California Teen Cell Phone Use Ban While Driving

[kandrathe]

Nicole Richie drove down a high way the wrong way while high on drugs and intoxicated. Then she got caught driving on a suspended license again. She got sentenced to 4 days in jail. Last year a man from MA hit the headlines for being caught Driving Under the Influence for some unreal number of times (~20 I believe). Luckily he didn't kill anyone over the years.

I'm not sure you'll convince me that we're in a tyrannical age of outlawing common sense.

I'm not espousing a police state; I do believe there needs to be an eye to maintaining that fine line. And I know there's some nonsense laws out there that cause a real hassle from time to time (like giving bad cops an excuse to pull over people like Maitre on dubious charges). But I do have a very hard time saying 'don't ban cell phone usage for teenagers' when they are operating a 2 ton slab of metal at high speeds. Those are hard words to eat when someone you know gets hit.

Cheers,

Munk

PS. With that said, I should say I'm a fan of going very lightly on first time offenders, and going harsh on multiple repeat offenders for breaking laws that endanger other people. Everyone makes mistakes, and no amount of laws can stop harsh tragedies from happening. But targeting a group which has a high record of causing these kinds of incidents doesn't seem that terrible to me.

Like how effectively underage smoking or drinking is enforced, which is also illegal. I agree it is unreal how DWI/DUI/Driving on suspended license cases are adjudicated, but what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Nicole Ritchie, OJ, Paris, Brittany, etc are seemingly above the law and can afford to buy a different form of justice than the common person.

I'm not advocating using cell phones while driving. I'm saying that we don't need to create 100 laws to ban various forms of bad driving, just make bad driving an offense. Wait, it is. It is called a] inattentive driving, or worse b] careless driving, or worse yet c] reckless driving.

So, eating while driving, putting on makeup while driving, making out with your girlfriend, talking on a cell phone, text messaging, watching a DVD player, fiddling with the radio, taking off your sweater, digging a pack of gum out of your pocket, reading a book, and folding origami are all covered by my interpretation of the existing laws. What we are seeing in these cell phone laws is politicians pandering to voters, rather pressuring the department of public safety better enforcing the existing laws.

Maybe if we spent some money and effort into hiring more cops, we could better police the roads.