Cell Users As Bad As Drunk Drivers 738
An anonymous reader writes "News.com reports on a cell-phone use study which confirms that talking on your cell is as bad as being drunk, when it comes to driving skill. The researchers studied 40 volunteers in a driving simulator." From the article: "[The subjects were observed] while undistracted, using a handheld cell phone, using a hands-free cell phone and while intoxicated to a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level--the average legal level of impairment in the United States--after drinking vodka and orange juice. Three study participants rear-ended the simulated car in front of them. All were talking on cell phones and none was drunk, the researchers said."
The usual response (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The usual response (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. I got rear-ended at two consecutive red lights once, by the same cell-phone-impaired driver. Fortunately, the only damage was a matched set of trailer-hitch prints in his front license plate.
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Informative)
There is a law that you must allow roll back room for the car in front of you, too bad most people are too stupid to understand those laws or learn to stay away from the truck in front of them after the first few times they get hit. (we rolled back 6 -12 inches.)
He did not have a cellphone in his ear, just a lack of IQ.
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Informative)
There is a law that you must allow roll back room for the car in front of you, too bad most people are too stupid to understand those laws or learn to stay away from the truck in front of them after the first few times they get hit. (we rolled back 6 -12 inches.)
Uh... roll back room? I'm a bit confused; here in the UK, one of the standard driving test procedures is the hill start; if you roll back at all, you fail. (At least when I took it. They might have changed things.)
Unless this is something to do with automatics, but you said you drive a truck, and they tend to use manual gearboxes...
Re:The usual response (Score:5, Informative)
GP is correct you would not feel it if you hit a BMW- you could probably crush it flat and not feel it - hence the need to not roll back.
This does not eliminate the need to stop suficciently far behind the vehicle in front that you can pull past it if the driver stalls (or runs out of fuel waiting at the lights - it happens!)
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm curious... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
Every time road conditions change even the slightest bit, I instantly say "Hold on" and chuck my phone on the passenger seat. That includes coming toward a hill, seeing brake lights on the highway... anything.
I drove 30,000 miles last year without a single accident. However, two close calls were 100% the fault of jackasses on cellphones. One was doing 40 MPH bellow the speed of traffi
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been talking and driving for 30 accident free years, well over 10 of them with a cell phone. If someone can't talk and drive at the same time, they should be banned from driving, not banned from cell phone use.
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
Not crashing while using a phone != good driving while using a phone.
There is enough to concentrate on while driving on crowded roads these days without taking 1 hand and half your brain away while you're doing it.
And yes, I am a qualified, professional driver.
The sooner all cars are fully automatic - ie. the driver has no control whatsoever - then the sooner the roads will be safe for the rest of us. You're only interested in talking on the phone, doing a bit of
Re:The usual response (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA:
Everytime this comes up, people always say that they use hands-free. That's not the point. This isn't about having two hands on the wheel. This is about paying attention to what you are doing. Talking on a phone is an added distraction. Its that simple. You can argue to what degree that distraction is, but you cannot deny that it is a distraction.
Then people always talk about how they can drop the phone, or stop the conversation if a situation that requires their complete attention arises. Ever think that situation may not have risen if you hadn't been on the phone in the first place?
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think I'm any kind of uber-driver, but I pay attention to what's going on and how I'm reacting. I know that if the traffic situation is tense I almost automatically turn down the radio and cut out other distractions. It's the same when I'm on a cellphone while driving. If I'm getting more tense from the driving condition, I quickly tell the person I'll call them back and I pay attention. Driving doesn't always require 100% attention.
There's no reason a responsible person shouldn't be able to use their cellphone while driving to a) pass time on boring stretches of roads, b) call ahead for take-out, c) call home to see if anything is needed, d) call ahead to let them know you'll be late, e) call and ask for directions, and f) call 9-11 because you just saw an accident or drunk driver.
This is all about a group of whiny people who want to control what other people do. Punish people for what they do that actually harms others, not what could possibly harm others.
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Interesting)
By that standard we should allow drunk driving. Hell, get rid of the whole licensing system: if you can afford a car feel free to drive!
Cars are dangerous. Misused, people die. If only the driver were putting himself at risk, I really wouldn't care. But your mistakes can put other people on the road at risk. So we regulat
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Insightful)
Before you leave: a typical trip may take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. It's not always appropriate to make that call before I leave. What's the point of calling for takeout 3 hours before I need it? I know I'm a good judge on whether the traffic is safe to call in. When it's not safe, I don't call. I see no problem with being at a stand-still in traffic and calling ahead to say I'm going to be late. For god's sake, nobody is even moving.
9-11: Maybe it's on the other side of the freeway. Maybe there's a gang beating up somoeone and I don't feel safe stopping? And as for helping before the EMT's get there, I'm not going to risk that lawsuit. Sure, there are good samaritan laws, but those are only as good as the lawyers you can afford to defend yourself.
What it all boils down to the fact that I'm an adult who is responsible for what I do. I make decisions every day that can impact other people. If I make a bad decision then I end up paying for it somehow. I know, that with many years experience, I know when I can talk on the phone and when I shouldn't.
Your experience teaches you that you can't handle it at all. That's just fine. In fact, I'm glad you know your limits. But don't go trying to limit me based on what you can't handle. Too many stupid laws come out of thinking like that.
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
"Everybody on the road is an idiot except me."
"I make decisions every day that can impact other people. If I make a bad decision then I end up paying for it somehow."
The problem here is that "impact" is meant in the literal sense and that, with cars, other people will end up "paying" for your mistakes as well, often more than you. Will saying "whoops, my bad" make hitting a pedestrian all better?
How much of your "I know my limits" reasoning based on the fact that you have yet to find them
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The usual response (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
"As for the distraction argument, talking to someone who is in the car is a distraction, as is listening to the radio."
And the available evidence indicates they are not nearly as much of a distraction as talking on a cellphone.
"And my argument was based on the principal that the law should punish those who actually do something wrong, not do something that might lead to doing something wrong. This is why I vote libertarian."
If I decide I'd like to drive 90 miles per hour down the sidewalk with my eyes clos
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
What if talking
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Interesting)
No, just the most common, most dangerous ones.
"...the overwhelming majority of those who are on the phone don't almost hit you..."
I don't care. If some fraction of the drivers who could be safe enough while talking on the phone get prevented from doing so because that's the only way to prevent the fraction who become dangerous from doing it, so be it. People don't need to drive as much as
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. People who are in the car are in the same situation as the driver, therefor, the driver's mind is, still, spacially, thinking about the area surrounding the car. When you talk on your phone, your mind subconciously tries to make sense of the space in which you are talking to the other person. THIS is one of the main causes of distraction. Also, a person in a car is easier to tell,
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Interesting)
How much did you loose on that bet?
I think that was on that Mythbuster episode... Passengers are in the same environment as the driver, and react to it with the driver... well, some times (arguments happen). People on the phone, however, don't wait to ask a question after you're done doing your left turn. It's really a different situation.
And don't forget: anything distracting besidses the phone, you can ADD to the phone. You can have people on the phone and in the car talking to you at once, be drunk and on the phone, be tired and on the phone, etc.
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate the fact that I can't replace the carpet in my basement without a permit. Or the fact that if my business grows to more than 10 people I have to start making sure I hire someone of a different ethnicity even if there's no one qualified. Or the fact that I can't write a piece of software that can play a DVD without paying $10,000 to the DVD-CCA to liscence the CSS encryption scheme. Or get a concealed carry permit in my state.
Add stiff deterrant penalties and charge people for it after they get in an accident. I hate the fact that innattentive and wreckless drivers that cause accidents get off with just insurance surcharges -- and possibly not even that in no-fault states -- while someone who uses a cell phone without a handsfree or drives with a 0.08 BAC can get jail time. That's seriously messed up.
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't I just play with a loaded gun around you? As long as you do not get killed, I have done nothing wrong and you have no right to complain. If I kill you we can talk about punishment.
Personally, I'd like to see a total ban on cell phones in the car. I commute on a motorcycle and am keenly aware of what the vehicle drivers (cagers) are doing. If I see a cell phone, I need to get away from that vehicle or risk injury. The problem is most people are on their phone now and there
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
The license gives you the privilege as long as you obey the laws and what not. It's not a right. It's not in the constitution. Your privilege can be revoked very easily if an officer sees you doing something that is dangerous.
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, if you take this argument to the extreme, you have government control of just about everything. And the opposite extreme (usually embodied by Libertarianism) is potentially just as bad.
The underlying philosophical question is: what are the limits (if any) of personal freedom? Do what thou wilt if it har
Re:The usual response (Score:3, Insightful)
No, just the aspects of life that involve potential harm to others (hitting someone because you were distracted by a cell phone can hurt others). We highly regulate acitivies related to motor vehicle use due to the fact that unregulated, they can be very dangerous to innocent bystanders.
"And the opposite extreme (usually embodied by Libertarianism) is potentially just as bad."
Actually anarc
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Interesting)
The grandparent's point is, the average legal limit of
Re:The usual response (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy who ran into the back of my car last month could have chosen to hang up at any time. He didn't hang up because he was concentrating on his phone call instead of noticing I was turning into a carpark 50 metres in front of him.
By the time he noticed there was an almost stationary car in front of him, he was less than 20m away and travelling too fast to stop. He may have tried to hang up at that point, but even if he didn't, the call would have been terminated when his phone hit the windscreen of his car and shattered.
He may have been more likely to run into a virtual car, but by choosing to be an arsehole and put other people's lives and property at risk, he ran into mine instead.
He'll be prosecuted, and doubtless fined, and his insurance will pay for repairs, but that won't give me back the week of walking around in pain from the bruised hip. It won't return my MGF to pristine condition. It'll always be an accident-damaged car, and will be worth less when I sell it.
I don't care how interesting his phone call was to him, he had no right to involve me in it, and that was the choice he made when he tried to operate a car and a phone at the same time.
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The usual response (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The usual response (Score:4, Insightful)
But that doesn't make it OK to impair the bad drivers and make them even MORE likely to rear-end the car in front of them. The study showed that the same sample group fared significantly better when not distracted.
The difference here being that race car drivers talk only in short phrases necessary to get and relay information, and the topic is always on their driving and the situation around them. They aren't having a conversation.
forget cells... (Score:5, Funny)
War Driving Unsafe? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm Not Drunk (Score:5, Funny)
Honestly officer
Yeah, you're awesome, I love you man... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yeah, you're awesome, I love you man... (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, you're awesome, I love you man... (Score:3, Insightful)
Old (Score:3, Informative)
Incomplete study... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to see a few more test groups added to this. How about the average pot smoking teenager, the girl putting makeup on, and my personal favorite that I saw recently... a woman brushing her teeth!
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Incomplete study... (Score:5, Funny)
Also, I want to see a study of how much reading while driving impairs your ability. I want to know how much more dangerous I make my drive home, so I can calculate if the probable time savings are likely worth it...
Re:Incomplete study... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Incomplete study... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Incomplete study... (Score:2)
I talk on the cell.
Last accident I was in was being hit from behind while sitting at a red light (while it was still red).
Accident before that, I was sitting at a red light and the person put it into reverse and backed in to me trying to change into the left turn late after it was way too late to do so.
Both accidents were 8 years ago in my large durango SUV that i had at the time in those glorious days of
Prior that that... hmm maybe 1990? so 26 years? I was given
Re:Incomplete study... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say about 90% of the time that I actually notice that someone's on a cellphone - and I do look at other drivers very carefully, because you never know who you might see - it's because they're driving like a fucking idiot. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, but I think you're wrong about this.
Personally, I use the headset, and like you, I ignore people if driving req
Re:Incomplete study... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Incomplete study... (Score:3, Interesting)
* older people tend to be retired and not commute on highways--so more of their driving is low-speed around town stuff, on top of which they naturally drive slower than other traffic. that doesn't mean they get in fewer accidents but it does mean that the accidents they get into will involve less severe injuries and be cheaper for insurance companies to cover
* some subset of old people go to bed earlier an
Re:Incomplete study... (Score:3, Informative)
An insurance company gets paid per year (or per month), not per mile that you drive, so people who drive less are a deal for them.
Re:Incomplete study... (Score:4, Informative)
Old people tend to get into slow crashes. Parking lot crashes are a biggie, and they get into many more accidents while making left turns than do younger drivers.
From the IIHS's facts on old people page.. [iihs.org]
Teenagers, on the other hand, tend to get in single-vehicle, higher-speed collisions. They're more susceptible to distractions, such as passengers and cell phones.
(From the IIHS's teenagers fact page. [iihs.org]Things that make you go "Hmm.." (Score:4, Funny)
Hmm..
What about (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What about (Score:4, Informative)
Fiddling with the radio in any significant way really does make a noticable difference in how much attention I pay to traffic. If the radio's pissing me off and traffic's kind of bad I'll just reach out and turn the damn thing offf rather than try to locate a channel that doesn't suck.
Sure... .but (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sure... .but (Score:5, Informative)
cell phones barely make the list. According to anecdotal evidence, they're the #1 cause of "almost had an accident", but for real accidents they barely make the list.
Re:Sure... .but (Score:3, Informative)
The study's been done, and the answer is "no": the passenger usually has the sense to shut up in dangerous situations.
Re:Sure... .but (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sure... .but (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a different thing entirely to converse with a passenger in the same car. There's a lower drain on your cognitive resources, the person next to you responds to the same environmental cues as you do, and will shut up and/or scream if you're heading for trouble.
An alert passenger in your front passenger seat improves your ability to drive safely, even if you're deep in conversation. It's another set of eyes watching the road. A remote voice on the other end of a cellphone has the opposite effect.
heh (Score:3, Informative)
NBA Player & Pron in CAR = Accident (Score:3, Insightful)
he was watching pornography in a DVD player mounted on the dashboard of his Cadillac
he was masturbating himself going down that street.
Dude
Hot Damn! (Score:5, Funny)
its been done (Score:3, Informative)
Re:its been done (Score:3, Insightful)
hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
its just as likely that they got the really good drivers drunk and all the shiat drivers were handed cell phones.
not that i doubt the conclusion, or anything. i hate cellphone-talking drivers. i'm just saying that 40 is kind of a small sample size for something being touted so much by the anti-cellphone-while-driving peoples.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
If you look at the study methodology, it's quite large enough. They didn't divide it up into several smaller groups, they tested each participant under four different conditions: undistracted, talking on a hand-held phone, talking on a hands-free phone, and drunk.
Recent legislation (Score:2)
Personally I think it should just be downright illegal. It's illegal to wear headphones while driving, and those are hands-free and only require that you listen. Why should it be legal to use a cell phone while driving? If the
where to draw the line? (Score:3, Interesting)
Driving all over the road (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a van in front of me that was driving all over the road. It almost went into the ditch on each side of the road at least once.
When we go to a four lane highway, the van spent part of the time taking up both lanes going our direction and some of the time in the oncoming lanes.
I was surprised to see the van turn in ahead of me at the fast food joint and pull up to the drive through.
Being the nice guy/asshole that I am, I thought I'd do a good deed and suggest that the driver wait for someone sober to drive him home. I stood about 5 feet from the window when I made my suggestion.
It turned out to be a woman who had the foulest mouth of any woman I ever met. She was screaming unbelievably loud that she wasn't drunk, that she was only using her cell phone, and that how she drove was her business and noone elses.
So I got back in my car.
When I finally got around front, everyone inside was laughing. I guess everyone in the place, employee and customer alike, heard her tirade over the speaker system.
I told a local cop about it later. He wasn't amused at all about it.
multi-taskers (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, whenever I've been on the phone (not too often, I avoid it if possible) and something has gone on, without even thinking about it, my mouth stops and I'm 100% tuned into the road, I don't even notice I was talking to someone until things settle down. I'm used to having a bus full of drunk adults (bachelor parties) and rowdy kids.
I think they should test the subjects general multi-tasking ability and come up with a statistic that correlates multi-taskability (or inability) to accident+phone rates.
Re:multi-taskers (Score:4, Insightful)
I call BS. How do you know there were not other times when you were oblivious to danger? You'd be oblivious so you would not even be aware that there was danger.
Well, they don't quite show that. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd also love to hear more detail about the "hand-free" devices that they used for the test. Were these earpieces, or something more speakerphoneish? I seem to recall another study finding that the problem with driving while using a phone is not having your hands occupied, it's the mental isolation that happens as your brain divides resources between your conversational world and your driving world. And that earpieces did not change this, but that speakerphones _did_.
It's not PC, but here could be another reason (Score:2)
They keep changing the definition of legally [ncdd.com] intoxicated. [wikipedia.org]
Dunno about the rest of you lot, but I could drink 3 beers and then go jogging. Maybe the reason why we keep seeing "cell phone use"=="intoxication" is because we've set the bar pretty low for the definition of drunk.
I must be the example for this (Score:2)
Not to mention (Score:2)
And when you combine all three... (Score:3, Funny)
"Yeah, babe, I've been thinking about you"
"Noooo, I haven't been drinking! I'm close to your place, can I come over? I miss you..."
Never ends well.
Handsfree (Score:5, Interesting)
Effect of wife gabbing in your ear while driving? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not really drunk (Score:2)
If it's so bad... (Score:2)
Obvious BS. (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course if they do, then they have to also look at the fact that 0. That's right 0 drunk drivers had an accident in the study. That means that the study proves drunk driving is perfectly safe right?
Re:Obvious BS. (Score:3, Insightful)
you dont drive in metro detroit. 96 and 696 are pretty much that bad. I can tell you that I see regularly from 20-30 rearenders on the 30 mile stretch I travel every morning and evening. and every single one of them are multiple car 3-5 cars all smash each other.
I
Business plan (Score:3, Funny)
1. Find rich person driving expensive car talking on cellphone.
2. Pull in front, slow down, encourage tailgating, then brake suddenly.
3. ????
4. Profit!
Flawed methodology (Score:4, Informative)
Something is fishy here (Score:3, Interesting)
US fatalities, per 100 million vehicle miles, have fallen steadily ever since cell phones started becoming common. According to this table [dot.gov], the rate has fallen from 1.73 in 1994 to 1.44 in 2004, and the rate either fell or stayed the same every year (despite economic variations, etc.).
If cell phones are such a menace, why aren't more people dying in auto accidents?
Re:Something is fishy here (Score:3, Interesting)
Mythbusters confirmed this (Score:3, Informative)
Adam and Kari drove normally, then while talking on a cell phone and also while drunk. They had officers taking breathalyzer tests to get their BAC. In the show they determined that they where equally bad at driving using a cell phone as they where while drunk. Scores where done by a driving instructor in the car with them during all the tests.
We always treat the symptoms not the problem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in the military I drove tracked vehicles while communicating on a radio net, and also talking on an internal intercom system with a TC and squad leader. Getting in an accident would have been far more catastrophic given the weight and size of the equipment I was operating.
Similarly, Pilots also have to communicate while controlling an expensive piece of equipment - and I've also done that.
In both cases I never had an accident. I can't imagine the military or aviation systems working without radio communications. Similarly the efficiency of using the Cell phone has provided amazing and equally important impacts to the civilian world.
The number one key is to have the right equipment for 'hands free' operation. For cell phones this means buying and using the voice-dial features available on most phones now, and getting a headset for hands free operation in your vehicle.
Secondly you must learn to modify your driving habits so that if the conversation moves to a point of needing to take your eyes off the road (e.g. to search for or record information), that you then pull off the road and carry on the conversation without impacting your driving ability. You should never manually dial a number into your phone while driving, and never attempt to write something down, or search for some item in your briefcase or purse, for that matter.
Banning the use of Cellphones in cars is not the solution; proper training and equipment is the right answer.
Re:We always treat the symptoms not the problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Kick out the handsfree set (Score:3, Insightful)
From the 'other' university with a driving sim (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't do it, it isn't smart. It could cost you your life, and unlike driving drunk, where you tend to be unhurt due to being relaxed, you are actually more likely to be hurt.
ahh, an invalid control group! (Score:3, Funny)
cell phone drivers' control group should be beer drinkers.
I sorta got to prefer mai tais a year ago, I hate to think what study that would put me into
Automated Highway System, Here we Come! (Score:3, Interesting)
Congress thought the successful experiment was kind of neat, but shut it down, basically saying: "Nobody's really asking for this. People seem to be pretty excited about driving, actually." (paraphrasing.)
Businesses have wanted AHS for a very long time- for many decades, they've been working on the technology, and trying to get it sorted out. (Think: highway trucking.)
What's this have to do with Cell Phones?
People are starting to value their time more. In particular, they're starting to view that car trip as useable time. Whether people really do have access to that time or not, people are taking that time, by force, with their cell phone. And the result is: crashes, accidents.
So this may be a data point towards AHS.
Yeah, but what about drunk cell phone users?? (Score:3, Insightful)
They concluded that it didn't matter if you used a hands-free phone, or a hand-held phone, that it was simply the distraction that was causing the problems. As has been noted in this forum there are lots of other potential distractions: putting on make-up or shaving in the rear view mirror (I've seen both); fooling with the radio or CD player; looking at a map or reading your Google, MapQuest, Yahoo, Rand McNally, driving directions; talking to someone else in the car; turning around to see the status of your child in the back seat; looking at other stuff outside your vehicle; lots of other stuff.
Before we go outlawing cell phone use while driving, some real studies should be done to see if we should outlaw our wives (or husbands) talking to us while we are driving, or to see if CD players should be outlawed, or ... you get the idea.
Oh yeah, I'm sure that the conclusions of this study only apply to everyone else, but not *you*...
Perhaps 0.08 is to low to be drunk! (Score:3, Interesting)
Some people's bodies can withstand a very high blood alcohol level before anyone would guess they are drunk, while a single beer would cause others to passout. The idea that some breathalyzer test can determine drunkeness is more a convience than a fact.
Remember via /. what a drunk driver did to me (Score:3, Insightful)
might be a bit before some current Slashdotters time...
given how much more common people yapping on their cell phones appears even than drunk driving, I'd say we do have a problem here. I am not anxiously awaiting a teenager drilling into me because they were too busy on their cell phone to pay attention to the road. I fear what they may do when I'm on my bicycle. But that's part of the challenge, and the thrill when you survive it.
I think I solved our Problem (Score:2)
Re:All three were Cell Phone incidents? (Score:2, Interesting)
Bliss.
Aside from the quiet (and, oh say, not driving like a drunk), you're able to keep your job from interfering from your life (boss can't call you anytime, anywhere), and keep your life from interfering with your work (yeah, honey, it's terrible that that dog yukked up all over the new carpet, but I'm under a deadline here!). You can walk down the road and -even if you do suddenly remember something "important" (in quotes because it usually isn't), th
Um, yes of course they *are* bad drivers (Score:3, Informative)
There's been research round for a few years now that talking to someone on the phone to take their eyes and attention off the road as they think and respond to the person talking. It's worse than talking to someone in the passenger seat or listening to the radio because you are required to respond to someone who has no idea what situation you're in.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1885775.stm [bbc.co.uk]