This morning, via The Dallas City Hall Blog, I was directed to Pete's Place, where Pete Oppel takes on the possibility of expanding a ban on using cell phones while driving.
For one, I'm not sure where the budget deficit the city is suffering and it's need to hire more police comes in to the cell phone ban argument. Maybe it's Monday and my synapses aren't firing completely, but I'm not seeing the link there.
But thought flowchart aside, I'm also significantly torn about extending the ban, just as I was torn about the original one, which bans the use of cell phones by drivers in school zones.
At what point did we all start thinking it was OK to turn our government into a nanny? As Trey Garrison pointed out in his excellent piece a few months ago, Texas - and also the U.S., for that matter - has become this orgiastic celebration of rules.
While I'm all for public safety, I'm also for common sense. I'm also for using the rules we already have, which will address the whole issue of cell phone use quite nicely. It's not like blood alcohol levels, where some science has to go in to determining if you broke the law. If you get in a crash or violate a traffic law while on your phone, the laws already on the books address this behavior.
Nearly everyone with a license knows that driving while texting or talking on the phone is risky. Ergo, if you chose to do so while driving, you're engaging in risky, dangerous - reckless - driving.
I can think of a good half dozen other things that can distract a driver. So what's next, a no burrito while driving law? No driving with kids in the car? No changing the station on your radio? Maybe a "no smoking because you might drop the lit cigarette on your lap and it will distract you while your pants are on fire and you will crash" law?
Yeah. I thought so. Let's put the kibosh on this whole thing now, yes?
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Comments
Problem is, the risky behavior isn't risky for you alone. Everyone on the road has to deal with your behavior. In Dallas, there are hudreds of thousands of people on the road, and if all of them are texting and talking, you increase the chance of accidents.
As for the rule itself, it is unlikely to do much good. But, it does start a city-wide, and from the looks of it, nationwide, debate on talking and texting while driving. The fact that people are talking about it means less people will do it, and it will become something that gets addressed in homes and schools. The goal, therefore, isn't to prosecute talking drivers, but rather to create a dialogue that will help curb the problem.
If laws have to be written to combat against stupidity, so be it. Sometimes in a free society, common sense has to take the lead and set rules for to protect the innocent from those who are not too bright.
Take your example of the ‘fire in the pants’ or dialing & texting while one drives through a school crossing… neither bring a happy ending to the innocent who gets mowed over.
You can’t teach common sense, but sure you sure can legislate common sense laws.
- rated
A recent NY Times has a lengthy article about the dangers of cell phone use: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/technology/19distracted.html?_r=1&hp . To briefly summarize, cell phone use, even "hands off" is as dangerous as driving under the influence. Further, the article cites a 2003 Harvard study that estimates that cell phone use while driving causes 2,600 deaths per year and 330,000 accidents per year. This trend is further substantiated with extensive reseach in the 2009 book Traffic.
Based on the information from the sources cited, I feel very stongly that driving while using a cell phone is extremely dangerous and irresponsible. It should be outlawed for any type of driving. If you disagree, it might ease your mind to have a nice, stiff drink before picking your children up at school.
Cheers and thank you for bringing up what is bound to be a rather contentious issue.
P.S.
No, I don't use a cell phone while driving, nor do I drive under the influence.
So, I do see the logic behind the proposed ban. Houston has had its own discussions about implementing the same ban. While I agree that our government is way too involved in policing our day-to-day activities, I don't foresee any possible decline in that anytime soon; and I would have to say that this instance of Big Brother sticking his nose in our affairs might be the lesser of two evils.
There was the same public outrage when the seat-belt law was enacted, but how often does any one of us put the car in drive before buckling up these days? Okay, maybe that's not a good example since someone else NOT wearing a seat belt doesn't put me at risk (unless they fly through the windshield and fall on top of me or crash through my windshield, too.) But according to a study done by the University of Utah, talking on a cell phone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6090342-7.html
I think it's inevitable anyway. It's just a matter of time. And then where will I find the time to make all my phone calls?
It is now illegal in California to use a cell and drive unless it's hands free. But, enforcement is negligible.
It's dangerous in school zones, but not in cars with kids in them? Or on highways, when you're actually driving faster than you are in a school zone? And when's the last time you dialed someone on your cigarette? Or snuck a look at a text message on your burrito. I'm sure nobody means to take their eyes off the road when they're talking or receiving calls on a cell phone. But there's too many accidents happening all the time. And too many studies in simulated games that show how easy it is to distract somebody on a cell phone. Sure the roads would be safer if we could ban kids in cars. But last I checked cellphones themselves weren't actually citizens with rights to travel. People have lived for a long time on this planet without cellphones. There's no reason not to ban them if there's a significant danger of reckless driving. And you yourself said there is!
And yeah, what if it leads to bans on smoking and burritto eating? Are people going to starve or die of nicotine withdrawal? Do the basic right to shove burritos down your throat really override a right to maximize your odds of not being the victim of reckless driving. If it's reckless, it's reckless. Why shouldn't it be illegal?
But the really, really weak part of your argument is the idea that you shouldn't have a law against them because if you kill someone you'll charged THEN.
HUH?
if you can't endure a limit on procreation, can't endure a time limit on life, then get ready to march in step, and later, stand still on your cage floor like a battery hen.
may take awhile, but that's where we were going until we were saved by the on-coming population collapse and possible extinction. there's a silver lining everywhere.