News You Can't Use: Teen Drivers Distracted Big Time by Cellphones, Talking in Most Crashes

No matter what your personal scapegoat for society's ills is, today's subject should cater to it. We've got young people, technology, phones, distractions and the gun in the garage. If that odious menu doesn't do it, how about throwing in largely useless studies and a headline that contains intentionally misleading information as well as the words "Big Time" to describe how our highways are running bright red with the spilled blood of texting punk kids and their victims. Get ready to be entertained big time as we examine the causes of youth pathology and how it relates to the internal combustion killer.

Whether teen drivers are talking or texting on cellphones or simply chatting with passengers, distractions play a larger role than previously thought in automobile accidents and were responsible for about six of every 10 moderate to severe crashes, according to a study released on Wednesday.

We were planning on simply blaming the accidents on accepted conventional wisdom like "worst generation ever" and "bunch of softies who never fought the Space Invader Arcade War like me" but it turns out the most obvious answer is, incredibly, the correct one.

The study, by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, analyzed about 1,700 videos taken from inside crash vehicles. The videos are used as part of a private program designed to coach drivers to improve performance.

"See how Tommy texter crossed the center line and had a head-on collision? Don't do that." Thank you private program for coaching me into improved performance. Now excuse me while I drink a six pack of the cheap stuff and drive home.

“Access to crash videos has allowed us to better understand the moments leading up to a vehicle impact in a way that was previously impossible,” said Peter Kissinger, president and CEO of the AAA Foundation, a driving research and education group established in 1947 by AAA, the service organization for motorists.

I'm not really one to talk, but this is run-on sentence hell right here. Nested quotations within nested quotations, it's just too much. Also, watching these videos is totally entertaining once you learn to ignore the human cost, which for us is easy.

“The in-depth analysis provides indisputable evidence that teen drivers are distracted in a much greater percentage of crashes than we previously realized.” 

Finally scientific evidence that the delinquent kid next door is no good.

According to the group’s analysis, all forms of distraction were a factor in 58% of the studied crashes, including in 89% of the crashes where the vehicle left the road and in 76% of the accidents involving rear-end collisions.

Suffice it to say "distraction" is a pretty broad topic and not especially helpful for isolating specific interventions. Can we just start blaming the pocket phone demon like in the headline?

The top distraction, found in about 15% of the crashes, involved the driver interacting with at least one passenger in the vehicle.

Generally when I'm interacting with my passenger that vehicle is parked, if you know what I'm saying.

Also, for the common safety, please pull over before you savagely beat your loved ones.

Next, at 12%, was the driver using a cellphone to talk, text or review the screen for messages and such.

"Right, you know messages and such. That sort of thing. Birds that are angry, dodgy stuff like that."

Other forms of distraction included: the driver looking at something in the vehicle, 10%; looking at something outside the vehicle other than the road, 9%; singing or dancing to music, 8%.

Keep your eyes firmly on the blacktop, it will keep you safe. Also, people are dancing in cars? Man, I'm missing out on so much by showing nominal levels of responsibility.

All forms of grooming such as checking hair accounted for 6% of the crashes, according to the report. That was the same percentage as a driver reaching for an object in the vehicle.

Yup, hair is still there. On the top of my head, right where I left it. Well, mostly.

“It is troubling that passengers and cellphones were the most common forms of distraction given that these factors can increase crash risks for teen drivers,” AAA CEO Bob Darbelnet said in a prepared statement.

"We'd like to see that number go down and the 'reaching for objects' one go up to compensate."

On the bright side I found what I was reaching for.

“The situation is made worse by the fact that young drivers have spent less time behind the wheel and cannot draw upon their previous experience to manage unsafe conditions.”

And no, years of playing Ridge Racer is not a suitable substitute. 

"Making the road a safer place for everyone is our core mission, and Lytx is honored to have played such a key role in research of this magnitude and importance," said Brandon Nixon, chief executive officer of Lytx, a privately-held San Diego-based company.

I wanted to call this project "RoadGate" but was shouted down.

In the videos released by the AAA foundation, one teen is shown trying to negotiate a wet road with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a cellphone to his ear. Another video shows the driver looking at an electronic device, seemingly texting. The driver’s eyes leave the road and the car veers off and appears to be heading toward a mailbox.

Please, stop doing intentionally stupid things.

“AAA recommends that state laws prohibit cell phone use by teen drivers and restrict passengers to one non-family member for the first six months of driving,” the group urged.

We understand that this recommendation is basically worthless and apologize for wasting your time.

Full Article. 

Komment Korner  

They play video games and think that's what driving is...

Another problem is that distracted driving is encouraged by cellphone companies and gizmo manufacturers.

What I see almost daily here in Irvine are mostly middle aged women in SUVs holding cell phones in front of them or against their ears.

If they aren't being stimulated every minute of every day by a hand held computer, they think something is wrong.

idiots!!!!!!!!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Professional Clown Club Attacks 'American Horror Story' Over Murderous Character

I really didn't plan this seemingly endless series of killer clown articles, but here we are anyway. Fudging lack of other amusing things to talk about, how does it work? You'd think New York would be good for a "Giant Bedbug Devours Family" or "Costumed Characters Formally Recognized as PAC" story but there's only silence. Instead, we are forced to examine the image problems that professional clowns labor under and why the moron box might be playing into these misconceptions about how horribly creepy they are; misconceptions that certainly have no basis in objective reality.

Real clowns see nothing funny about their depiction in American Horror Story: Freak Show.

I don't pretend to be an expert on them crazy moving pictures coming from the drool tube, but I'm almost certain something called a "Horror Story" is not a comedy.

The FX series from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk revolves around Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch), a serial killer who stalks couples with scissors and imprisons children in an old school bus.

Filmed in "Psychologically Healthy-O-Vision." Boy, can't wait to watch the next episode of scissors killer! Hope some kids get imprisoned, possibly in a semi-ironic fashion!

"Hollywood makes money sensationalizing the norm," bemoans Glenn Kohlberger, president of Clowns of America International, the nation’s biggest clown club. "They can take any situation no matter how good or pure and turn it into a nightmare."

The world's biggest clown club. I guess the joke about "I thought that title was held by the Republican and/or Democrat Party!" would go here. Hopefully they'll be some chances for obvious "clown college" wit later on.

I don't really see anything good or pure in walking human nightmares, but I guess we still have limited freedoms to make statements like this.

With membership in the organization dwindling — its aging base is made up of 2,500 clowns, down from 3,500 in 2004

Clearly "Republican" was the correct selection for that earlier obvious joke, in light of this new information.

Kohlberger, whose big-shoed alter ego is Clyde D. Scope, takes a hard-line stance against characters like Twisty.

"I just make children scream and cry, I've never imprisoned any in a school bus, let alone that scissor stuff."

"We do not support in any way, shape or form any medium that sensationalizes or adds to coulrophobia or 'clown fear,' " Kohlberger says.

Check your non-grease painted face privilege.

Clowns' enduring image problem reaches back centuries. In "Hop-Frog," an 1849 short story by Edgar Allen Poe, the title character, a vengeful dwarf jester, dresses up the king and members of the royal court in flammable orangutan costumes, them sets them ablaze during a costume parade.

Yeah, the old vengeful jester and flammable orangutan costume plot that Hollywood keeps recycling when they're not trampling the good and beautiful under foot.

In the 1892 opera Pagliacci, a jealous clown murders his wife and her lover with a knife.

Also known as "Every Opera, Ever."

A scene involving a possessed clown doll in 1982’s Poltergeist would keep an entire generation of children awake at night.

Back when poor television reception could be used to drive the plot.

While clowning in its purest form lives on in traveling circuses like Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey and the nearly 20 productions of Cirque du Soleil spanning the globe, its evil counterpart thrives in popular culture.

I'd hate to see the purity of this great cultural touchstone destroyed by eighties horror, eye-talian singing plays and some dopehead poet.

Killer-clown mazes are mainstays at Halloween attractions like Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights, where visitors this year will be assaulted by chainsaw-wielding Bozos in "Clowns 3D."

We can simulate all your primal fears for a reasonable fee.

In recent weeks, in the California towns of Bakersfield, Wasco and Delano, sightings have poured in of menacing clowns lurking after dark, some holding weapons like machetes, baseball bats and, according to one report, a firearm.

I guess there's some virus or something in Texas and maybe a few issues in the Middle East, but this right here is what's really going on.

“There’s a natural phobia of clowns,” Sgt. Joe Grubbs of the Bakersfield Police Department said.

This is definitely the most truthful statement this man will ever make.

Series co-creator Ryan Murphy told THR he fears home invasions over clowns. "I'm much more afraid of Bloody Face [from Asylum] and Rubber Man [from Murder House],"  Murphy said, adding that the origin of Twisty, whose frightful mask resembles an exposed skull, will be revealed in the fourth episode.

Maybe I'm not a huge horror fan but it sounds like he's making stuff up to avoid copyright issues or something. Man, I'm really afraid of Hockey Goal Keeper [from Unlucky Friday] and Sweater Man [from Bad Dream Street].

"There's a big story that explains the clown and what he's doing that's based on an urban myth we uncovered," Murphy said. "Our take is very unusual."

He's the first psycho powered by a mix of pop rocks and cola.

“Clowns to killers,” he says. “I choose not to play into any of it. The more attention we give it just gives it more fuel.”

"I take back all the power I've given you cable television!" *turns back, HBO vanishes in puff of smoke*

Full Story.

Komment Korner

99% of kids turn out fine when they grow up

No I Freaken didn't Blue they where older,they're 20-30 I have 5 do the math. 

She chose the high road by ignoring those patronising remarks

Then they're pretty damn wussy teenagers.

Dianewe...Ignore these people


Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.