Cell Phone Bans - Karl says NO!

It's an unfortunate truth that our society is victim to many things cause by multi-tasking when we know better. Is cell-phone talking/texting a problem while driving - yes. I don't think there's anyone that could make an argument that you are as focused on driving while doing anything with a cell phone - including if you are just picking it up to check the time. That level of distraction, no matter how small, could mean the difference between a successful trip in your car and a mistake you may regret for the rest of your life. People should know better. Having said that - I think that it's ridiculous to propose legislation to try and 'correct' this. Firstly- how do you police something like this? Most cell phone use while driving occurs out of line of sight and would be very hard to prove in court without taking private logs and call history from a person's phone (not sure how hard it would be to get a warrant to get this information, but I imagine difficult enough that it wouldn't be a common court practice for traffic enforcement law). Secondly - most proposed legislation suggests that you are 'safe' to drive and use a cell-phone if you are using a hands free kit. I would argue this is incorrect because it is the conversation that distracts the driver, not the hands. For this same reason it is common why people get in accidents with other people in the vehicle with them - not because they are using their hands with the other person, but because conversations no matter the medium are distractions. Finally - there are many other issues that plague driver safety just as much or more than cell phones. Our radios, fast food, drinks, cigarettes, friend in the passenger seat, kids in the back seat, magazines, etc. are all just as dangerous to our safety as cell phones. Karl often talks about slippery slope as one law being the gateway to more - and I think that is a concern here. If we get rid of cell-phones, when can we not drive while we eat? How long until manufacturers cannot include radios in the dash? How long until cars are designed for only one person so that there are no distractions from other people in the vehicle? It's just a road I don't want to start going down. Now - all of this may suggest I support the cell-phone driver when in fact I do not. As I said earlier, people should know better, but that doesn't mean we should have laws against it. I get just as mad as anyone else when I'm driving behind some incompetent person and find out they're on a cell phone posing a hazard to everyone else on the road. However, it's something that most of us are guilty of at some point or another. I try to avoid cell-phones as much as I can while driving to the point where I turn mine off at times, but it still happens. Research is hard to perform on this issue for obvious reasons but obviously the homework was not done before putting these bills into place. Karl's link to that article suggest banning cell-phone use while driving has little to no effect for driver safety. So how valuable is that law as a rule - how much protection is it giving us? I think this is one of those issues best solved by common sense and respect for other people on the road (same as using your blinkers when changing lanes or making a turn) but the fact is that many people don't care about these things until it is too late, and there's not much we can do to stop that. I don't think we need a law around this and I don't want one - we just need to start being more aware of what we're doing while driving in general.

I oppose the cell phone ban. First they come for your cell phone, then no drinking coffee, eating food, smoking, picking your nose, listening to your radio, ect. I hope however gets ticketed for this fights it and overturns this overreaching law.

I draw the line at no picking your nose.

I think the commonwealth foundation issued a press release on a study conducted on states that enacted cell bans and neighboring states; looking for accidents before and after the bans. The study found no difference in accidents by banning cell phones.
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If that holds out as true, these laws are nothing more than anecdotes and urban legend enacted into statute - a very dangerous trend as far as I am concerned.