Technobabble

Use a Cell Phone, Get a Ticket

Posted by on Mar 11, 2008 | 13 Comments

The laws, they are a changin’. Here in the glorious Garden State, law enforcement authorities are now allowed to pull over and ticket drivers for using a cell phone while driving… but only if you are not using a hands-free phone.

You’re free to chat all you want, as long as you have a headset or a fancy in-dash system. But if a police officer sees you with that telltale hand to the ear, you’re out of luck. And a hundred bucks.

There’s good and bad to this law, no doubt.

The good, of course, being the hope that there will be fewer accidents caused by cell phones.

The bad, of course, being another erosion of our personal liberties.

I’ve always avoided using a cell phone while driving, for a number of reasons. I’ve always driven stick shifts, and seeing that I only have two arms…

This new law will stimulate the economy in a small way, by pushing people into buying new phones. (It will also serve to further skew the balance of trade… after all, how many cell phones are manufactured here in the States?)

I’m a case in point. My $20 pay-as-you-go Nokia soap bar doesn’t have Bluetooth. While I still don’t want a plan, I would like to be able to use my own phone with the in-dash systems (rather than borrowing one from my kids).

  • James

    It’s been like that in over here in England for a while now. The law was changed about a year ago, but the amount of people who still use their mobiles while driving is amzing! You would think that the thought of 3 points on their lisense and a £60 fine (about $120) would make tham think twice, but no.

  • Ed Devlin

    A few months ago, I saw a 4-year-old wriggle free from her mother’s hand in a supermarket parking lot in Arizona, dash in front of a car whose oblivious driver was chatting on a cell phone and get hit (luckily, not killed). A driver without a cell phone would certainly have seen the kid in plenty of time. $100? Nah. Jail time? OK by me.

  • http://www.jbthings.com Jay

    As a long time motorcycle rider and ex-school crossing guard I’m here to tell you that all states should outlaw cell phones while driving and the fines should be high. I ride my motorcycle, ( a big one with lots of lights) almost everywhere I go. Drivers in cages, (cars) are not paying the least attention to where they are going or what is around them.

  • HarleyGuy

    The problem with cell phone and texting is that you are not paying attention to driving. That is why when I am riding my harley I stay clear of people talking on cellphones. ( You can tell by the way they are driving )

  • Tom

    I think Dan Gray makes some good points. Talking on the phone is the distraction, not holding it up to the ear. But I take issue with the personal liberties issue. This morning I was pulling out of a gas station and was waiting for a car that was going slower and slower until I realized that he wanted to pull into the driveway I was occupying. He wasn’t signalling because he could not. He had one hand on the wheel and one hand on the phone plastered to his ear. Is it my responsibility to figure out what he is doing while he exercises a person liberty? I don’t think a day goes by when I don’t see the cell phone drift, where someone slowly drifts from one lane to another without regard to traffic; or someone jumps a stop sign because they are more attentive to there cell phone conversation then what is going on around them. What if one of these cell phone drivers hits me. Even if we are fortunate and no one is hurt and the responsible party is willing to pay for the damages, whose personal liberties are being violated, mine or the cell phone user? Getting estimates and repairs can occupy much of my time. It seems that more and more people are concerned about there personal liberties than there personal or civic responsibities. I don’t know the answer to whether or not this should be legel. There are certain times when using a cell phone while driving is not dangerous or is appropriate, such as on a lighly traveled highway or to report a crime or accident; but, for the most part, I think time spent in the car should be spent paying attention to what is going on around you.

  • ArtC

    As a rural firefighter and one of the people who has to scrape up the friggin idiots who insist on their RIGHT to be an idiot, I think about the only thing wrong with this sort of legislation is the level of penalty applied.

    Much more appropriate would be
    first offense – $1000
    second offense – no license for 12 months
    third offense – confiscate the car (or truck or whatever)

    Only stupid, inconsiderate a**holes insist on THEIR right do do what they want with no respect for the rights of OTHERS to be able to use the road system safely.
    Use your handset if you want, just be prepared to pay the price. That’s the only RIGHT anyone should be able to impose on others.

    The ultimate in stupidity seen recently – using a handset while riding his Harley in traffic. I guess he figures God rides one too!

    Don”t even think of getting me started on seatbelts!!

  • Ted

    Hi Chris,
    While it is true that ‘Freedom of Speech’ is a RIGHT, not so when driving. What you and a million other people don’t consider is that it is NOT a RIGHT to drive an automobile. This (driving) is a PRIVILEGE given out by the states. As a Firefighter (retired) who has been on many a call for auto accidents, there is one word for cell phone use and driving. NO. Most people, especially the young, cannot drive worth a darn to start with. They don’t have the attention span that it takes to REALLY know what is going on around you as you are driving down the road. How many of you know the color of the third car in front of you? How about the number of people in the 5th car in front of you? What are the people walking on the other side of the street wearing? If you can’t tell me that, you have what is known as tunnel vision. Your eyes should be ALL over, not just directly in front of you. ANYTHING that distracts you from this function, is a hazard. And yes, that includes cell phones. NO ONE has the RIGHT to use a cell phone while driving. It should be a law. And no, not even an ear bud. This is a distraction. If there is a place anywhere around you that has a course in ‘defensive driving’, I suggest you take it. It can be a REAL EYE OPENER. Thanks and drive safely. There is more to driving than getting to where you are going. IF you get there.

  • http://www.calcresult.com Mike

    This is already the law over here in Scotland (and the rest of the UK), and a good thing too – surelly every driver out there has come across another vehicle that is wandering around oblivious to all around, because the driver is on their mobile phone?
    There have been many studies into this, which show that the effect on your reactions etc is like being two or three times over the drink-drive limit.

  • Michael

    whenever you see these laws, you see al sorts of people talking about the “wandering” driver or the one having an accident and using this as justification to extrapolate to a generalization and thus punish everyone.

    What I have not seen is a comparison to the number of accidents attributed to the other forms of being distracted. These would include eating/drinking, putting on makeup, shaving, talking with a passenger, adjusting the radio/mp3/CD player or any other activity other than paying attention to the road.

    Oh wait, I have seen one study that was done some time ago by AAA. It showed that cell phone usage counted for less than 1% of the “distracted” accidents and all others came from the things we count as normal.

    Given this way of thinking, we need to have all drivers placed in a sealed cage in the driver’s seat. They will not able to reach any cup holders, any knobs on their radios, etc. They will have no room to keep their CDs in the visor overhead. The area will be sound proof to prevent talking to the other passengers and any form of makeup found in the vehicle will be an immediate ticketable offense.

    Wake up and doing some thinking about these laws instead of just riding the wave of public opinion. Lemmings don’t use cell phones either and look where it gets them.

  • http://bra.ms Will Bramlett

    I love surround sound. Maybe it’s because I’m comparing our system to my TV’s & Mac’s built-in speakers but I love the sound. We bought a new system for our new TV (finally HD) last summer. I took the old one to my room & connected it to my computer. It is one of the best things ever!
    PS Is it strange we’ve had surround sound for over a decade but just finally got an HDTV & still don’t have cable/dish?

  • Anonymous

    I got an iPad 2 32-GB for $21.68 and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $ 38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $ 657 which only cost me $ 62.81 . Here is the site we use to get it al from, http://to.ly/aXGE

  • http://twitter.com/DirecTech Stephen M Saulino

    Surround sound is the best THX. Stereo is great if you cant get surround sound of course. Possibly the next best thing would be dual stereo or quadraphonic.

  • Pamela Newberry

    I just hate having to sit with remote in hand adjusting the volume between the talking and the music during a movie. I’m assuming from reading that I need a center channel to help this problem. So the true question to me is will the 2.1 set up allow me to finally put down the remove and enjoy the movie?