The Nanny State Wants Your Cell Phones
On December 13, the National Transportation Safety Board announced that they would be recommending a complete and total ban on the use of cell phones and text-messaging devices while driving. Previously, the NTSB had recommended such bans only for novice drivers, school bus drivers, and some commercial truckers.
This is a remarkably heavy-handed response. Every American is concerned about automobile safety, but the response to the problem should be commensurate. There are alternatives involving the use of technology and information that exist. An absolute ban on all cell phone use isn’t just a wrong-headed intrusion on our freedom — as it implies that adults can’t be careful to make responsible decisions regarding cell phone use and driving — it will be costly to many Americans and dangerous for some.
The cell phone is perhaps one of the most remarkable innovations of the 20th century, its very ubiquity a sign of its utility. Restricting access to cell phones illustrates the far-reaching ability of the nanny state to dictate to ordinary Americans how they will live out their lives without regard to their input or concerns.
While the NTSB categorizes cell phone use as an example of “distracted driving,” it only seeks to ban one aspect of it — using cell phones. Complicated navigation and infotainment systems that often require DVDs and separate manuals to operate are not included. Fast food and Starbucks trips aren’t affected. Drivers learning to use manual transmissions or those who apply make-up while driving aren’t impacted. Only users of cell phones.
Thanks to the decisions of the NTSB, state regulators and even insurance companies will have ammunition to insist on new riders that restrict coverage for consumers who either have cell phones or who use them while driving. Like policies that used to restrict “radar detector” owners by either allowing insurance companies to drop owners with detectors altogether or raising their rates by as much as $250 a year, the NTSB rule will empower insurance companies and regulators to engage in a financial assault on families.
Many states and localities will use the NTSB action as a pretext for adopting new and higher fines and more aggressive enforcement of existing cell phone bans. For instance: while the state fine for first time illegal cell phone use in California is $50, after related court costs are included the actual cost to the driver is nearly $250. Thanks to the NTSB, drivers should expect more of this all over the country.
In addition to being costly for American drivers, this measure will prove dangerous. If fully enforced, people who need cell phone access for their own safety could be limited. Remember: not only does the NTSB recommend against holding cell phones and talking in the car, they seek to ban any use in the car with Bluetooth built-in or aftermarket. In fact, Department of Transportation’s Secretary Ray LaHood has said: “There’s a lot of technology out there that can disable phones and we’re considering that.”
This means that instead of you having the ability to gauge when and whether it is safe or prudent to use your cell phone, the ban will decide for you. While many times it is safe to pull over and stop to make a cell phone call, it is precisely during the period when that isn’t true that you need your cell phone more than ever.
For the present, the laws should just ban texting while driving. That makes sense. I don’t see how you can keep focused on the road when you’re typing a message.
Driving is a privilege, not an unalienable right. You have to *earn* the privilege to drive by demonstrating your responsibility: Passing a driving test, getting your car inspected yearly, etc.
And texting while driving is just irresponsible. It has been directly linked to a number of fatal automobile accidents. Often the driver who was doing the texting survived, while innocent victims were killed.
Cell phone use should not be a serious problem per se–if the law stipulates that you must use a hands-free headset or other such hands-free device.
I would tend to agree, and here in the Masachusetts SSR we already have a texting ban. Having seen idiots out there, my first reaction is to favor it. But- enough is enough. I have seen, multiple times, with these own eyes, drivers on the highway with a ffnng NEWSPAPER spread across the steering wheel. As others, and the article notes, there are those who shave or apply makeup or do any of a number of idiotic things behind the wheel. Perhaps this needs attention because it is so ubiquitous. But “reckless driving” is already an offense, and people still drive recklessly: reading, chatting, texting, getting physical. Do we really need more laws piled on?
I’m against the nanny state as much as anyone but if I can’t have a couple beer and drive (at least I still have my eyes on the road), the texters can go screw themselves. There is almost no reason why someone needs to make a phone call while driving and I’d bet most of those calls involve, “Then I go … and then she goes … and then I said, no way and she goes blah blah blah.” The reason most laws are invoked is because people refuse to use the few brains God gave them. Rant over.
I’m with you, Thomas L, and I’ll raise you one. I love Horace Cooper, but, maybe because he’s a Beltway guy and isn’t in cars as much as us LA-types, in this case he’s guilty of overweening right-wing anti-nanny state thinking. Cell phones are a menace on the roads, far more dangerous than drunk drivers because hugely more ubiquitous. I see myriad people driving while talking on cells and texting on the road every day, accidents waiting to… and actually… happening. If you can afford a car and a cell phone, you can certainly afford another fifty bucks for a bluetooth speaker and stop being a death machine for others. (If you want to be a death machine for yourself, that’s your privilege. But keep it off the roads.)
The only time I’ve ever had the ABS engage on dry pavement was as I desperately tried to stop a Chrysler 300M to keep from hitting a little sh*tbox full of teenaged girls who ran a red light in front of me. I got a very close look at them and they were oblivious to how close they came to dying because they were all on cellphones, probably talking to each other.
At one time in my life I drank a bit, well, maybe more than a bit, and there were times that I REALLY shouldn’t have driven home, but as someone above said, my eyes were on the road and I was trying really hard to drive properly. There is no way you can text and watch the road; it is hard to use a standard cellphone and operate a vehicle. That said, this is overkill; decent handsfree devices using voice dialing are as safe as talking to your passenger. Granted, that isn’t always safe and there will always be idiots that will try to watch a movie and drive, but until we can outlaw idiocy, we’ll just have to live with some of it.
As usual, we aren’t paying any attention to unintended consequences. I understand that for most people, texting whilst driving isn’t a good idea. But while it was legal, they’d hold the phone up by the wheel so they could look at the road and the phone at the same time. When it becomes illegal, they hold it down in their lap so it can’t be seen by others. Clearly more dangerous.
Why don’t we teach defensive driving better? Why do we allow government functionaries to imagine themselves our betters?
Why is this not looked at as yet another encroachment upon freedom? Such behaviour literally *cannot* be entirely stamped out; why surrender more for the continued illusion of safety?
Why, if you’re in the car with someone who is texting while driving, will you not simply take the lead and seize the phone from him?
Why is the only solution anyone can come up with is, “THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!” ?????
‘Cause there are lots of idiots who say, “its my Goddamned cellphone and I’ll use it how and where I please,” and the rest of us have to go to our friends and loved ones funerals because of them.
Not to worry, there will be loopholes. The NTSB will probably be able to sell waivers to “deserving” drivers and, of course, DoJ will avoid the risk of racial discrimination by excluding all black, illegal and tinkerbell drivers. This will be important when the second shoe drops, confiscation of the vehicles of those who use ‘phones while driving (same exclusions). Yeah, they’ll quickly be repapered and “sold” to those more needy at reasonable prices. Local community actions authorities will help price and select winning bids for confiscated vehicles. It’ll be a win-win situation.
remember the 70′s? back then it was decided to crack down on drunk driving. legal blood alcohol limits were lowered from .150 to.08 in most states. alcohol related deaths dropped and dui was socially stigmatized. all of the pro cell phone arguments being made now, were made then. there are many studies out that show cell phone use mimics alcohol use in response time. almost no one driving today can divide their attention between the cell phone (or texting or makeup application) without a significant drop in performance. your desire to make idiot conversation on the phone is not more important than the desire of the other drivers to not die. and yes, i have seen the drunks, druggies and cell phone users and their victims in the ER. you haven’t, i will wager.
what’s next?
banning passengers in the car
banning pets from riding
banning the o’henry candy bar heiress from walking on the sidewalk in her bra?
banning billboards
banning eating in the car
banning drinking in the car
banning putting on makeup in the car
banning listening to the radio/cd/mp3 in the car
ffs– most people are inherently distracted throughout the day– will we ban life? will we ban people?
serenity now
My personal “favorite” distraction: Leaning over the seat to tend to a child who can only legally ride in the backseat, because the federally-mandated air-bags make the front seat too dangerous. Next time you’re on an interstate and see someone drifting over the center line and back for miles, look for the carseat.
The law created by the consequences of another law ends up creating a deadly situation. Pfeh.
This is NOT Nanny State control by any means its common sense you cannot fully concentrate on driving while holding and talking in to a Mobile phone and dialling and Texting while driving is just moronic. I don’t care what happens to the moron on the phone but I do care that the moron might run in to me and other innocent road users because of his/her lack of concentration and control. Freedom is OK as long as you use that freedom to act responsibly.
this law would take the freedom to be responsible away from you by forcing you into yet another style of government dictated behaviour…
It would ban not just handheld use of your phone (there’s something to be said for that, your reaction time slows when you don’t have both hands free to operate your vehicle) but hands free use as well, which is no different than talking to other occupants of the vehicle.
By your logic then, talking to your passengers should be illegal as well.
I don’t see the NTSB calling for the radios/phone/laptops and other digital distractions being removed from police vehicles ostensibly due to the “special training” and “special needs” they have. You know, it all boolsheet …
How about just enforcing existing laws for awhile? I’ve been rear-ended twice since August (in daylight, on dry city streets) by drivers fiddling with their cell phones. The second time cost insurance over $8000 and took five weeks to fix–I just got the car back. Neither driver was written a ticket, or checked for “under the influence” (I’m pretty sure the second driver was stoned). Texting, following too closely and failing to stop at traffic lights (the site of my second collision) are Class A misdemeanors in Indiana.
Just keep writing tickets until they learn to drive safely or get yanked off the roads.
Cell phone use is car is a major problem. A high majority of cell phone talkers can’t maintain a consistent speed while talking. One easy fix is that talkers need to be in the slow lane while on their phones.
I remember when airbags were invented and cars started coming out with them and they worked. I thought those things are going to save lives, but then cell phones were invented. It seems people don’t realize driving is the most dangerous thing they will ever do.
I carry a cell phone for exactly one week per month – that’s it. I only carry it then because I have to when I’m on call for my job. I hate cell phones, and have no use for one, personally. I don’t text, or download apps or any of that other crap.
BUT I will say this. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to ban hands-free devices. If you do that, you have to ban conversation while driving, because it’s the same thing.
Let’s set a goal: Everyone tell a bureaucrat to got to HE** today.
“Distracted driving can be unsafe, but a nanny state on steroids kills liberty.”
The premise of liberty is that exercising yours does not infringe on mine. This may be one of those cases where it does. You are not free to do something which endangers my life without my consent and a texting driver does exactly that.
The optimal approach is debatable but the danger is undeniable.
“The recommended federal ban on phones while driving is a solution in search of a problem.”
Liberal nanny state do-gooders are themselves solutions in search of problems. The real solution is to simply outlaw stupidity. Texting while driving is stupid, but so is jumping off a roof on a skateboard, and that’s not illegal. Bro John makes a good point re: unintended consequences.
sinz54, how is driving is a privilege? Private citizens invented cars, built roads to drive them on, and travel is an unalienable right. Who is the government to tell me I can’t operate a vehicle that I paid for on a road that I also paid for, so long as I cause no harm to others? Why am I even required to get a govt-issued driver’s license, again, as long as I cause no harm to others? Most (including me) would agree that some regulation (DLs, speed limits, seat belt laws, DWI laws, vehicle registration, liability insurance, etc.) is necessary (to avoid harm caused by the stupids) but I reject the premise that driving is a privilege and that we should somehow get down on our knees and thank our imperial government superiors for granting it to us.
If wearing seat belts is safer, aren’t wearing helmets & fire suits and having NASCAR-style roll cages in every vehicle also safer? Why aren’t those required? If you say “Well, those cost too much”, then the issue becomes cost and not safety. Safety is what we’re talking about (texting) and in essence what seat belt requirement & anti-texting laws amount to are getting a little bit pregnant. If the SOLE issue is safety, then we should allow no vehicles or drivers on the road that don’t meet NASCAR safety rules, at a minimum. Moreover, if texting while driving is outlawed, shouldn’t eating, drinking coffee, playing with the radio, putting on make-up, reading a GPS map, and everything else people do while driving also be outlawed? The problem is, safety isn’t the sole issue. Being controlled and told what to do and not do by nanny-state liberals is a big part of what this is about.
Ever since Henry Ford enabled the cheap Automobile, the elites have been in a dither over the ability of the average man to have freedom of travel. Once freed of the shackles of walking or the irons of mass transit (read being restricted where and when you travel to live, work, shop, recreate by the elite) the average man was able to enjoy the goodness of this great country heretofore savored only by the elite. This is but one more ploy by the ilk of chuckie shumer and JJ rocky to dictate the how and why of our lives. Rest assured they will continue to enjoy the freedom of communication as they travel in the government paid for vehicles operated by government paid drivers. I dont use my electronic devices in my vehicle but want the right to do so if I choose. To the govvie parasites and predators…I say…Pound sand.
They nanny because we allow them to, one way or another.
I’d like to see a device which disables the phones when they’re in a car not in PARK. Let the phones still ring, but cause drivers to have to pull over and park while talking or texting. I’m not suggesting this for safety reasons, just because the phone users are invariably indifferent to others on the road… they’re a real pain in the ass!
So passengers are deprived of using their phones? These devices as currently devised require a driver to exit a vehicle – how many times is that NOT a safe proposition.
So, you’re driving and you see something that Police need to know about… can’t call until your car in park? Woman driving alone at night, chased by a nut… she’s supposed to call 911, but sorry, unless she puts it in park, her phone won’t work. Oh, they’ll put an exemption for calling 911?
How about people use common sense. We don’t need the Government making laws to try and get stoopids to not kill us. The stoopids will or they won’t. Why would they follow the law if they’ve got such bad judgement to txt while driving?
had something like that happen several times. Pedestrians on the highway, people driving against traffic, seeing accidents happen in front of me (or off to the side).
Used to call them in, but we’ve banned cellphone use in cars here years ago so I no longer do else I get fined 400 Euro (which is the fine here).
Granted, we have all seen, known, or heard of someone who drove unsafely because of a cell phone. I stipulate that.
Nevertheless — can we PLEASE stop this idiotic nonsense of saying “talking on the cellphone while driving must be illegal because I can’t think of a good reason for it”????
It has NOT been demonstrated, as far as I’m concerned, that cell-phone use while driving is always dangerous for everybody. (Please don’t talk to me about ‘common sense’. Common sense sounds good, but doesn’t prove anything.) Therefore it should not be forbidden for everybody; ’nuff said.
Personally, I’m fine with laws that require hands-free-only use of cell phones. (Why? Because I believe a safe driver should have both hands available for driving, with momentary lapses at most. Your mileage may differ.)
As for the rest — if a driver is tailgating or weaving, the cops should pull him over for that, and I don’t care why he’s doing it or how many cell phones he has. The rest of us can stay alert for dangerous drivers and give them a wide berth.
Somewhere around 1998-2000 I was nearly rear-ended by a woman talking on her cell phone and trying to manage a bawling kid in the back seat. I was on my motorcycle. Lucky for me I drive with the mirrors nearly as much as I do looking forward when in heavy traffic. I’d had my ‘mirror eye’ on her for about a mile and noticed her late braking several times at red lights. I learned defensive driving early (started riding at 17) so picking these morons out in a crowd is easy for me. As I came up to the next light (heavy traffic) I noticed her leaning over the seat fiddling with her kid – I pulled over into the two-way left turn lane and watched her come skidding to a stop – mere feet from from the car I was behind seconds before and right beside me. She looked over at me with wide open eyes – I yelled at her to put the *&^%&( phone down and pay attention to the road if for no other reason than to protect the public and her kid. She said nothing but did put the phone down – I pulled out behind her – keeping a wide margin – and noticed she had put the phone down and was paying attention to driving for the next few miles until my turn-off came.
I hate nanny-state crap but in this instance I’m all for requiring both hands to drive. Talking on a hands-free phone is no more or less distracting than having passengers in the car and engaging in conversation or listening to music – I do both – often at the same time. Outlawing texting while driving is a no-brainer – at least until cars can auto-navigate without human intervention.
I view the nanny-state statists like the cook preparing the frog in the cook pot. Bring the heat up slowly. Occasionally the ‘heat’ seems appropriate.
Lord save us from having to live life as we did from the time of Mesopotamia to 15 years ago. I used to have to actually stop a car and get out and find a phone in the 80s. Can you believe that? Stopping? Getting out? Or, get this: WAITING TIL I GOT HOME!
And what about getting up to change a TV channel. I’m surprised I didn’t die of the Plague.
And ships. Who’d actually travel on a ship? Were we monkeys only 100 years ago?
Is there data (legitimate data) supporting such central government action? How will this help prevent global warming:-)
Dude,
Ever heard the phrase, “Don’t make a Federal Case out of it!” Uh, that’s what these tyros want to do. So this could result in a federal conviction for a moving violation? Sweet. What’s next, 10 years hard labor for failure to brush and floss twice daily?
Sure, Bamagon, if we go to full blown nationalized healthcare, your right to choose not to brush and floss collides with my right not to have to pay for your dental problems. See, we’re all in this together! There is no end, as this “your right ends where mine begins” philosophy applies to nearly all situations in life. Even an Orwellian state with full monitoring and enforcement of all rules can’t control everything.
A mom who knows her children can’t get in touch with her in an emergency because Ray LaHood has disabled her phone is MORE distracted and anxious while driving than if her phone is on, and she knows they can contact her at any time. Lord save us from these nannies, to whom we pay six-figure salaries to harass us.
I’m sorry, but on this one I’m going to have to take the side of the nanny-staters. I regard driving as serious business, something on which I should concentrate my full attention. It has been many years since I tried to eat or drink while driving, and I rarely even listen to the radio (generally only in heavy, slow traffic or on a completely empty road).
If I need to talk on a cell phone, I pull over to do it. I keep my phone off while driving, having had too much experience with having the phone ring just as I ascended a long bridge subject to crosswinds.
Driving IS a privilege; you have to earn it by taking a test. Government DOES have the right to require seat belts, or prohibit cell phones, in the interest of reducing costs to society. Anyone who wants to yak and drive should have to sign a notarized statemnent that he/she will be financially responsible for any accidents that result.
When I see people driving with cell phones in their hands, I take evasive action as quickly as possible.
What about when you see someone driving with a milkshake or hamburger in their hands?
Or, some one putting on make up?, shaving?, fluffing their hair?, Moving groceries around? feeding a kid… Do you “get out of the way….” for any or all of these? I’ve seen all this stuff while driving. I’m guessing this “distracted driver” stuff has been going on since humans were driving wooly mammoths, too. Just another fact of life, fella.
Get over it…
Thank you; you’ve come to address my own invention, the “Hands-ON Steering Wheel Wrist Lock.” The car won’t gear til you put your wrists in it and won’t release them until you’ve come to a full stop. The car will not go again if you take your wrists out til you put them back in again. Also it’s a great motivation to not get is an accident since one’s survival with such a device trapping your wrists in problematic.
Plus there is the “Bubble-O’-Fun” which is a transparent sphere your kid fits into which only their head sticks out of. There is a pagoda-like structure that protects their head. They can roll around in the back seat but can’t actually do anything. There’s one for cats too which are the most contrary critters in the history of Earth other than my brother. I call it “Fur-Ball-O’-Fun.
Driving is not a privelage. Just because you think so, does not make it so.
You, respectfully, are blinded by your bias on this issue. This is not about texting and driving. This is about the continued encroachment on freedom. There is risk in everything. Read “Against the Gods”. I, nor any free person, do not need that risk ameliorated for me. I freely take the risk of an accident when I get in my car. I freely take the risk of heart disease when I indulge in a cheeseburger. It is up to me to be informed and balance the risk with the reward I seek. Those roads belong to the U.S. citizen, not the government. You have no right to tell me what to do in my car. It is an extension of my home and my personal property. Speed laws are nothing but money makers (taxes) and that’s all this is for. Imagine the windfall for municipalities when $50 tickets are quite easy to write. There are no studies that show speed kills. Only bad drivers kill. Only idiot texters kill. You CANNOT fix that. You are wrong, whether you want to see that or not. I have no problem with you personally, only your argument. It erodes freedom and I sincerely want you to see that. I know, if we do it to save lives, we are noble. BS, it’s not noble to take from me that which was not given to me by you.
This not nanny state. This is largess government bureaucrat control freaks! End the tyranny!
There was an article recently on how very little seatbelts have been innovated since their original introduction due to the heavy regulation and onerous hurdles required for a new design to be adopted. Like most things heavily regulated by the government, while the public could benefit greatly from new improvements in design and function, there is little profit in taking the risk.
First they came for school yard kick ball, too violent for the boys: but midnight basketball in the hood was OK. Then they canceled the human consumption of horse meat, after banning cats and dogs, the traditional favorite of the Chinese and the Apache. Then they came for the free Happy Meal toy: but free clean needle exchanges and the condom covered banana as a grade school training aid was OK. Now they’ve come for the cell phone, and a full sized car is history. Pretty soon they’ll come for pot stickers and barbecued turkey tails and pecan pie. Those former SDS pot smoking Yankee puritan pricks suck.
Dunno ’bout talking on cell phones, but texting?
Personally, I think if you’re caught texting while driving you should be soaked in gasoline and lit up.
My daughter is going carry horrible scars for the rest of her life because some @$$wipe was texting while driving and drove right through us.
Wanna bet there would be an exception for cops and other LEO’s regarding this ban?.
In the
gulagworkers paradise of the People’s Republik of Maryland,there are as many cops using cell phones whilst driving as teens, and they know it’s illegal.
The Anal-Retentives, or Nanny-Statists, love to make up rules and enforce them.
It is not enough that if they don’t like something, they eschew it. No, they have to make everyone eschew it.
NO CHILDREN IN THE BACKSEAT WHILE DRIVING!
That’s the biggest distraction of ‘em all!
;p
Yet another bureaucrapracy making itself more entrenched. When do we say “enough” and drag out the ropes?
Ropes? ROPES? HA! Lock-n-Load, my friend! LOCK-N-LOAD!
during rush hour just about every day you can tell who is talking on a cell phone. they are in the fast lane with 30-300 cars behind them wanting to go home.
the problem i have driving is eating while driving. how do you get the BBQ sauce off your fingers? and what about the bones? you throw them out and everybody looks at you mean like. hey, they’re bio-gradable. and in the morning you get juice from fruit on your best/last good shirt. and then you are all sticky, and it gets hard to eat a biscuit, and then jelly goes everywhere. geez.
Ah, life in the nanny state. There is a cell phone ban in my state but I still occasionally talk on the phone. I also commit other victimless moving violations on a daily basis like speeding or running red, left turn arrows.
I’ve probably never driven a day in my life without speeding (18 years of driving).
Drive like champions people.
Driving is serious business. You are controlling a 3000 lb vehicle, potentially traveling at a high rate of speed. Anything that distracts from complete attention to controlling the vehicle – cell phones, eating, applying makeup, reading a map, drinking a beer – should be strictly forbidden. I am constantly amazed at the cavalier approach so many drivers take to driving. It is only a nanny state when the only people harmed are the people engaged in that behavior. When it has the potential to impact others, that is not nanny state, it is common sense.
really? Seriously? The Government cannot and should not try to regulate common sense. Idiots are going to do what they do. It’s for the rest of us to be careful and lucky. Risk cannot be removed from life, nor the risks others take willingly removed from your life without staying home all the time and hoping that nothing falls out of the sky on your house.
Rob, you’re a man after my own heart. See my response to 24 above.
Brutus, your argument doesn’t add up. Because I might harm someone doing something then I must submit to a law about it? What if my texting causes me to go slow and I miss an intersection where I would have run a red light and killed someone? Should I now be given a medal and a weeks vacation? What if I drink and drive and, since I’m in a joyous mood, I stop and help an old woman change a flat whereas the next guy was an axe murderer? We simply CANNOT remove the risk that life brings with it. As someone pointed out earlier, what of the mandate for air bags and their adverse effect on mother’s looking in the back seat to their child when driving or the even better point about someone looking down to text so as to avoid a ticket? It is, at the end of the day, no matter the “good” it purports to do, an invasion of one’s liberty. When brought down to this level it becomes clear the right thing to do. Preserve liberty and refuse an inch towards the great darkness of the alternative.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. I absolutely believe that it is an appropriate function of government to regulate when the actions of individuals effect others. Seatbelts, helmets, smoking, drug use, only (or primarily) effect the person who engages in those behaviors. But cell phone use while driving, unregulated toxic emissions, excessive noise, food and drug standards, effect OTHER people, thus are fair game for regulation. I don’t consider regulation of the “right” to pollute freely as being some restriction of my “liberty”. The libertarian no rules (except for stuff we don’t like) attitude is not appropriate for a civil society.
your speech and opinions affect me, therefore the government should regulate those so as to coincide with mine.
Oh wait…
I’ve nothing against talking on a cellphone while driving if it is done carefully. Many times though I’ve been behind someone talking on the cellphone, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee. Uhhh, and which hand was on the wheel? What happens when you drop that cigarette or spill hot coffee on your lap?
Then again I got behind a woman doing her makeup, combing her hair, moving her rearview mirror so she could do her lipstick. If it had been raining I have no doubt she would have had the window down so she could take a quick shower too. While I was stuck behind her she ran one red light, sat through two green lights and was all over half of an eight lane road and this was during rush hour. She barely missed at least two bad accidents only because the other drivers were awake and aware of her.
As to texting while driving, how often have you been engrossed in a great novel and didn’t look up until you finished that one last paragraph? Texting is the same thing and so is surfing the web which you can also do on a lot of cellphones nowadays.
Most police officers use their own discretion on stopping a vehicle. I doubt they would bother someone taking a quick phonecall so long as they were not weaving from lane to lane or causing any other unsafe condition. The problem is how do they tell it is just a quick call and not texting your BFF for hours at a time?
My horse takes pleasure in strolling under low hanging branches when I’m on the phone, placing me like a well hung ornament. Stupid phones.
Horace, I would be for this law if the NTSB included the removal of all low hanging branches in the land. AND! Just think of the jobs it would create!
Little totalitarians are everywhere.
The idea that texting/talking while driving is safe isn’t really the issue here. A law, or 500 laws, isn’t going to make people not do it. It will just make it ‘illegal’ and allow authorities to decide who gets punish (or not) when caught. Let me repeat – this law won’t change driving behavior in a significant way — it will just hand over a little bit more of our freedom.
Just for the record I never text while driving – that’s what passengers are for.
For those of you who are not old enough to remember, this is the same kind of crap that went on when the feds pushed the 55 mph speedlimit. Neither the speed limit nor the cell phone ban have anything to do with safety, but another means to generate revenue to allow these idiots to continue operating to the public’s detriment.
The answer is cell phone jammers. We have mandatory seatbelt use, airbags and 5 MPH bumpers. Tell the FCC to get off their asses and admit that cell phone jammers DO NOT interfere with emergency transmissions. Then, have the auto makers install jammers in every car, that are active when the vehicle is in gear. Want to call? Pull over and put ‘er in park. Use by passengers? SOL. I happen to have a low power jammer that I bought from the U.K. I installed it in my vehicle and use it. The actions of phone users when their cells suddenly stop working when I get next to them or behind them is priceless.
And if I detect you prepare to become shot.
cell phone jammers block ALL communications with the phone, including emergency communications.
The only difference between calling your granny and calling 911 is that the latter does not require an activated SIM in the phone, it still uses the same network, the network that has its access blocked by the jammer.
There is one more HUGE White Elephant in the room here NOBODY is picking up on.
One type of communication is still going to be allowed under this ruling: ONSTAR hard-mounted communication systems built by Government Motors.
The only type of communication device you will be allowed to have in your car is a hard-mounted, always on, GPS-based, locator beacon/spy system/remote control run by the government.
They will always know exactly where you are. You can’t pull the batteries, leave it at home, or throw it out the window.
They can listen to everything you say in your vehicle – whether you are using the system or not.
They can shut your car down for any reason, at any time, any where.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE FULFILLMENT OF BIG-BROTHER FOR THE ROAD.
So, ya wanna stop all the carnage on the roads? Just stop ALL the traffic. Problem solved. No more highway fatalities. All done. All over.
Forget the half measures of banning phones. Go for the gold. Ya’ll just walk.
Not acceptable, you say? Me too. And here’s why.
You and I know about the risks involved in driving. And we find them acceptable risks considering the advantages driving affords us.
And we know about the risks involving use of a cell phone while driving and as well, the risks of being on the road with those who also use them. For the most part, we are willing to accept the risks for the advantages offered.
Change the law,
if you must, to seriously penalize those who cause accidents while being distracted.
For example, get involved in a wreck, submit your phone for examination, and go to jail for 90 days if you were texting or talking at the time of the accident. Make it as severe as using a gun to commit a crime.
If someone was injured or killed in the accident, make the penalty 5-10 years in the can.
As it stands now, enforcement is a joke.
Many of the loads I do as a truck driver require oversized permits and sometimes escort vehicles, both private and cops. Almost always when escorts are required, the rules stipulate that two-way communication by radio is mandatory. Usually when cops are involved in the move, cell phone numbers are exchanged all around so if need be, all parties can communicate. And yes it does cause a measure of distraction. Somehow the work gets done.
You wanna do your share to reduce the problems on the road? Two suggestions:
Stay the hell out of the left lane unless you’re passing, and, use your freakin’ turnsignals!!!!
And all you have to do is NOT buy a vehicle made by Government Motors.
I always love the logic of a government bureaucrat…
If we would only outlaw the Manufacture and Sale of Mobile Homes;
There would be No More Tornadoes.
How many feel that laws against cell phone use is an abridgement of freedom and yet support the right of the government to prohibit the imbibing of certain substances? If you are against one and support the other, I’d love to hear your rationale based on the same political leanings.
Folks, if this doesn’t WAKE-UP America, it’s hard to say what will!!!
This is a trial balloon! Just like Obamacare was a trail balloon. Folks, it’s We The People vs. We The Elite People of Washington DC. This is the “inside out” portion of: top down/bottom up and inside out…remember??? Van Jones? STORM MANIFESTO??? Cloward-Piven ring a bell? Saul Alinsky?
First, all our freedoms will come under attack! If Mr. Obama is re-elected he and Holder’s empowered DOJ and their handmaiden…ACLU will vigorously attack every single American’s freedoms bar none (cell phones, light bulbs, etc.).
At the same time, F&F will unfold into a full blown Gun Control program…State-be-State. Lastly, confiscation of every Americans weapon(s) across the USA.
This is european style marxism/leninism…just imagine, in Our Beloved USA, too!
Who would of thought??? First, We The People lose all our freedoms, one-by-one. Secondly, all our weapons are confiscated. Damn, powder up, folks!!!
Lastly, Hillary will introduce a fistfull of treaties at the UN subordinating the USA to some amorphous “New World Order” (whatever that is!).
If European style socialism hasn’t worked since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, how in the world is this failure going to be implemented, massaged and working in some “New socialist USA?”
God Bless America! Vote massively for massive fraud is all around us.Wake-up, America!
Make your argument to the family of my client that was hit head-on by a young woman using a cellphone. Both were killed at the scene. If you find it necessary to make a call that is that important that you would risk your life and those around you; how much trouble would it be to pull to the side of the road or off the interstate in order to make or take the call?
Talking on a cell phone while driving is far more dangerous than driving with a BAC of 0.16% Reaction time is 30% slower on the phone than when staggering drunk. In addition, when speaking on a phone the speaker tends to look straight ahead, reducing peripheral vision by more than 25%. Texting is multiples worse with respect to non-existent peripheral vision.
The average time for an unimpaired driver to effectively apply the brakes after brake lights appear in front of them is 2 seconds. A 30% slower response is nearly 3 seconds. At 60 miles an hour (88 fps) the vehicle travels nearly the length of a football field before the driver applies the brakes! Add to that the average 271 feet required to actually stop from 60 mph and the total is now twice the length of a football field from the time the driver is first aware of the need to stop until the vehicle is actually stopped. Wet roads can double the actual stopping distance required making over 1/8 mile or nearly 40 car lengths. Think about that when running in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Hands-free makes no difference because it is the brain that is impaired, not the hands.
Is it a Nanny State that strongly discourages drivers with a BAC >0.16%? Estimates are that more than 50% of all auto accidents involve one or more drivers who were speaking on a cell phone or texting at the time of the accident.
Maybe a better solution is to legalize the shooting of drivers engaged in cell phoning or texting: say 5 tags for a dollar? This will quickly eliminate the problem.