    kept advising you that all cellphones did was replace an existing
    distraction out of the top ten that was already causing most accidents.

    What was the existing distraction they replaced? Why don't you include
    that since it's clearly so important to the point you are tryhing to
    convince people of?

    Cellphones merely pushed number 10 of the top ten, into number 11.
    Cellphones accomplished nothing else that would raise the accident rate.

    Of course they did. You admitted it when you answered the 4 questions
    above.

    And, on the flip side, they lowered the accident rate in many ways.

    You said that earlier, but I don't think so. You brought up traffic
    data. Before there was traffic data on cellphones, one could get
    traffic data by listening to the radio, and in many cases it made no difference. For me and many there was only one route to work and when
    one got to the bumper-to-bumper area, he slowed down, just like now.

    In your answer to knuttle at Tue, 21 May 2024 03:12:49 -0000 (UTC) you
    said "If anything, they have a positive effect by reducing the accident
    rate (e.g., reducing sudden unexpected traffic, re-routing traffic,
    warning of construction and congestion, fewer confused turnarounds,
    etc.)."

    I could go over each of these to say why I think their effects are
    minimal. But more important here is "If anything". This is where you
    seem to have denied that cellphones cause accidents. You don't say,
    Yes, they cause problems but they also help. You say, If anything they
    have have a positive effect. Do you see why that seems to be a denial
    that their use causes accidents?????

    It's not a simple 1 + 1 = 2 equation.

    But anyone who claims the accident rate went up, is a fool.

    You're not going to get far if you keep insulting people who disagree
    with you. Ask the other scientists you know if that's a good way to
    promote your ideas.

    Because that is a myth.

    Largely proof by assertion, since the facts are hidden in details of
    thousands of pages of accident data.

    At least in the USA it is, as the reliable data shows otherwise.

    What you have here is a fact. The accident rate is unchanged.
    What you need to figure out is why.

    I just want to figure out what you're saying.

    I'm a scientist. I base assessments on facts. Not myths.
    a. I completely understand that cellphones are a distraction.
    b. I completely understand they didn't exist and now they're everywhere.
    c. I completely understand why people believe the myth.

    But when you look at the reliable data, the accident rate remained
    unchanged (steadily trending down)

    You constantly talk about the total accident rate, when you should be
    looking at and talking about accidents caused by cellphones and
    accidents prevented by cellphones. It doesn't seem very scientific to
    talk about the total accident rate. Espcially, when the very people
    who says cellphones cause accidents and not disputing afaik that the
    total accident rate is going down. The total accident rate going down
    is a red herring by you. It's not in dispute.

    in each of the 50 states before, during
    and after the sky rocketing cellphone ownership rates.

    The difference between a scientist and a moron is a moron believes the
    myths without checking them but the scientist looks for the facts first.

    More insults.

    The fact is simple (as only fools dispute facts).
    The why isn't so simple - but there are reasons why.

    But until you agree with the fact, you have no business working on the why. >>
    I'm not working on the why; I'm not working on any fact. I'm only
    asking what you are saying.

    Simple. The reliable records show no effect of cellphones on accidents if
    you look at the reliable accident rate statistics of the USA by the CB.

    What happened was there were always distractions while driving.
    And there were always a top ten (or whatever) cause of accidents.

    My hypothesis on the why is all cellphones did was displace one of the top >ten. As such, they had no effect on the accident rate.

    That makes no sense. Lets use 5 instead of 10: If there were 5 causes of accidents, causing 20, 18, 16, 14, and 12 accidnents per month and
    cellphones displaced, say, problem 2, by causing 19 accidents per month,
    there would now be 6 causes of 20, 19, 18, 16, 14, and 12 accidents per
    month. An increase of 19. And that probably is what happened, minus
    the number of fewer accidents because of cellphones. You've only made
    the vaguest references to that.

    But it's open to your assessment as to the why.
    Thanks for asking questions - as I'm a scientist so I welcome questions.

    If you want to show that you welcome questions, you'll stop using terms
    like fool and moron to describe those who disagree with you.

    Most people just believe in myths without ever checking the data.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to micky on Thu May 23 18:02:05 2024
    micky wrote on Thu, 23 May 2024 12:28:44 -0400 :

    Better than that, when you first said that cellphones have lowered the accident rate, it would have been very good if you'd mentioned that they
    also cause accidents.

    You are correct.

    I said, from the start, they're certainly a distraction.
    There's no doubt distractions cause accidents.

    I even said I'd expect the accident rate to skyrocket.
    And yet, since I'm a scientist, I checked.

    It didn't go up (it steadily went down).
    But most people are not scientists.

    They don't check anything.

    Most people are, in fact, stupid.
    They believe every myth that they're fed.

    Most people don't bother to check if the myth is real or not.
    I did.

    It's a myth.
    Now it's up to us to figure out why (I gave you my hypothesis already).

    to prove anything to anyone, especially given that you yourself say
    there are hundreds of things that affect the accident rate.

    You are correct.

    The NHTSA concentrated on the top ten, in which cellphone use is.

    However there was always a top ten cause of accidents.
    And there always will be.

    Didn't you get the "good student discount" when you were a new driver?
    I certainly did.

    One of the top causes of accidents is stupid drivers.
    Stupid drivers will have accidents no matter what.

    Thanks for asking. It's only fools who don't question common myths.
    I'm a scientist. My words below are written very clearly around facts.

    I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been >>>>publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the

    You said this already and I don't find it of value, because lots of
    things can make the accident rate go down, while cell phones could still >>> be a danger. That's why I want you to answer each of the 4 questions
    at the top.

    I'm a scientist.

    Being a scientist is great, but writing in a way that convinces people
    of things is a separate skill.

    You are correct.

    But I'm not writing a scientific paper here. I've been there. Done that.
    But this is just a casual conversation.

    I consider the vast majority of people on this newsgroup to be stupid.
    So I write that way.

    But you asked a reasonable question, so I thanked you and answered it.
    The others simply spouted their myths.

    If Andy Burns had questioned it, I'd write to him differently than, oh,
    say, Joerg Lorenz or Alan Baker or Frank Slootweg.

    I dumb down the message to fit the audience.
    I raise it to the adult level when people act like adults.

    It helps a lot to make the affirmative
    points one thinks supports his position, but it ALSO MATTERS A LOT to
    foresee the objections readers will have and deal with them.

    You are correct. I said even I would have thought that cellphones cause accident rates to rise just as I would have thought that high-octane
    gasoline is better and just as I would have thought that an iPhone is safer than Android and just as I would have thought that low fat is better than
    high fat, and just as I would have thought that name brand drugs are better than generic drugs.

    But since I'm a scientist, I check things.
    And they're all myth. (As an aside, I love the Myth Busters series.)

    In this
    case that would be admitting that cellphones caause accidents and trying
    to convince readers that they lessen the number of accidents more than
    they increase them. A) I don't know how anyone can do that if the
    readers are not going to spend hours and hours looking at detailed
    accident data, B) I don't think it matters, because cellphoners have so
    many advantages unrelated to traffic accidents, and because this is
    supposed to be a free country, so that few are going to object to the
    use of cellphones, and also few will object ot enforcing laws against
    using them while driving in ways that make accidents more likely. Which
    is the situation we have now.

    All you realize that it's a myth is this single set of statistics:
    *What is the accident rate before, during & after?*

    If the cumulative effect of added cellphone distraction was as bad as
    people think it is, then the accident rate would have to have gone up.

    It did not.

    In fact, it went down - but it was trending down anyway.
    So the best we can say is that it was unaffected.

    Now, the question is WHY was it unaffected, the answer to which I only have
    two hypothesis to offer to explain the reason that the myth is a myth.

    We already know there are already thousand of distractions, and even if we concentrate on the top ten, cellphones simply displaced one so there are
    still a top ten.

    We also can surmise that cellphones, while a distraction, also removed one distraction, which was the use of driver navigation (e.g., with paper
    maps).

    Also cellphones reduced the issues with detour and avoiding traffic. And cellphones allowed far better route planning and contingency efforts.

    It's a hellova' lot safer having Google tell you in the dead of night that
    the road forks up ahead than to find out with your own eyeballs, right?

    It's good that you understand a few things which is that the accident rate >>is based on a variety of things

    Yes, I understand that. I feel so good about that.

    The rate depends on miles driven, the price of gas, the economy, weather events, social events (like Covid), etc., as the number of accidents will change but that's why they normalize it by miles driven (which they know
    well as they have fuel & toll road statistics to gauge that kind of stuff).

    What you see in the news are "accidents", which will always happen.

    What matters to make intelligent conclusions is the accident rate.

    - but what you have to understand is the
    accidents that are caused by cellphones would have happened anyway in the >>statistical record.

    Huh? What is the difference between "would have happened anyway" and
    "would have happened anyway in the statistitical record"?

    Same thing.

    What I mean is there are always gonna be stupid people driving.
    Those stupid people will have accidents.

    No matter what.
    It won't matter which distraction causes the accident.

    While I've never had an accident (and I've driven hundreds of thousands of miles in a variety of states in a variety of weather and variety of cars)
    I'm sure you know stupid people who keep having accidents, don't you?

    It's not accidents that matter.
    It's accident rates.

    First, if there's a difference, I want to talk about real-life
    accidents, not some statistical record which you seem to say disguises
    the cause of cell-phone-caused accidents.

    I'm not saying accidents don't happen.

    But the rate is unaffected.
    So we have to figure out why.

    That's what intelligent people would do.

    Second, if there is no substantial difference, you seem to be
    backtracking on the answers you gave to my 4 questions above. No, the accidents caused by cellphones would not have happened anyway if there
    were no cellphones or if people didn't use them while driving.

    The fact is the rate is unchanged.
    So we need to figure out why.

    My hypothesis could be that the cellphone reduced accidents as much as it caused them, which is a variant on the cellphone merely replaced another distraction and removed others.

    It's my hypothesis.
    What's yours?


    You will NEVER understand that statement, if you don't understand why I >>kept advising you that all cellphones did was replace an existing >>distraction out of the top ten that was already causing most accidents.

    What was the existing distraction they replaced? Why don't you include
    that since it's clearly so important to the point you are tryhing to
    convince people of?

    We covered this in gory detail.
    They're all listed by the NHTSA.
    Eating in cars was one of them.

    Cellphones merely pushed number 10 of the top ten, into number 11. >>Cellphones accomplished nothing else that would raise the accident rate.

    Of course they did. You admitted it when you answered the 4 questions above.

    Not if they reduced a few distractions too (e.g., being lost).
    That's a biggie.

    Plus they reduced accidents by informing you of red traffic ahead.
    And they reduced U-Turns from missing your next turn.

    They even reduced accidents by telling you what lane to be in.
    Lots and lots and lots of ways cellphones reduced accidents too.

    That's why I said the morons don't understand that they're spouting myths.

    And, on the flip side, they lowered the accident rate in many ways.

    You said that earlier, but I don't think so. You brought up traffic
    data. Before there was traffic data on cellphones, one could get
    traffic data by listening to the radio, and in many cases it made no difference. For me and many there was only one route to work and when
    one got to the bumper-to-bumper area, he slowed down, just like now.

    I'm not even going to try to argue with you if you think that traffic data
    on the radio is anywhere as good as traffic data and rerouting on a phone.

    You're talking to someone who is as old at least as you are, so I know.

    In your answer to knuttle at Tue, 21 May 2024 03:12:49 -0000 (UTC) you
    said "If anything, they have a positive effect by reducing the accident
    rate (e.g., reducing sudden unexpected traffic, re-routing traffic,
    warning of construction and congestion, fewer confused turnarounds,
    etc.)."

    I could go over each of these to say why I think their effects are
    minimal. But more important here is "If anything". This is where you
    seem to have denied that cellphones cause accidents. You don't say,
    Yes, they cause problems but they also help. You say, If anything they
    have have a positive effect. Do you see why that seems to be a denial
    that their use causes accidents?????

    What I know is a fact is the accident rate is unchanged in the USA.
    The rest are my hypothesis' to explain why that is the case.

    It's not a simple 1 + 1 = 2 equation.

    But anyone who claims the accident rate went up, is a fool.

    You're not going to get far if you keep insulting people who disagree
    with you. Ask the other scientists you know if that's a good way to
    promote your ideas.

    Unfortunately, most people on this newsgroup aren't the brightest.
    So that's how I talk to people. I bring it down to their level.

    If you think I dumb it down here, you should see me on Apple newsgroups!
    :)

    Because that is a myth.

    Largely proof by assertion, since the facts are hidden in details of thousands of pages of accident data.

    As is all statistical data.

    But when you look at the reliable data, the accident rate remained >>unchanged (steadily trending down)

    You constantly talk about the total accident rate, when you should be
    looking at and talking about accidents caused by cellphones and
    accidents prevented by cellphones. It doesn't seem very scientific to
    talk about the total accident rate. Espcially, when the very people
    who says cellphones cause accidents and not disputing afaik that the
    total accident rate is going down. The total accident rate going down
    is a red herring by you. It's not in dispute.

    The accident rate is the starting point.
    Not any given anecdotal accident.

    Don't you ever wonder why when they're selling you crap, that they have
    those testimonials instead of showing you the drug doesn't work overall?

    More insults.

    When people act like adults, I treat them like adults.
    You must know this by now.

    I'll even treat Frank Slootweg and Alan Baker like an adult if they act
    like adults. You never see me treating Andy Burns badly, for example.

    I dumb the message down to fit the person.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Chris on Thu May 23 23:46:34 2024
    Chris wrote on Thu, 23 May 2024 21:33:01 -0000 (UTC) :

    No, the post revolved around knowing with some precision where I was,

    Which in the scenario you provided of your phone being stolen or broken is impossible.

    If the phone is broken or stolen, the next best bet is a HAM or Satellite
    radio in the backpack. Now if even the backpack is stolen or crushed....
    then I'm out of ideas for micky's situation.

    Only GPS and battery, and I have plenty of battery and GPS is exceedinly
    reliable. There was no cell signal on 90% of the trail, and certainly
    no wifi.

    Well that's useless for anyone but you. Your ex nor the police will ever where you are from your phone 90% of the time.

    In order for him to communicate, he's gonna need either a radio, or, if
    they're looking for him, a mirror or bright flashlight.

    Lots of people have spelled HELP in the sand on an island also... but
    that's far out of the realm of the comp.mobile.android newsgroup I think.

    But I challenge your use of "depend on". You missed the part that I had
    told my friend where I was going on and how long it would take me.

    Good.

    I have a similar issues as micky does, in that I hike alone and I'm well
    into my age of breaking bones being easy - so that's why I have SOS
    mechanisms on my phone (which require cellular signal of course).

    I also keep a small ham radio in a plastic bag in the backpack.

    The
    technology part is a supplement, so that they will be find me faster.

    Not without a data connection they won't.

    Actually, he doesn't need a "data" connection, per se, since SMS doesn't
    need cellular data - where all he has to do is send a text but if he's out
    of cellular connection - that text will wait until his phone floats
    downstream in a plastic bag until it finally reaches civilization.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Chris on Thu May 23 23:42:12 2024
    Chris wrote on Thu, 23 May 2024 21:47:27 -0000 (UTC) :

    Thanks for asking. It's only fools who don't question common myths.
    I'm a scientist.

    Not even close.

    Tell me a single fact I've ever stated that you can prove is wrong?

    HINT: You can't.

    Note: There's a difference between facts & assessments of those facts.

    For example, this is a fact:
    The US Census Bureau reports accident rates for every state in the US.

    Assessment of that fact:
    Those accident rate reports are accurate.

    Note the difference, Chris, between fact & assessment of fact.

    You'll never find my facts wrong.
    What you might (rightfully) disagree with are my assessments of facts.


    My words below are written very clearly around facts.

    I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been
    publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the
    start) states since the 1920s,

    And stopped about 10 years ago as far as I can find. Can you share a link which shows this accident data for the last 20-25 years?
    and their data on accident rates for each

    We can google for it since it was reported in this very newsgroup, Chris.
    http://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android

    Only fools dispute facts (that's why they're fools).

    Looking at correlations - which is all you're doing - doesn't categorically answer either way. It's certainly factual information, but it doesn't make your global assertions facts.

    As I said, most people are stupid, Chris (that's an assessment, by the way) where they simply believe all myths they're told (e.g., they're told by
    Apple that iPhones are safer than Android and they just believe it).

    That's how advertising works, Chris.
    And propaganda too.

    The easy thing is that the fact is the accident rate has not gone up.
    The assessment of that fact is the hard part.

    Why do you think the accident rate trend was unchanged by cellphones?

    HINT: There are multiple hypothesis's that I can come up with, btw...
    1. It could be that cellphones merely replaced an existing distraction.
    2. It could be cellphones save as many accidents as they cause.
    3. It could be that dumb people are gonna have accidents no matter what.
    4. It could be hands-free laws actually had an effect (I doubt it though).
    etc.

    I'm not sure *why* cellphones didn't increase the accident rate.
    Note that just like all the dumbshits out there, I would have thought that cellphones sky rocketing MUST have increased the accident rate.

    But what stands me apart from the dumbshits is I looked for the numbers.
    And they don't exist.

    Don't blame me for not being stupid.
    Commend me for telling you what you would never have thought of to check.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Alan@21:1/5 to Andrew on Thu May 23 22:59:03 2024
    On 2024-05-23 16:42, Andrew wrote:
    Chris wrote on Thu, 23 May 2024 21:47:27 -0000 (UTC) :

    Thanks for asking. It's only fools who don't question common myths.
    I'm a scientist.

    Not even close.

    Tell me a single fact I've ever stated that you can prove is wrong?

    You stated: "I'm a scientist"

    The obligation is on YOU to prove that claim.


    HINT: You can't.

    Note: There's a difference between facts & assessments of those facts.

    For example, this is a fact:
    The US Census Bureau reports accident rates for every state in the US.

    Assessment of that fact:
    Those accident rate reports are accurate.

    Note the difference, Chris, between fact & assessment of fact.

    You'll never find my facts wrong.
    What you might (rightfully) disagree with are my assessments of facts.


    My words below are written very clearly around facts.

    I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been >>> publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the
    start) states since the 1920s,

    And stopped about 10 years ago as far as I can find. Can you share a link
    which shows this accident data for the last 20-25 years?
    and their data on accident rates for each

    We can google for it since it was reported in this very newsgroup, Chris.
    http://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android

    And yet you provide no actual link.

    I think that says all that needs to be said.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Steve Hayes@21:1/5 to All on Fri May 24 12:30:11 2024
    On Sun, 19 May 2024 21:58:37 -0400, knuttle <[email protected]>
    wrote:

    On 05/19/2024 9:46 PM, micky wrote:
    Going hiking tomorrow. Finally realized I was sending my location to my
    ex-GF, but I hadn't told her how to see it. Assuming the worst, that I
    break my leg and can't get off the trail, but the phone is broken or
    stolen, and assuming she actually notices it's 6PM and I still haven't
    texted her to say I'm done, she can see my phone's location using the
    simple instructions I found on the web.
    If you had Been in the Boy Scouts you would learn to live in the woods >without a electronic device of any type. You would learn about mark or >finding marks so you could retrace your path. You would learn about
    finding your direction so you do not get lost.

    And of course being in the Boy Scouts would enable (apologies to AmE
    speakers for whom "enable" is a dirty word, what do you use instead?)
    you to grit your teeth and be prepared to hop, skip and jump with a
    broken leg.





    --
    Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
    Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
    Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
    E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Chris on Sat May 25 14:25:00 2024
    Chris wrote on Sat, 25 May 2024 13:22:34 -0000 (UTC) :

    Assessment of that fact:
    Those accident rate reports are accurate.

    Based on what? How are you defining accuracy? Is it post hoc justification because those numbers match your bias?

    You're the one with the "bias" becsaue you quoted zero facts.

    Unlike you, I've said many times that I too would have believed the ignrant myth about cellphones & accident rates had I not checked the facts in the reliable records like any well-trained scientist should do,.

    I know the facts.
    You are just guessing.

    Hence, you're the one holding on to the myth without checking the facts.

    People who are not ignorant & uneducated *have* looked at the myth though.
    <https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/law_review/8/>

    Look at the US Census Accident Rate statistics by year, for example.
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=us+census+accident+rate+statistics+by+year>

    What do you see, Chris?
    <https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed/tables/11s1102.pdf>

    Look at first-order effects, Chris... i.e., the accident rate per year.
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot>

    What do you see happening during the skyrocketing cellphone days, Chris?
    <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

    HINT: Accident rates trending down were wholly unaffected by cellphones.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Newyana2@21:1/5 to Andrew on Sat May 25 10:45:00 2024
    On 5/22/2024 10:05 PM, Andrew wrote:

    I'm a scientist. My words below are written very clearly around facts.

    I'm saying we covered this many times where the US Census Bureau has been publishing *ACCURATE* accident-rate statistics for all fifty (48 at the start) states since the 1920s, and their data on accident rates for each
    and every one of the fifty states show NO ADVERSE EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the accident rate for any state and for all states in the periods before cellphones, during cellphone ownership skyrocketing, and afterward.

    The accident rate is slowly going down; but it certainly didn't go up
    *That's just a fact.*


    As Chris said, you need to provide links and not just rant that
    you're smarter than everyone else. The US Census Bureau surveys
    population every 10 years. If they also keep accident records then
    you need to provide a link.

    The NHTSA seems to be responsible for the gov't record-keeping
    about traffic accidents. All I found from them was mixed data, mainly
    about deaths. But I did find this:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20231211115919/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/briefing/us-traffic-deaths.html

    They say that cellphones and marijuana smoking are the two
    suspected causes of a 10-year increase in traffic deaths. Though
    deaths is not the same as accidents. Nevertheless, pot and
    cellphones makes sense to me given my own personal experience.
    I'm astonished by how often I smell pot. I would be astonished at
    how many people are cellphone addicts, but it's been going on so
    long now that it's no longer surprising.

    The trouble with scientism is that it doesn't recognize its own
    limitations and the human tendency toward irrationality. To assess
    data you need to be free of bias and you also need to be able
    to look at your own preconceptions. And you need to be able to
    question the data. In short, to be a good scientist
    you need to be emotionally mature and develop self-knowledge.
    Raging about what fools you think other people are is not scientific.

    With science having become a kind of state religion, scientific
    research is increasingly used as political propaganda. People are
    increasingly prefacing their opinions with "research shows...". And
    of course, any scientist who's also a cellphone addict will have a
    strong bias against fuinding any negative data about cellphone use.

    Very little of what passes for science is unbiased and relatively free of gross preconceptions. We can look at virtually any topic. Dark matter,
    global warming, cholesterol lowering to reduce heart disease, SRIs to
    treat depression, the claim that there are not only two sexes, the
    national recycling scam that's had people believing they were recycling plastics for decades, the self-deception of viewing "renewable fuels" as
    a category of "green" energy (Burning wood is not green.)... Even the
    famous theory of evolution has holes in it.

    All of these topics are subject to strong emotional bias by many
    people. They're also subject to strong political bias. And that's not even getting into the issue of blinding preconceptions and addiction to
    certainty. A glaring example of preconceptions is the current view
    of neuroscientists that "the mind is what the brain does". That's how
    we got the idea of curing depression by simply changing brain chemistry
    with SRIs. (One in 4 adults in the US is now hooked on some kind of
    happy pill. Many of those are neurotransmitter re-uptake inhibitors,
    which exist only due to the mechanistic view of biology put forth
    by modern science, despite a lack of evidence for their claimed
    usefulness.)

    The neuroscientist/psychiatry view of "mind" is a comically irrational
    point of view if you think about it. Scientists think they can accurately,
    "objectively" describe the world they experience, yet they also believe
    that mind as such doesn't truly exist, and that anything they think is basically just chemical reactions. Why doesn't science accept mind as
    such? Simply because mind is not subject to empirical observation and
    thus can never be defined scientifically. If science can't test for it then
    it can't be relevant. So mind is posited in a reductionist manner as
    brain chemistry, because that can be empirically observed.

    That might be worth a bit of reflection: You claim to know absolutely
    the facts about traffic accidents and you claim to represent a group
    of notably intelligent people who are not like "most people who are fools". You're proud to be a scientist. By extension you also believe that you're nothing more than a bio-robot thinking whatever the chemicals in
    your brain happen to cook up -- that your apparent mind is nothing more
    than Scrooge's "bit of mustard". Yet you're comically certain of your own intelligense and lack of bias. What's wrong with this picture?

    By letting your emotional bias hold sway you end up like the
    horny young man who tries to convince his date that she should
    come back to his house for the night, because his house is 4.3 miles
    closer to her place of work than her own house is. Therefore she
    could get to work the next day more easily. That "logical" young man
    is presenting watertight logic, yet the foolish idiot young woman
    is fully aware of the sexual motive that he can't see himself. :)

    That's the achilles heal of science.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to All on Sat May 25 15:47:49 2024
    Newyana2 wrote on Sat, 25 May 2024 10:45:00 -0400 :

    The NHTSA seems to be responsible for the gov't record-keeping
    about traffic accidents. All I found from them was mixed data, mainly
    about deaths.

    I'm a well-trained scientist.

    I base my assessments on facts.
    While most people (who are not scientists) simply guess at everything.

    Don't look at second-order effects of accidents until you've ascertained first-order effects, since deaths are a function of many more things.

    It's a myth that cellphone use caused the accident rate to rise in the USA

    The only place that myth exists is in people's minds when they don't think. However, even I would have *thought* accident rates would have skyrocketed.

    They didn't.
    Not in the USA anyway (where accurate records have been kept for decades).

    The rate not only didn't skyrocket, it barely changed.

    And what changed was it slowly trended down, down, down.
    That's just a fact.

    Only fools disagree with facts (that's why they're fools).

    The main proponents of the myth are those with money to gain,
    namely (a) injury lawyers, (b) insurance companies & (c) ticketing police.

    In the accurate US Census Bureau records, what do you see happening to the accident rate before, during and after the meteoric rise in cellphone
    ownership in the United States? <https://www.google.com/search?q=us+census+accident+rate+statistics+by+year>

    What do you see? <https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed/tables/11s1102.pdf>

    Look at first-order effects, i.e., the accident rate per year.
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot>

    What do you see happening to the rate during skyrocketing cellphone days? <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

    HINT: US Accident rates trending down were wholly unaffected by cellphones.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From bad sector@21:1/5 to Andrew on Sat May 25 13:06:06 2024
    On 5/25/24 11:47, Andrew wrote:
    Newyana2 wrote on Sat, 25 May 2024 10:45:00 -0400 :

    The NHTSA seems to be responsible for the gov't record-keeping
    about traffic accidents. All I found from them was mixed data, mainly
    about deaths.

    I'm a well-trained scientist.

    I base my assessments on facts.
    While most people (who are not scientists) simply guess at everything.

    Don't look at second-order effects of accidents until you've ascertained first-order effects, since deaths are a function of many more things.

    It's a myth that cellphone use caused the accident rate to rise in the USA

    The only place that myth exists is in people's minds when they don't think. However, even I would have *thought* accident rates would have skyrocketed.

    They didn't.
    Not in the USA anyway (where accurate records have been kept for decades).

    The rate not only didn't skyrocket, it barely changed.

    And what changed was it slowly trended down, down, down.
    That's just a fact.

    Only fools disagree with facts (that's why they're fools).

    The main proponents of the myth are those with money to gain,
    namely (a) injury lawyers, (b) insurance companies & (c) ticketing police.

    In the accurate US Census Bureau records, what do you see happening to the accident rate before, during and after the meteoric rise in cellphone ownership in the United States? <https://www.google.com/search?q=us+census+accident+rate+statistics+by+year>

    What do you see? <https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed/tables/11s1102.pdf>

    Look at first-order effects, i.e., the accident rate per year.
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot>

    What do you see happening to the rate during skyrocketing cellphone days? <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

    HINT: US Accident rates trending down were wholly unaffected by cellphones.


    None of the above proves that cell-phone use while drivig is not
    extremely dangerous or that the part of accidents caused by cell phone
    use or by other distracting devices is not increasing with increasing
    cellphone use. BTW, how many accident participants will voluntarily
    offer up the fact that they'd been on the phone just before? Right, so
    much for statistics which according to one prof. "is the science whereby
    one can prove anything, or its exact opposite".

    A few years ago I had a near head-on collision (missed BY INCHES) with a closure rate of well over 250 km/h and the other driver was a woman
    (sole occupant in that car with phone in hand) who had deviated
    completely into my single lane from a point about 200 feet in front of
    me, try THAT once for a hard opinion-alignment! Also a few years ago I
    was stopped at a construction site by a guy wavig down traffic. While
    stopped I thought I might as well do a quick call home. Next thing I
    know he's jumping up and down waving me to get moving again, I had not
    noticed the change in time. Before anyone thinks I'm a bad driver I
    might mention that I've been driving since age 13 and have logged well
    over a million miles on roads alone all without a single accident
    (mostly because my driving has become defensive over time).

    Next time anyone hangs up after having used a phone while driving (and I
    affirm that beyond freeing one's hands bluetooth accomplishes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in this respect) try to remember road/traffic details from the
    previous few minutes without drawing a complete blank. You can cheat,
    but when alone and looking at yourself in the mirror you'll remember the astounding revelation and it will change your habbits.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to bad sector on Sun May 26 00:11:43 2024
    bad sector wrote on Sat, 25 May 2024 13:06:06 -0400 :

    None of the above proves that cell-phone use while drivig is not
    extremely dangerous or that the part of accidents caused by cell phone
    use or by other distracting devices is not increasing with increasing cellphone use.

    I'm a scientist. I know what facts are. And I know what bullshit is.

    I welcome adult discourse as one of my goals is to teach others.
    And if others have something to teach me, that's fine also.

    But just repeating the myth doesn't help anyone. Not me. Not you.
    Bear in mind, and note very clearly: I only said one thing was a fact.

    The accident rate slow trend of down didn't change before, during or after
    the meteoric rise in cellphone ownership rates (essentially from 0%
    cellphones in a vehicle to 100% today).
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=us+census+accident+rate+statistics+by+year>

    The rest was an hypothesis to potentially explain that unexpected fact.

    BTW, how many accident participants will voluntarily
    offer up the fact that they'd been on the phone just before?

    Guess what. The US census bureau statistics do NOT rely on that.
    So it's a non sequitur what anyone "says" about the cause of the accident.

    The actual accidents are reportable in all fifty states.
    The US Census Bureau works off of those reliably reported accidents.
    <https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed/tables/11s1102.pdf>
    Right, so
    much for statistics which according to one prof. "is the science whereby
    one can prove anything, or its exact opposite".

    See above. Nobody but you said that anyone said anything after the
    accident. They could have had the accident for any number of reasons.

    Only you built that strawman which you could then shoot down.
    I never said what caused the accidents (and neither do the statistics).

    Bear in mind it seems you're desperate to fabricate excuses.
    Be careful please.

    Please separate fact from myth if you're going to dispute facts.
    Only a fool disputes facts (that's why they're fools, after all).
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot>

    A few years ago I had a near head-on collision (missed BY INCHES) with a closure rate of well over 250 km/h and the other driver was a woman
    (sole occupant in that car with phone in hand) who had deviated
    completely into my single lane from a point about 200 feet in front of
    me, try THAT once for a hard opinion-alignment! Also a few years ago I
    was stopped at a construction site by a guy wavig down traffic. While
    stopped I thought I might as well do a quick call home. Next thing I
    know he's jumping up and down waving me to get moving again, I had not noticed the change in time. Before anyone thinks I'm a bad driver I
    might mention that I've been driving since age 13 and have logged well
    over a million miles on roads alone all without a single accident
    (mostly because my driving has become defensive over time).

    Anecdotal evidence, while it works great on fools, is not science.
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=anecdotal+evidence+is+not+science>

    If you're that desperate to dispute facts, then you have no case.
    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence>

    If all you have is anecdotal evidence, then you only believe in myths.
    <https://thelogicofscience.com/2016/02/10/5-reasons-why-anecdotes-are-totally-worthless/>

    HINT: I once forgot to say "knock on wood" and I had an accident; therefore
    not saying "knock on wood" must be the cause of all accidents, you claim.

    Next time anyone hangs up after having used a phone while driving (and I affirm that beyond freeing one's hands bluetooth accomplishes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in this respect) try to remember road/traffic details from the previous few minutes without drawing a complete blank. You can cheat,
    but when alone and looking at yourself in the mirror you'll remember the astounding revelation and it will change your habbits.

    Only a fool disputes facts. That's why they're fools.
    If the only evidence you can supply is anecdotal, then it's not science.
    It's a myth.

    <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-anecdotal-evidence-can-undermine-scientific-results/>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sat May 25 21:12:16 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Fri, 24 May 2024 21:58:45 -0000 (UTC), Chris <[email protected]> wrote:

    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 18:38:25 -0000 (UTC), Chris
    <[email protected]> wrote:



    A non-map based option is WhatThreeWords. See if you can suit your needs. >>
    I looked at it quite a bit and it woudln't be suitable for me. I don't
    have any way to generate the 3 words while I'm hiking, and every 10 feet
    I'd need another set of 3 words. Plus there is no relationship between
    the words for one location and the adjacent locations.

    Plus if I could generate the words, my friend would not know what they
    mean,

    I was thinking more for your friend to be able to relay your location more >easily than google map coordinates.

    Oh, that makes sense. But getting her to learn it would be difficult.
    She's very busy, and I'll be lucky if she notices that I didn't come
    home at the end of the day.

    and I doubt the local police would understand them either.

    Why? Many rescue services are fully aware.

    Well, maybe they are. If it were less hypothetical, I'd call and ask.

    So how
    could they rescue me?

    You could ask them.

    Oh, you addressed that. Well, not until she knows how to do it. ;-)

    But in general, I looked up where I was hiking and Little Gunposder
    Falls Park is only about 4400 feet wide for most of its length, inc.
    where I was.

    And on either side are houses, suburban style, not just farms. Of coure
    that doesnt' mean they have cell coverage.

    And I looked up the range of 4G cells. About 10 miles, it said.

    And I looked up the T-mobile coverage map, and it includes every place I
    was and every place nearby. Still, when the webradio stopped working,
    I looked at the top line and it showed zero bars. (I didn't use the
    apps I have that measure cell signal.) So how could that be if
    T-mobile says it's covered. I don't know.

    And finally I looked for a cell tower map and the only one I could find
    was created by users, not the cell companies: https://www.cellmapper.net/map?MCC=310&MNC=260&type=LTE&latitude=39.47766648552397&longitude=-76.40962748753074&zoom=17.73195256160045&showTowers=true&showIcons=true&showTowerLabels=true&clusterEnabled=true&tilesEnabled=true&showOrphans=false&
    showNoFrequencyOnly=false&showFrequencyOnly=false&showBandwidthOnly=false&DateFilterType=Last&showHex=false&showVerifiedOnly=false&showUnverifiedOnly=false&showLTECAOnly=false&showENDCOnly=false&showBand=0&showSectorColours=true&mapType=roadmap&darkMode=
    false&imperialUnits=false
    And it shows quite a few cell towers with 2 miles of where I was, not in
    the woods but along Jerusalem Road and Harford Road. I didn't see them,
    and there may be redundant reports by the volunteer contributors, but
    the river valley was quite shallow where I was and I should have had
    cell service like the T-mobile coverage map says I did. .

    Next time, though I don't want to spend more time fiddling with my
    phone, I'll try sending texts or something when I'm in this situation,

    I wish I were going back to this very trail, but there are a lot of
    trails I haven't been to**, and I'd rather do them.

    When I was activities chairman or president of my hiking club, we had
    people coming from DC and this area is on the far side of Baltimore for
    them, so we skipped this area.

    However, it's definitely interesting

    The system has covered the whole planet surface in a grid of 3x3m squares >>> each defined by a unique combination of three words e.g.
    The White House

    ///metals.rated.purely
    https://w3w.co/metals.rated.purely

    It is ideal for giving directions where there's no points of reference.




    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?B?YmFk8J+SvXNlY3Rvcg==?=@21:1/5 to Andrew on Sat May 25 21:43:23 2024
    On 5/25/24 20:11, Andrew wrote:

    <https://www.google.com/search?q=us+census+accident+rate+statistics+by+year>

    In order to have any meaningful correlation between cell phones in cars
    and their effect on accidents one would have to know how many of those
    cell phones were in use while driving and also the accident rate in
    those cars as compared to the others. Without this in the case of
    cell-phone correlation the supplied study provides just irrelevant
    statistical noise.


    The rest was an hypothesis to potentially explain that unexpected fact.

    So we went from scientific method and statistical data to hypothetical potentials. OK, I didn't lock in on that one, my bad :-)



    BTW, how many accident participants will voluntarily
    offer up the fact that they'd been on the phone just before?

    Guess what. The US census bureau statistics do NOT rely on that.
    So it's a non sequitur what anyone "says" about the cause of the accident.

    The cause of the accident is not likely to be recorded as having been cell-phone use unless someone fesses up to it. Accident investigation
    does not on one hand include automatic mandatory x-checking with the
    cell service providers and in many jurisdictions such would not even be permitted on the other. I've done accident investigation in three areas
    of activity and am of the opinion that quite a few reports are
    misleading and not only accidentaly so ..for any number of reasons.



    The actual accidents are reportable in all fifty states.

    Sidebar: is this comp.mobile.android or comp.mobile.android.us?



    Right, so
    much for statistics which according to one prof. "is the science whereby
    one can prove anything, or its exact opposite".

    Nobody but you said that anyone said anything after the
    accident. They could have had the accident for any number of reasons.

    I never said that anyone said anything. What I thought to have alluded
    to rather unequivocally was that IF someone had used a phone and knew
    that that use had lead up to the accident then that person would not
    likely volunteer that information. This may soon become unnecessary
    anyway with the onset of AI helping cops catch offenders given that it
    has the speed to analyse cell traffic around and entire block for
    instance and alert the cop waiting at the intersection "green Honda
    arriving from South leg in 45 seconds was on line while in motion for
    the last ten and a half minutes". Once the pull-over happens all the
    data is already printed on the ticket.

    And although this thread is already way off-topic, one more tidbit:
    accident prevention depends on defensive legislation AND defensive
    driving. It is not at all necessary for a lawmaker to KNOW that a
    scientific correlation exsist between cell use and accidents, it is more important to act with prejudice and watch for what, cell-phones
    included, MIGHT cause an accident. The way to legislate is the way that
    I have driven over a million clicks with no accident, if anyone wants to
    argue with that, go for it.




    --
    All species of mobile phones, media devices, Bluetooth or not, and
    onboard presentation systems beyond what is essential for vehicle
    control should automatically disable themselves within 10 meters of any
    vehicle in motion at any speed. "Hands-Free does NOT mean Brain-Free".
    In the case of approaching vehicles (pedestrian use included) that
    distance should be multiplied (prorated) for every 5km/h of CLOSURE
    speed (i.e. no such device should be operable within 200 meters of any
    vehicle approaching at 100 km/h). Manufacturers of devices in which such
    an automatic lockout feature is missing or can be disabled should first
    pay large fines and then be barred from the jurisdiction market. With
    respect to other road-hog conduct, in addition to intoxication or attention-diverting use of lethal-technology while driving,
    brake-checking and tailgating should also be HANGING crimes. Any
    irresponsible vehicle handling should in fact be punished exactly as it
    would be in the case of irresponsible weapons handling (which ALSO needs
    to be beefed up exponentially).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to forgetski@_INVALID.net on Sat May 25 21:16:48 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 25 May 2024 13:06:06 -0400, bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:

    On 5/25/24 11:47, Andrew wrote:
    Newyana2 wrote on Sat, 25 May 2024 10:45:00 -0400 :

    The NHTSA seems to be responsible for the gov't record-keeping
    about traffic accidents. All I found from them was mixed data, mainly
    about deaths.

    I'm a well-trained scientist.

    I base my assessments on facts.
    While most people (who are not scientists) simply guess at everything.

    Don't look at second-order effects of accidents until you've ascertained
    first-order effects, since deaths are a function of many more things.

    It's a myth that cellphone use caused the accident rate to rise in the USA >>
    The only place that myth exists is in people's minds when they don't think. >> However, even I would have *thought* accident rates would have skyrocketed. >>
    They didn't.
    Not in the USA anyway (where accurate records have been kept for decades). >>
    The rate not only didn't skyrocket, it barely changed.

    And what changed was it slowly trended down, down, down.
    That's just a fact.

    Only fools disagree with facts (that's why they're fools).

    The main proponents of the myth are those with money to gain,
    namely (a) injury lawyers, (b) insurance companies & (c) ticketing police. >>
    In the accurate US Census Bureau records, what do you see happening to the >> accident rate before, during and after the meteoric rise in cellphone
    ownership in the United States?
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=us+census+accident+rate+statistics+by+year> >>
    What do you see?
    <https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed/tables/11s1102.pdf>

    Look at first-order effects, i.e., the accident rate per year.
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot> >>
    What do you see happening to the rate during skyrocketing cellphone days?
    <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

    HINT: US Accident rates trending down were wholly unaffected by cellphones.


    None of the above proves that cell-phone use while drivig is not
    extremely dangerous or that the part of accidents caused by cell phone
    use or by other distracting devices is not increasing with increasing >cellphone use. BTW, how many accident participants will voluntarily
    offer up the fact that they'd been on the phone just before? Right, so
    much for statistics which according to one prof. "is the science whereby
    one can prove anything, or its exact opposite".

    A few years ago I had a near head-on collision (missed BY INCHES) with a >closure rate of well over 250 km/h and the other driver was a woman
    (sole occupant in that car with phone in hand) who had deviated
    completely into my single lane from a point about 200 feet in front of
    me, try THAT once for a hard opinion-alignment!

    So what happened? Did she start looking at the road and go back ot her
    lane? Did you head for the shoulder?

    Also a few years ago I
    was stopped at a construction site by a guy wavig down traffic. While
    stopped I thought I might as well do a quick call home. Next thing I
    know he's jumping up and down waving me to get moving again, I had not >noticed the change in time. Before anyone thinks I'm a bad driver I
    might mention that I've been driving since age 13 and have logged well
    over a million miles on roads alone all without a single accident
    (mostly because my driving has become defensive over time).

    Next time anyone hangs up after having used a phone while driving (and I >affirm that beyond freeing one's hands bluetooth accomplishes ABSOLUTELY >NOTHING in this respect)

    The difference between a cell phonecall and talking to someone else in
    the car is that the person in the front seat is, even if not trying to,
    paying some attention to the traffic and he will stop talking or scream
    if you're headed to an obstacle.

    try to remember road/traffic details from the
    previous few minutes without drawing a complete blank. You can cheat,
    but when alone and looking at yourself in the mirror you'll remember the >astounding revelation and it will change your habbits.



    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Newyana2@21:1/5 to Andrew on Sat May 25 22:13:00 2024
    On 5/25/2024 11:47 AM, Andrew wrote:

    What do you see? <https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed/tables/11s1102.pdf>

    I see irrelevant statistics that only go up to 2008 -- about
    the time the iPhone came out.


    Look at first-order effects, i.e., the accident rate per year.
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot>

    What do you see happening to the rate during skyrocketing cellphone days? <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

    HINT: US Accident rates trending down were wholly unaffected by cellphones.


    Your second link is from an insurance company group
    and says that 11% of fatal crashes are known to be caused
    by cellphone use. That's just the ones that admitted to it or
    perhaps were found to be using their cellphone by other means.
    And it's only including fatal crashes. The man who sideswiped
    me while distracted by his cellphone, for example, didn't cause
    a major accident. There was no bodily harm.

    Also, pedestrian deaths have increased since 2009. I wouldn't
    say that proves a cellphone connection, but it certainly points
    in that direction.

    Your last link simply says that death rates have decreased.
    That relates to seat belts, airbags, better brakes, etc. It's
    not a direct indication of actual accident rates. It doesn't
    even refer to accident rates. It's referring only to deaths per
    miles driven.

    This is why you need to keep your emotions out of it. Reading
    so much disparate data, which actually says very little about
    anything other than the usefulness of seat belts, can make it
    very tempting to read meaning into it.

    An interesting other factor that's barely mentioned is the
    excessive computerization. With today's cars, few things
    can be done without looking at the dashboard. In older
    cars, heat, AC, radio, etc can be easily adjusted without
    looking. With touchscreens distraction is unavoidable.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Newyana2@21:1/5 to micky on Sat May 25 22:16:53 2024
    On 5/25/2024 9:16 PM, micky wrote:


    The difference between a cell phonecall and talking to someone else in
    the car is that the person in the front seat is, even if not trying to, paying some attention to the traffic and he will stop talking or scream
    if you're headed to an obstacle.

    That's an important point that cellphone addicts often ignore.
    No one says, "Honey, I want a divorce" from the passenger seat in
    the middle of a busy intersection. But they might say it over a
    cellphone.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 26 06:22:40 2024
    bad������sector wrote on Sat, 25 May 2024 21:43:23 -0400 :

    In order to have any meaningful correlation between cell phones in cars
    and their effect on accidents one would have to know how many of those
    cell phones were in use while driving and also the accident rate in
    those cars as compared to the others. Without this in the case of
    cell-phone correlation the supplied study provides just irrelevant statistical noise.

    You bring up a point that we discussed in gory detail in the past, which is that nobody knows much about the actual usage rate of cellphones. We all
    know people use them; but we have no reliable data on how much they're
    used.

    I covered this in gory detail where the NHTSA reports every May of every
    year (as I recall) on cellphone *usage* rates; but - get this - they
    calculate that at red lights. Yes. Red lights. They hvae a person sitting
    on the side peering into vehicles to note how many people are using them.

    Clearly this is a flawed statistic - but I do agree with you it would be
    one of the most important statistics for this dicussion - which we don't
    have.

    Again, this was covered in gory detail in the past, the point being that
    the most *reliable* statistic we have is the accident rate (which is number
    of accidents normalized by the number of miles driven).

    The rest was an hypothesis to potentially explain that unexpected fact.

    So we went from scientific method and statistical data to hypothetical potentials. OK, I didn't lock in on that one, my bad :-)

    Of course. As I said to micky, the fact is the fact is the fact.
    The fact is the accident rate did not go up. It went down.
    But it was always going down, so the trend was unchanged.

    That's not *my* fact.
    That's *the* fact.

    Now the question is WHY.
    Hell. I don't know why.

    Like every other moron out there, I would have thought the accident rate
    would have skyrocketed and then leveled off after saturation.

    But what makes me different from every other moron out there is I looked
    for the data - and that's when I found out that the accident rate trend is unchanged.

    So now we're stuck with explaining why.

    All I have to explain why are my hypotheses.
    You can disagree with them all you want.

    That's the nature of an hypothesis.
    Even Albert Einstein's theory of gravitation is only a theory.

    Do you know that gravity isn't even a force?
    You can ask me why, and I will tell you why, but that doesn't make my hypothesis correct.

    BTW, how many accident participants will voluntarily
    offer up the fact that they'd been on the phone just before?

    Guess what. The US census bureau statistics do NOT rely on that.
    So it's a non sequitur what anyone "says" about the cause of the accident.

    The cause of the accident is not likely to be recorded as having been cell-phone use unless someone fesses up to it.
    Accident investigation
    does not on one hand include automatic mandatory x-checking with the
    cell service providers and in many jurisdictions such would not even be permitted on the other. I've done accident investigation in three areas
    of activity and am of the opinion that quite a few reports are
    misleading and not only accidentaly so ..for any number of reasons.

    We covered this also in gory detail. Apparently there's now a checkbox on
    many accident forms whether there was a cellphone in the vehicle at the
    time of the accident.

    Guess what? We covered that this box is checked almost 100% of the time.
    Which skews the statistics like you can't believe.

    Unfortunately, it's a statistic that will never be good simply because
    there is no good way to collect it. That's too bad. But that's just the
    facts.

    The actual accidents are reportable in all fifty states.

    Sidebar: is this comp.mobile.android or comp.mobile.android.us?

    Well, we covered that in gory detail also.

    In Australia, they statistics are good enough to show the same trends as
    the USA but paradoxically, when we looked in the UK, the trends were
    different.

    There's a reason I only discuss the USA and that's the reason.
    The statistics are phenomenally accurate for the USA.

    I can't vouch for either Australia or the UK though.
    So I only talk about the facts that I'm very confident of.

    Make sense?

    Nonetheless, you have a good point, so here are some searches:
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=accident+rate+australia+year+over+year>
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=accident+rate+uk+year+over+year>

    Right, so
    much for statistics which according to one prof. "is the science whereby >>> one can prove anything, or its exact opposite".

    Nobody but you said that anyone said anything after the
    accident. They could have had the accident for any number of reasons.

    I never said that anyone said anything. What I thought to have alluded
    to rather unequivocally was that IF someone had used a phone and knew
    that that use had lead up to the accident then that person would not
    likely volunteer that information.

    Agree. I'll always agree with any logically sensible assessment of facts.

    This may soon become unnecessary
    anyway with the onset of AI helping cops catch offenders given that it
    has the speed to analyse cell traffic around and entire block for
    instance and alert the cop waiting at the intersection "green Honda
    arriving from South leg in 45 seconds was on line while in motion for
    the last ten and a half minutes". Once the pull-over happens all the
    data is already printed on the ticket.

    This is perhaps the future... especially since police already do geofencing dragnets when there is a crime, so why not when there is an accident.

    And although this thread is already way off-topic, one more tidbit:
    accident prevention depends on defensive legislation AND defensive
    driving.

    Actually, we covered that also. Turns out all the safety laws are for
    naught. Sadly so. The only effect of safety laws is a second-order effect
    on length of hospital stay. (Remember, I alluded to this when I said to
    someone that the second-order effects will knock your socks off).

    But I don't want to go there because people haven't even understood the first-order effects yet - so it's premature to move to the effect (or lack
    of effect) of safety laws on injuries (we even covered how much money they
    make - which is billions per year - on tickets for safety law violations).

    It is not at all necessary for a lawmaker to KNOW that a
    scientific correlation exsist between cell use and accidents, it is more important to act with prejudice and watch for what, cell-phones
    included, MIGHT cause an accident. The way to legislate is the way that
    I have driven over a million clicks with no accident, if anyone wants to argue with that, go for it.

    Except, sadly, that the laws have no first order effects. We can dig that
    one up, but it's too deep for this group when people can't even read an
    excel spreadsheet by one of the most reliable government agencies around.

    The main effect of safety laws in this realm is on revenue generation.
    We covered this in gory detail already. Look it up.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?B?YmFk8J+SvXNlY3Rvcg==?=@21:1/5 to micky on Sun May 26 07:48:52 2024
    On 5/25/24 21:16, micky wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 25 May 2024 13:06:06 -0400, bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:

    On 5/25/24 11:47, Andrew wrote:
    Newyana2 wrote on Sat, 25 May 2024 10:45:00 -0400 :

    The NHTSA seems to be responsible for the gov't record-keeping
    about traffic accidents. All I found from them was mixed data, mainly
    about deaths.

    I'm a well-trained scientist.

    I base my assessments on facts.
    While most people (who are not scientists) simply guess at everything.

    Don't look at second-order effects of accidents until you've ascertained >>> first-order effects, since deaths are a function of many more things.

    It's a myth that cellphone use caused the accident rate to rise in the USA >>>
    The only place that myth exists is in people's minds when they don't think. >>> However, even I would have *thought* accident rates would have skyrocketed. >>>
    They didn't.
    Not in the USA anyway (where accurate records have been kept for decades). >>>
    The rate not only didn't skyrocket, it barely changed.

    And what changed was it slowly trended down, down, down.
    That's just a fact.

    Only fools disagree with facts (that's why they're fools).

    The main proponents of the myth are those with money to gain,
    namely (a) injury lawyers, (b) insurance companies & (c) ticketing police. >>>
    In the accurate US Census Bureau records, what do you see happening to the >>> accident rate before, during and after the meteoric rise in cellphone
    ownership in the United States?
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=us+census+accident+rate+statistics+by+year>

    What do you see?
    <https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed/tables/11s1102.pdf>

    Look at first-order effects, i.e., the accident rate per year.
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot> >>>
    What do you see happening to the rate during skyrocketing cellphone days? >>> <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

    HINT: US Accident rates trending down were wholly unaffected by cellphones. >>

    None of the above proves that cell-phone use while drivig is not
    extremely dangerous or that the part of accidents caused by cell phone
    use or by other distracting devices is not increasing with increasing
    cellphone use. BTW, how many accident participants will voluntarily
    offer up the fact that they'd been on the phone just before? Right, so
    much for statistics which according to one prof. "is the science whereby
    one can prove anything, or its exact opposite".

    A few years ago I had a near head-on collision (missed BY INCHES) with a
    closure rate of well over 250 km/h and the other driver was a woman
    (sole occupant in that car with phone in hand) who had deviated
    completely into my single lane from a point about 200 feet in front of
    me, try THAT once for a hard opinion-alignment!

    So what happened? Did she start looking at the road and go back ot her
    lane? Did you head for the shoulder?

    Off-topic but I'll come back to it if at least one other request comes
    in, it was an eye-opener and made me appreciate Subaru handling on (then
    new) nokian tires!


    Also a few years ago I
    was stopped at a construction site by a guy wavig down traffic. While
    stopped I thought I might as well do a quick call home. Next thing I
    know he's jumping up and down waving me to get moving again, I had not
    noticed the change in time. Before anyone thinks I'm a bad driver I
    might mention that I've been driving since age 13 and have logged well
    over a million miles on roads alone all without a single accident
    (mostly because my driving has become defensive over time).

    Next time anyone hangs up after having used a phone while driving (and I
    affirm that beyond freeing one's hands bluetooth accomplishes ABSOLUTELY
    NOTHING in this respect)

    The difference between a cell phonecall and talking to someone else in
    the car is that the person in the front seat is, even if not trying to, paying some attention to the traffic and he will stop talking or scream
    if you're headed to an obstacle.

    THAT's a point I've been trying to make for something like 20 years
    without much success. Most people don't understand what I'm saying, much
    less the fact that the brain is incapable of multi-processing except by
    way of split-delegation to concious and sub-conscious. It can also assign/handle in a rapidly fragmented fashion (forget the neurologiocal
    name of this) so many miliseconds to 2 or 3 tasks at most and with losses.


    try to remember road/traffic details from the
    previous few minutes without drawing a complete blank. You can cheat,
    but when alone and looking at yourself in the mirror you'll remember the
    astounding revelation and it will change your habbits.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 26 14:20:41 2024
    bad������sector wrote on Sun, 26 May 2024 07:48:52 -0400 :

    THAT's a point I've been trying to make for something like 20 years
    without much success. Most people don't understand what I'm saying, much
    less the fact that the brain is incapable of multi-processing except by
    way of split-delegation to concious and sub-conscious. It can also assign/handle in a rapidly fragmented fashion (forget the neurologiocal
    name of this) so many miliseconds to 2 or 3 tasks at most and with losses.

    Most people, unfortunately, believe everything that "sounds" right to them. (It's why advertising works, after all, is it not?)

    I believe it's a myth that humans multi-task well. However, I'm not a specialist in neuroscience, but I think I saw somewhere that multi
    processing is a myth. We simply do what single-core CPUs do.

    Apparently we page it out and then page it back in to process different scenarios. But let me look it up before I delve deeper into neuro babble...
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=can+humans+multiprocess+psychology>

    Here's the first hit.
    *The Fallacy of Multitasking*
    <https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-stress-and-burnout/202203/the-fallacy-multitasking>

    Bear in mind, almost everything that dumb people think is true, is wrong.
    It's why advertising works.

    And why they give a good-student discount to A students, by the way.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Chris on Sun May 26 14:26:08 2024
    Chris wrote on Sun, 26 May 2024 10:03:18 -0000 (UTC) :

    Only one of those links is for accidents. The others are deaths, which
    you've claimed for years are not meaningful.

    They contained both.

    And the US Census Bureau has been accurately reporting accident rates since
    the 1920s.

    Nobody intelligent disagrees with their accident-rate statistics.

    What intelligent people may disagree with is why they are what they are.
    My hypothesis as to why the facts are what they are is only my theory.

    You're quite welcome to disagree with my theory of why the facts are what
    they are; but nobody intelligent can disagree with the facts.

    As I say on the Apple group all the time, just because people hate facts doesn't instantly turn those facts into not being facts.

    There is no question the accident rate trend remained unchanged.
    The only question is why.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From AJL@21:1/5 to Chris on Sun May 26 16:05:30 2024
    On 5/26/24 8:18 AM, Chris wrote:

    Having (supposed) college degrees and books doesn't make you a scientist.

    Course it does. You can be anything you want to be on Usenet...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Chris on Sun May 26 17:09:39 2024
    Chris wrote on Sun, 26 May 2024 15:24:36 -0000 (UTC) :

    And the US Census Bureau has been accurately reporting accident rates since >> the 1920s.

    I'm ask again. What makes you believe they are accurate? If they're so accurate why have they stopped collecting the data?

    There is no question the statistics are reliable and currently maintained.
    <https://data.census.gov/>

    There was no change in accident rates (they're slowly trending downward).

    The only question is why.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sun May 26 18:46:22 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 25 May 2024 22:16:53 -0400, Newyana2 <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 5/25/2024 9:16 PM, micky wrote:


    The difference between a cell phonecall and talking to someone else in
    the car is that the person in the front seat is, even if not trying to,
    paying some attention to the traffic and he will stop talking or scream
    if you're headed to an obstacle.

    That's an important point that cellphone addicts often ignore.
    No one says, "Honey, I want a divorce" from the passenger seat in
    the middle of a busy intersection. But they might say it over a
    cellphone.

    That too! I hadn't thought about that, that the topic the other party to
    a phone call chooses can be very upsetting, distracting to the nth
    degree.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to forgetski@_INVALID.net on Sun May 26 18:49:07 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 26 May 2024 07:48:52 -0400, bad?sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:


    The difference between a cell phonecall and talking to someone else in
    the car is that the person in the front seat is, even if not trying to,
    paying some attention to the traffic and he will stop talking or scream
    if you're headed to an obstacle.

    THAT's a point I've been trying to make for something like 20 years
    without much success. Most people don't understand what I'm saying, much
    less the fact that the brain is incapable of multi-processing except by
    way of split-delegation to concious and sub-conscious. It can also >assign/handle in a rapidly fragmented fashion (forget the neurologiocal
    name of this) so many miliseconds to 2 or 3 tasks at most and with losses.

    Hey, I agree with you and even I didn't understand this explanation! If
    people don't understand, use little words that someone like me will
    understand.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Newyana2@21:1/5 to micky on Sun May 26 20:12:35 2024
    On 5/26/2024 6:49 PM, micky wrote:

    THAT's a point I've been trying to make for something like 20 years
    without much success. Most people don't understand what I'm saying, much
    less the fact that the brain is incapable of multi-processing except by
    way of split-delegation to concious and sub-conscious. It can also
    assign/handle in a rapidly fragmented fashion (forget the neurologiocal
    name of this) so many miliseconds to 2 or 3 tasks at most and with losses.

    Hey, I agree with you and even I didn't understand this explanation! If people don't understand, use little words that someone like me will understand.


    Basically it's saying there's no such thing as multitasking.
    People who try to are addicted to speed, constantly jumping
    back and forth between things as a way to feel productive.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Newyana2@21:1/5 to micky on Sun May 26 22:07:38 2024
    On 5/26/2024 9:19 PM, micky wrote:

    Roughly 93 percent of drivers consider hand-held cell phone use as dangerous however 27 percent have reported sending a text/email while
    driving and 38 percent reported reading a text/email while driving.

    There's the rub. Most heavy cellphone users simply don't
    have the self-control to resist, and neither do the cops who
    should be writing them tickets. It's a kind of lifestyle epidemic.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sun May 26 21:19:38 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sat, 25 May 2024 22:13:00 -0400, Newyana2 <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 5/25/2024 11:47 AM, Andrew wrote:

    What do you see?
    <https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2010/compendia/statab/130ed/tables/11s1102.pdf>

    I see irrelevant statistics that only go up to 2008 -- about
    the time the iPhone came out.


    Look at first-order effects, i.e., the accident rate per year.
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot> >>
    What do you see happening to the rate during skyrocketing cellphone days?
    <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

    HINT: US Accident rates trending down were wholly unaffected by cellphones. >>

    Your second link is from an insurance company group
    and says that 11% of fatal crashes are known to be caused
    by cellphone use. That's just the ones that admitted to it or
    perhaps were found to be using their cellphone by other means.
    And it's only including fatal crashes. The man who sideswiped
    me while distracted by his cellphone, for example, didn't cause
    a major accident. There was no bodily harm.

    Also, pedestrian deaths have increased since 2009. I wouldn't
    say that proves a cellphone connection, but it certainly points
    in that direction.

    Your last link simply says that death rates have decreased.
    That relates to seat belts, airbags, better brakes, etc. It's
    not a direct indication of actual accident rates. It doesn't
    even refer to accident rates. It's referring only to deaths per
    miles driven.

    This is why you need to keep your emotions out of it. Reading
    so much disparate data, which actually says very little about
    anything other than the usefulness of seat belts, can make it
    very tempting to read meaning into it.

    An interesting other factor that's barely mentioned is the
    excessive computerization. With today's cars, few things
    can be done without looking at the dashboard. In older
    cars, heat, AC, radio, etc can be easily adjusted without
    looking. With touchscreens distraction is unavoidable.

    This last paragraph is important. My car is from 2005 and the only
    touchscreen function is moving the map, which I don't do too much. Some
    other fuctions have physical controls but one can't tell with his hands
    what result he gets. There are digital displays of temp and fan speed.
    OTOR, some cars have more and more controls on the steering wheel, and
    if you have to be using them, that's a good place to find them,

    https://www.edgarsnyder.com/resources/texting-and-driving-accident-statistics Texting and Driving Accident Statistics 2024

    The National Safety Council reports that cell phone use while driving
    leads to 1.6 million crashes each year. In fact, at any given time
    throughout the day, approximately 660,000 drivers are attempting to use
    their phones while behind the wheel of an automobile according to an
    NHTSA Survey.

    Generally, the numbers illustrating the dangers of texting while driving
    are downright startling. While smartphones have made it easy for us to
    stay connected at all times, they can pose serious safety risks if
    someone decides to check their text messages, emails, phone calls,
    social media pages or any other mobile applications while driving.

    The following figures reflect the most recent available statistics that demonstrate the dangers of texting and driving.

    Current Distracted Driving Facts and Statistics

    Around 3,000 people die in accidents involving a distracted driver
    each year. (CDC)
    Answering a text takes away your attention for about five seconds. Traveling at 55 mph, that's enough time to travel the length of a
    football field. (NHTSA)
    A National survey on distracted driving showed almost 1 in 10
    respondents reporting sending texts or emails while driving at least
    sometimes where about 1 in 12 reported using some smartphone app that
    was not a navigation app. (NHTSA)
    From 2011 to 2021 crashes involving cell phone use on average
    accounted for about 13 percent of fatal crashes involving distractions
    yearly. (NSC) [13 percent is a lot, and I don't see how cell
    phones can prevent anywhere near a compensating number of accidents or
    deaths. The only thing I remember from this thread is telling you in
    advance where a traffic jamb is, and I think it's very rare for a
    drivers who are not seriously tailgating to plow into stopped traffic. ]
    Roughly 93 percent of drivers consider hand-held cell phone use as dangerous however 27 percent have reported sending a text/email while
    driving and 38 percent reported reading a text/email while driving.
    (AAA) [I myself have never done these things, but even outside the
    car, I rarely text or read (or less often send) email on a cellpohne/]
    From 2013 to 2022, over 1.2 million crashes took place in PA alone
    with over 130,000 of them being attributed to some form of distracted
    driving and 573 being categorized as fatal with 1765 deaths recorded
    according to PennDOT�s Pennsylvania Crash Information Tool website.
    As of April 2023, in 24 states and the District of Columbia the use
    of hand-held devices has been banned for all drivers, while 48 states
    and the District of Columbia have banned texting while driving. (NSC)
    Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers participating in interstate
    commerce cannot use �hand-held mobile telephones,� or engage in texting,
    while driving a commercial motor vehicle (FMCSR)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?J=C3=B6rg_Lorenz?=@21:1/5 to Chris on Mon May 27 09:03:41 2024
    On 27.05.24 08:54, Chris wrote:
    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Fri, 24 May 2024 21:58:45 -0000 (UTC), Chris
    <[email protected]> wrote:

    micky <[email protected]> wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 20 May 2024 18:38:25 -0000 (UTC), Chris >>>> <[email protected]> wrote:

    I was thinking more for your friend to be able to relay your location more >>> easily than google map coordinates.

    Oh, that makes sense. But getting her to learn it would be difficult.
    She's very busy, and I'll be lucky if she notices that I didn't come
    home at the end of the day.

    Sounds like she is the issue here, not your app requirements.

    It is a running gag for years that micky tries to solve his social
    issues with Android apps.


    --
    "Alea iacta est." (Julius Caesar)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?B?YmFk8J+SvXNlY3Rvcg==?=@21:1/5 to micky on Mon May 27 04:29:51 2024
    On 5/26/24 18:49, micky wrote:
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 26 May 2024 07:48:52 -0400, bad?sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:


    The difference between a cell phonecall and talking to someone else in
    the car is that the person in the front seat is, even if not trying to,
    paying some attention to the traffic and he will stop talking or scream
    if you're headed to an obstacle.

    THAT's a point I've been trying to make for something like 20 years
    without much success. Most people don't understand what I'm saying, much
    less the fact that the brain is incapable of multi-processing except by
    way of split-delegation to concious and sub-conscious. It can also
    assign/handle in a rapidly fragmented fashion (forget the neurologiocal
    name of this) so many miliseconds to 2 or 3 tasks at most and with losses.

    Hey, I agree with you and even I didn't understand this explanation! If people don't understand, use little words that someone like me will understand.

    Sorry, that's one of my too few faults, being quadrilingual and the
    Bard's not being my mother tongue, but I'm always working on increasing
    the total. The brain is capable of unloading some very simple tasks to
    the unconscious, the latter being otherwise far more capable in its own
    realm. The conscious and binary mind can juggle 2 or 3 task even rapidly
    but not concurrently and when any of them start hogging the resource you
    end up with 'helmet-fire' and/or panic. Anyone who uses even a
    hands-free phone while driving has by definition more glands and
    intestines where grey stuff should dwell to know any of this.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From micky@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Mon May 27 14:44:46 2024
    In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 26 May 2024 22:07:38 -0400, Newyana2 <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 5/26/2024 9:19 PM, micky wrote:

    Roughly 93 percent of drivers consider hand-held cell phone use as
    dangerous however 27 percent have reported sending a text/email while
    driving and 38 percent reported reading a text/email while driving.

    There's the rub. Most heavy cellphone users simply don't
    have the self-control to resist, and neither do the cops who
    should be writing them tickets. It's a kind of lifestyle epidemic.

    What I've done that I consider dangerous, at least if cars are nearby,
    is that I like to use Navigation (but without spoken directions). Even
    though I can find any place without navigation, I don't have to stop and
    check where to turn next.

    But if the webradio stops playing and I need to restart it, or I need to
    do anything else on the phone, in order to get back to the map, first
    one has to tap the little map** in the lower right corner. That makes
    it a little bigger. Second, you have to then tap the little map in its
    center, within the marked lines in the center, or nothing happens.

    I see no need for it to be two steps and no need to have to be so
    accurate in one's tapping. And with the car bumping up and down it's
    hard to do. On a smooth rode with a fairly long car and "comfort"
    suspension, the car ride can seem very smooth but when one puts his hand
    out, he'll find his finger moving around quite a bit. So it takes a long
    time to hit the mark, instead of one easily-made tap.

    **(I do see why they keep the map showing, as little as it is. I don't
    use it when it's little --- It's too little --- but others may really
    want it.)

    I've thought about writing google about this, not sure where to write.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Chris on Wed May 29 05:04:36 2024
    Chris wrote on Mon, 27 May 2024 13:17:56 -0000 (UTC) :

    Not your cherished accident data. There's no data since 2008.

    Plenty of statistics on road accidents are current, Chris.
    <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

    The main problem is simply that the information is scattered about.
    <https://www.statista.com/topics/3708/road-accidents-in-the-us/#topicOverview>
    <https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-traffic-crash-data-fatalities>
    <https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/nhtsa-releases-2020-traffic-crash-data>

    While the data is in various and sundry separate pieces...
    <https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813183>

    The only bounding dates that really matter for this topic are these two:
    a. When did cellphones in vehicles basically not exist.
    b. When did cellphones rise nearly to saturation in vehicles.

    If cellphone use were as dastardly as the claims, there should be a
    meteoric rise in the accident rate during that period, right?

    Where is that meteoric rise?
    <https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/pdf/fi200.pdf>

    Hint: It's not there.

    Take a look at the accident numbers for the entire world, by country.
    <https://data.oecd.org/transport/road-accidents.htm>

    What do you see in those accident statistics for the time periods of
    before, during, and after the meteoric rise in cellphone ownership?

    Try this search, but let's stick to first-order effects, which are the normalized accident rates, as injuries are a second-order effect for later.
    <https://www.google.com/search?q=accident+rate+usa+by+state+by+year+since+1900+to+present>

    This shows normalized fatalities, which wasn't my main point, but it too is trending the same way as the accident rate statistics were trending.
    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year>

    We have to understand that the analysis gets exponentially more complex
    once we delve into second-order effects such as injuries & fatalities.
    <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/introduction/>

    Simply because there are more factors involved, where cellphones can
    actually decrease the fatality rate in many ways (e.g., quicker aid).
    <https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2022-traffic-deaths-2023-early-estimates>
    "The agency estimates that 40,990 people died in motor vehicle
    traffic crashes in 2023, a decrease of about 3.6% as compared
    to 42,514 fatalities reported to have occurred in 2022.
    The fourth quarter of 2023 represents the seventh consecutive
    quarterly decline in fatalities beginning with the second
    quarter of 2022."

    The problem isn't finding recent data; it's finding only the accidents.
    <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state>

    Since the problem is complex enough, let's stick with first-order accidents since there can't be second order effects of injuries without accidents.

    Nobody has yet found any statistic that backs up the myth.
    There's a reason for that fact.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Chris on Thu May 30 15:05:30 2024
    Chris wrote on Wed, 29 May 2024 07:45:37 -0000 (UTC) :

    If you select "accidents involving casualties" there clearly is a reversal
    in the downward trend around 2010 in the US. The increasing trend continues until covid and the latest data still shows greatest numbers of accidents since 2004.

    You don't understand that the number of accidents is almost meaningless
    because that needs to be normalized against the number of miles driven.

    The fact is you scoured the Internet and still you can't find a single reference that refutes the myth that cellphone use is as dangerous as you claim.

    All you have been doing is saying you don't like the fact that your own
    belief system isn't based on any facts that you can cite on this thread.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)