Yes, it has been studied... but the study to which you refer (there's only been one, afaik), shows that conversations on phones where one side is overheard by a third party are more likely to be distracting... it did not indicate that conversations on phones are more likely to be overheard in the first place than regular conversation, and thus would not be any more difficult to ignore unless the volume was elevated.

Until they start selling electric cars for about the same price as you can buy an otheriwise equivalent capability ICE vehicle, instead of having no less than a markup that is large enough to buy a whole other brand new car, there is no chance that they will become as ubiquitous as ICE vehicles.

Ignoring isn't an entirely controllable thing. Would that it were. One person may be ignoring something, whilst another is driven to distraction. This isn't because the one being annoyed chose to be annoyed.

Good point... so why should something that doesn't bother one person be banned just because it happens to bother another? We are talking about normal speaking volumes here... and if you think that the problem is too many people talking at once, what makes you think that significantly more people will suddenly be using their cell phones when it becomes legal than might simply talking to the person next to them? On a bus you don't see that many people chatting on cell phones, why do you think it would be different on a plane? You might see a lot of people texting or playing games oh their phones, however.

For what it's worth, most people are capable of picking out a single voice speaking at a normal volume to listen to even in what is otherwise quite a noisy environment, such as a crowded bus or train station. if one was not capable of ignoring noise around them, they would not be able to do that. Obviously there's still a threshold of noise above which that genuinely does become impossible, but it's going to be at levels that are significantly louder than a few people around you engaging in conversation. There are no regulations prohibiting talking on planes, however, nor should there be in ordinary circumstances, so noise levels should not be cited as a reason to prohibit cell phone conversations except during periods of a flight specifically designated as quiet (to allow passengers to sleep during an extended flight, for example), and during which ordinary conversation that is too loud would be equally prohibited.

Slashdot doesn't allow me to go back and correct things like mismatched html tags if I accidentally hit POST too soon, but it should hopefully be clear that the only part of the above that should be quoted is:

State law requires auto dealers to be licensed, and by offering test drives, Tesla was acting as a dealer, Steier said.

What the article says is this:

State law requires auto dealers to be licensed, and by offering test drives, Tesla was acting as a dealer, Steier said. There are actually three specific things being said here... Two of them are true, and the other is false, and it is important to not conflate them.

The first true thing is that Iowa state law requires auto dealers to be licensed. Nobody is arguing with you about this.

The second true thing, which happens to be an assumption made by the statement quoted above, but which happens to be still factually correct is that Tesla was offering test drives.

The false part is that by offering test drives, Tesla are somehow acting like a dealership. What Steier said about it being illegal would only be true if it were actually a requirement by law or statute that only dealerships could offer test drives, but since offering a test drive of a car amounts to nothing more than briefly lending that car to somebody else, they would basically have to outlaw anyone but the licensed owner of a vehicle driving that vehicle. Even if they *DID* make such a law, no such law currently exists, and so what Tesla is doing is not actually illegal, even though some person who is not a judge might say that it is.

You are suggesting that simply because public communications, and ones made explicitly with commercial intent, might need to be held to certain standards in Canada, that private communications should be also. If you are going to try to build a strawman, please try harder.

My point is that a person does not have to be a dealer to offer a test drive of a vehicle. It might very well be on their agenda to ultimately sell a car to that person, or hope that the person will buy a car like the one they have test driven, but in no way, shape, or form does merely offering a test-drive actually constitute identifying directly as someone who works for or is even necessarily affiliated with a dealership, let alone "acting like one".

When I am going to buy a car in a private sale, I'll ask to test drive the car before I buy it as well... is the private seller acting like a dealership?

Engines, while loud, produce a monotonous sound are much easier ignored.

Individual voices in a otherwise already loud environment are also easy to ignore... unless you actively concentrate to hear what someone else is saying and pick out individual voices, you should be able to ignore them just as easily.

by offering test drives, Tesla was acting as a dealer, Steier said

While that might ordinarily be the case, unless there is some law of statute which says that only dealers can offer test drives in Iowa, his conclusion is fallacious.

I don't live in Iowa, but I happen to have personally met someone a couple of months ago who owns a Tesla Model S which he offered to let my wife and I test drive that he had absolutely no intention of selling. He wasn't offering to sell the car, but he was definitely arranging test drives for it. Steier's conclusion is false.

Except the two reasons that they gave for that, that Tesla isn't licensed as an auto dealer in Iowa and state law prohibits carmakers from selling directly to the public, have do not mention test drives at all.... so why would they cite test drives being illegal for reasons that have nothing to do with test driving?

Just because the law they are citing as a reason may happen to be an actual law on the books doesn't mean that it should somehow be applicable to things that the law does not mention.

Unless there is also an Iowa statute which dictates that only those that have legal permission to sell a vehicle can have any authorization to permit a test drive of the vehicle, any other laws that they cite as reasons that such test drives may be illegal are completely irrelevant. And if such a statute existed, it is a rather important one to have left out, since the entire case that it would be illegal for Tesla to arrange such test drives depends on that pivotal point... if it even exists.

I would think that a bigger assumption would be assuming that it would stop the vehicle from self-restarting, considering they explicitly say that it will not stop the vehicle while it is being operated, and even with start-stop technology, where the engine has shut off while the vehicle is not moving, one is definitely operating a vehicle if they are holding their foot on the brake while the car is still in drive. Since this is an explicitly intended feature of such a vehicle, I consider that there is no reasonable basis beyond paranoia to suggest that it would be otherwise.

Okay, but if a vehicle is actually equipped with such technology, then it would be unlikely to be prevented from self-restarting.

A lot? Which ones? Name 5.

It isn't that the dealer would ding you for paying cash, it is simply that your credit report would not reflect a long term loan which was serviced properly.

I get that... but that's more an issue of successful payments for it not actually helping your credit score more than it is that paying in cash is actually harmful to it. Ultimately, paying for something like a car in cash would not actually lower your credit score one iota below whatever it already otherwise was.

I actually wasn't trying to be pedantic.... I genuinely did not see the point that was being made. If they imposed a debt above and beyond everything he owned, then yeah... I can see how that is "and then some", but when I read the sentence, I was quite thoroughly baffled as to how that could have been without them taking things from other people (presumably relatives or something).

Now if I *were* to be pedantic, I might have pointed out that since the uncle was in a position to be giving that advice in the first place, it is patently obvious that they did *NOT* take everything that he owned.... since he still had his own life, and the wisdom he acquired through the experience being discussed, arguing that both of these are certainly just as much things that he owns as any material possessions could be.

But I'm not trying to be pedantic, so while I've admittedly mentioned it here in passing, I don't intend to dispute the point.