Posted on 01/12/2009 8:23:13 AM PST by Red Badger
A national safety group is advocating a total ban on cell phone use while driving, saying the practice is clearly dangerous and leads to fatalities.
States should ban drivers from using hand-held and hands-free cell phones, and businesses should prohibit employees from using cell phones while driving on the job, the congressionally chartered National Safety Council says, taking those positions for the first time.
The group's president and chief executive, Janet Froetscher, likened talking on cell phones to drunken driving, saying cell phone use increases the risk of a crash fourfold.
``When our friends have been drinking, we take the car keys away. It's time to take the cell phone away,'' Froetscher said in interview.
No state currently bans all cell phone use while driving. Six states - California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah and Washington - and the District of Columbia ban the use of hand-held cell phones behind the wheel, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Also, 17 states and the district restrict or ban cell phone use by novice drivers.
Council officials acknowledged a total ban could take years.
``Public awareness and the laws haven't caught up with what the scientists are telling us,'' Froetscher said. ``There is no dispute that driving while talking on your cell phone, or texting while driving, is dangerous.''
Froetscher said the council examined more than 50 scientific studies before reaching its decision. One was a study by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis that estimates 6 percent of vehicle crashes, causing about 2,600 deaths and 12,000 serious injuries a year, are attributable to cell phone use. Hands-free cell phones are just as risky as hand held phones, she added.
``It's not just what you're doing with your hands - it's that your head is in the conversation and so your eyes are not on the road,'' Froetscher said.
John Walls, vice president of CTIA-The Wireless Association, a cell phone trade group, objected to a complete ban. He said there are many instances where the ability to make a phone call while driving helps protect safety.
``We think that you can sensibly and safely use a cell phone to make a brief call,'' Walls said.
What makes cell phone use distinct from other risky driving behaviors, Froetscher said, is the magnitude - there are 270 million cell phone users in the U.S. and 80 percent of them talk on the phone while driving.
Froetscher said the council is the first major national safety group to call for a total cell phone ban for drivers. The National Transportation Safety Board has been urging states since 2003 to ban the use of cell phones or any wireless device by inexperienced drivers who have learner's permits or intermediate licenses. Last year, at least 23 states considered some form of legislation to restrict the use of cell phones or wireless devices, according to the board.
Council officials said they will press Congress to address the issue when it takes up a highway construction bill this year, possibly by offering incentives to states that enact cell phone laws.
The Governors Highway Safety Association agreed that cell phone use while driving is dangerous, but said it would be difficult to enforce a ban. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which is funded by auto insurers, said banning all cell phone use ``makes sense based on the research,'' but agreed that enforcement will be difficult.
However, some of us can walk and chew gum at the same time.
I have been driving for 50 some years and for the most of it have had either a two way radio, CB and now cell phone for communications and have only been involved in a couple of accidents (never charged) and only a handful of speeding tickets.
While a member of the USN I copied Morse Code and during the course of copying messages, would drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and converse with others.
On some occasions I would have music piped into one headphone and the code into the other, and I was a licensed 45WPM Operator (Speed Key) regularly getting up around 60+
Maybe they could put a ‘rider’ on your license if you are qualified to talk and drive at the same time.
GRANTED, I cringe when I see a lot of others with a phone stuck to their ear, picking their nose and whatever with the ‘third hand’. I am usually ‘afraid’ to blow the horn lest I wake some fool up and they drive into the side of you...
“Get it?.”
No.
The police talk on their radios while driving. Maybe they don’t need that distraction.
The police talk on their radios while driving. Maybe they don’t need that distraction.
I don’t have a cell phone, so I have no need to drive and text or call anyone............Yes, there was a life before cell phones. And the good part about not having a cell phone is NOBODY can call you........
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.
Friends don’t let friends use AT&T.............
Let's not forget CB radios, burning cigarettes, stereo systems and climate controls. Accidents can and do happen because of distractions caused by each and every one of those things.
Oh, and people shouldn't be allowed to have their children in the car either, for the same reasons. ...come to think of it, passengers should be banned altogether. Any one of them could become a distraction to the driver.
You have a right to travel. You do not have a right to do it while driving a car. You can walk, or ride a horse or take a bus. Operation of a motor vehicle is not a right.....
For women
On this, it’s everybody........
Combined with a dramatic rise in horse theft, road apples, and flies. Unintended consequences are a bear.
For the record, I hate government regulations but just because most rules are stupid and intrusive doesn't mean this one is bad. The problem with the nanny state is that there are so many rules that you cannot keep all of them and it builds contempt for the law.
neither is walking.
...it is not specifially enumerated in the COTUS.
Neither is the internet.
what’s your point?
Are you attempting to use the “well it isn’t specifically mentioned in the constitution”, so the government can ban it, infringe upon it, or prohibit it altogether, argument?
Sex isn’t enumerated either....care to suggest passing bans on that too with the sweeping comment that it “is not a Constitutionally protected right”
Maybe a laywer can find cell-phones in the prenubra of the COTUS! They did that for the “right” to murder unborn children!
your logic is failing.
For women, in the left lane, going below the speed limit, talking on the phone for more then 10 miles and double for over 40 miles.
“Unless answering the call causes a quick emergency. “
I’ve been driving since 1962. I have never been in an accident. I have never had a moving violation. Parkin’ tickets? Yup! I always answer my cell in the car. Why don’t I just look and see who’s calling? Cuz I’d have to take my eyes off the road, and I don’t do that. If the call is not an emergency call from the water company where I am the head operator, I tell the caller that I will call back later.
If such a law is passed, There will be exemptions, and I will be one of them. The health concerns with public water supply are many. Problems must be handled immediately. I take my job very, very seriously!
"Personal liberty largely consists of the Right of locomotion -- to go where and when one pleases -- only so far restrained as the Rights of others may make it necessary for the welfare of all other citizens. The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, by horse drawn carriage, wagon, or automobile, is not a mere privilege which may be permitted or prohibited at will, but the common Right which he has under his Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Under this Constitutional guarantee one may, therefore, under normal conditions, travel at his inclination along the public highways or in public places, and while conducting himself in an orderly and decent manner, neither interfering with nor disturbing another's Rights, he will be protected, not only in his person, but in his safe conduct." [Emphasis added] II Am.Jur. (1st) Constitutional Law, Sect.329, p.1135.
As mentioned previously, the laws relating to licensing were incremental, and began with those involved in commerce on the public roads...
"...Based upon the fundamental ground that the sovereign state has the plenary control of the streets and highways in the exercise of its police power (see police power, infra.), may absolutely prohibit the use of the streets as a place for the prosecution of a private business for gain. They all recognize the fundamental distinction between the ordinary Right of the Citizen to use the streets in the usual way and the use of the streets as a place of business or a main instrumentality of business for private gain. The former is a common Right; the latter is an extraordinary use. As to the former the legislative power is confined to regulation, as to the latter it is plenary and extends even to absolute prohibition. Since the use of the streets by a common carrier in the prosecution of its business as such is not a right but a mere license of privilege." Hadfield vs. Lundin, 98 Wash 657l, 168, p.516.
Back to the canard about the right to travel having been converted into a priviledge...
"The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by horse drawn carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city can prohibit or permit at will, but a common Right which he has under the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." [Emphasis added] Thompson vs. Smith, 154 SE 579.
More:
"The right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, in the ordinary course of life and business, is a common right which he has under the right to enjoy life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, and to pursue happiness and safety. It includes the right, in so doing, to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day, and under the existing modes of travel, includes the right to drive a horse drawn carriage or wagon thereon or to operate an automobile thereon, for the usual and ordinary purpose of life and business." Teche Lines vs. Danforth, Miss., 12 S.2d 784; Thompson vs. Smith, supra.
Nanny State. If you know how to drive safely while talking on a cell phone, who is anyone else to make a criminal out of you?
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