It's actually been studied and found that texting while driving is more inhibitive than drinking while driving. RIP Knapper.
I'm glad that your friend survived and hope that he still might make a full recovery, but am sorry about your young coworker.
I've had a motorcycle license almost as long as I've been attending Jets games. There's is some truth in what you say: I myself have had two spills in 35 years. Neither was a collision. As I age I am far more careful than i used to be although I was never a wild-man on two wheels. I'm not casting aspersions towards your severely injured friend in any way when I say this, but one thing to consider about motorcyclists is that if you are a reckless person with a lust for speeding there's no better way to have all of that than to ride a motorcycle. Many of those jackasses would be crashing cars too. While riding my motorcycle I see shit I cannot believe, usually by the younger bikers. A parallel I can draw is the old drug argument that marijuana leads to harder drugs. No, if you are interested in hard drugs marijuana will be included in the repertoire on your way to that. Not a cause for it. My thoughts continue to be drawn to the tragic accident of a man we did not really get to know yet, who seemed to be a unique man and a great coach, someone who's life we envy. To have his life taken this way is heartbreaking. The tragedy effects us as Jets fans, but more so as fathers and human beings. Like many of you it's been on my mind all week.
Yes, on interstate highways I have seen crazy young cyclists weaving from one lane to another at 75-80 mph or more! They often cut in between two cars where there is barely one car length. It's like they have a death wish. If the car in front of them ever hits the breaks for any reason, they're a goner.
^^^^^^very true and very well-said as usual @LogeSection2RowJ. Not talking about MoWilk's friend either, but speaking in generalities and to your point above which I placed in bold, a reckless idiot is a reckless idiot, regardless of what he is driving.
Any hardware lock on phones will be quickly defeated by hackers creating unlockers for profit. I really think taking the driving age to 18 and possibly 20 may be the only workable long-term solution. This won't work in the areas of the country where a car is needed to get around but those areas are much less congested and the capacity for mayhem much reduced.
It's such a horrific tragedy and it will be duplicated on the other side by the young person whose life is destroyed by the likely criminal but certainly civil process to follow. That's another family that will have to bear an enormous loss out of this tragedy. We need to figure out how to prevent this type of accident. We figured out DUI's and DUI deaths went down by an enormous factor. The difference between the two is primarily in the ages involved. DUI's were generally in the 25-50 range and it was much easier to "solve" the problem by throwing the book at the defendants and making an example of them. The vast majority of distracted driving cases are very young people between 16 and 21. Throwing the book at them is generally not going to be a good example, both because they are not fully capable of understanding the magnitude of the crime and because their peers still think they are immortal and the bad thing could never happen to them.
Perhaps if they catch them texting or staring at their phone and driving, with no accident or injury, then the 1st time they suspend their license for 6 months. If it happens a 2nd time, they lose their license for a year. If it happens a 3rd time, they lose their license permanently regardless of where they live. They can ride a bicycle or one of those scooters that doesn't go over 35. If they text and are involved in an accident with no injury, they should lose their license for a year and be subject to being sued, but no jail time. If they text and drive and are involved in an accident where they seriously injure or kill someone, then they should lose their license permanently and go to jail for negiligent homicide or manslaughter, whichever is worse.
I'm thinking the first offense for texting and driving for somebody under 18 should be to have the licensed revoked with the provision they could reapply at 20 after passing multiple driving safety certification courses. For older drivers I would suspend until 20 or for 6-12 months, whichever was longer. I'd make the driving safety courses the real deal - 40 hour courses that covered all the in's and out's of being a safe driver. At least one of the courses would be a consequences course that shows in explicit detail the damage that distracted driving causes. I'd setup state commissions in the states that handled accident claims against distracted drivers under the age of 25. These commissions would be empowered to award all-costs claims for the victims of young distracted driving, including future earnings claims. The revenues required to fund the system would likely come out of a tax on insurance industry earnings. Appeals could be made against the commissions, however the system would be designed to discourage them by being generous to victims without creating windfall lottery events. The commissions would also be empowered to mete out significant monitored community service sentences to the young offenders involved. Not short make-work sentences but real time spent serving the community. Figure the average sentence would be 360 hours to be completed over a period a year. A significant chunk of work every week, often in sweaty or frigid circumstances would be a wonderful way to keep the youthful offender mindful of what they'd done and what the costs to them were. Benefits of the system would include a dramatic lowering of legal expenses and costs, which often are the bulk of expenses in aggregate for dealing with this type of offense. Youthful offenders would be kept off of the roads and highways until they developed a better appreciation of their responsibilities. They'd be punished in a way that they likely remembered for the rest of their lives. They would not be forced out of the job market by a criminal conviction nor would they or their families be bankrupted for life. The jury awards in these cases tend to be the kind that the insurance companies find ways to wriggle off the hook on. That means they simultaneously bankrupt the respondents while being largely uncollectable by the plaintiffs.
I was just spitballing. You've obviously given this a lot more thought than I have. I like almost all your ideas. Good job! In addition to the driving safety courses, imo they should have to talk with families of victims (if those families are willing to do that), and young drivers who have made those mistakes. The only thing I perhaps don't see is if the driver seriously injures or kills someone. (or did you intend community service for those drivers?) If the latter, I don't think community service is harsh enough for crippling or killing someone. That should be prison imo. They've crushed another family and ended a life, imo they deserve for theirs to be ended too. I understand that young people brains aren't fully formed until they are 25, but there have to be ways to get through to young people and stop the senseless loss of life from speeding, drinking or doing drugs and driving, reckless driving, talking on the phone or staring at their phone or texting and driving. It's tragic enough when they end their own life or that of a friend who is in the car with them, but is worse when they take the life of an innocent victim who happened to be at the wrong spot at the wrong time. Also, I understand that some states don't offer driver training now, or there's little to it. When I was a teenager, we had to watch "Death on the Highway." An updated version of that should be made and it should be required nationally for drivers. It should include graphic pictures, families broken up, young drivers who made the mistake are racked with guilt or in prison. More traffic police and highway patrol should be added and the laws should be more strictly enforced. Parents should be made to know that they will be held responsible as well. It is their job as parents to teach their children to obey the traffic laws and not to text or use their phone while driving. Unless or until everyone has a self-driving car on the road, the laws should be very strict against phone use of any kind.
Coach Saleh and some of the players spoke about Coach Knapp at the sart of training camp: https://nypost.com/2021/07/28/jets-remember-deceased-coach-absolute-tragedy/
Thank you KY. BTW speaking about the Jets website, I downloaded the app on my iPad but I cant watch the videos. Just get a black screen. Wonder if you and or any of the savvy users here have a similar problem and or a solution.
My prediction is we'll have self-driving cars other than as an occasionally used option about a year after all handguns are banned. As in, never. Americans like to drive. Rich Americans like to have somebody in the car they can have do other things for them as well as driving.
No charges for the driver of the car: “The Office of the District Attorney has determined that there is insufficient evidence to satisfy the requisite standard of criminal negligence on the part of the suspect driver” https://nypost.com/2021/09/24/no-charges-for-driver-who-killed-jets-greg-knapp-in-accident/
I was hoping we will manage to overcome this somehow, but we didn't. We are really missing coach Knapp. He was going to be our passing game coordinator and QB coach. With the OL and WR receiver core turning out a lot worse than we thought, his presence could have really helped rookie OC and QB.
I think Saleh made light of how important the Knapp / Lafleur pairing really was. I don't think Knapp was just a "bonus" *how Saleh put it)--I think he was in charge of calling and orchestrating the entire passing game and LaFleur was doing more overseeing from the booth. I think going into next year, it wouldn't be a surprise to see an entire shakeup with the offensive coaching staff.
i told my wife about this yesterday... its like a karmic thing or some voodoo shit... anyway... me n the Jets... its toxic... i shloud leave.... stop.... question is... will i? can i?