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"Phone In One Hand, Ticket In the Other"
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that federal regulators plan a pilot project to test 'high visibility' crackdown efforts to curb cellphone use by drivers in two cities, Hartford and Syracuse, spending $200,000 in each city, while each state would contribute $100,000 more. The Transportation Department says it wants to send the message: 'Phone in One Hand. Ticket in the Other,' and plans on ramping up enforcement on state bans of hands-free phones by motorists, advertising the campaigns and undertaking studies to see if the efforts curb behavior and attitudes. Safety advocates say that curbing the behavior requires enforcement and education, which they say has been clearly evident in past efforts with seat belts with the 'Click It or Ticket Program' (PDF) that helped increase seat belt use to 83% nationally. 'It's time for drivers to act responsibly, put their hands on the wheel and focus on the road,' says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who last year called distracted driving an 'epidemic.'"
Cell phone stops exist every minute or so, we call them highway exists. Like there is a single exit in the United States that doesn't have a gas station, with parking spots?! In city traffic, we call them meters, parking spaces, or places of business, roughly every 10 seconds. If anything is so important that you really must impede traffic and pull over to respond, its called the fucking shoulder of the road. There is absolutely no reason to talk on your phone while in traffic (even if its just you and one car in the distance in New Mexico on the highway).
If I see you using a cell phone while driving, even at a red light, I will get out of my car, grab my baseball bat, shatter your window, and tell you to hang the phone up, because you should know better. I have had police officers witness me shattering windows and not arrest me, because I am in the right on this one. I am not the one driving recklessly, and your shattered window is a lot cheaper than the ticket you deserve.
Somehow I'm allowed to eat, talk to people in my car, smoke cigarettes, change clothes, change the song on my iPod, etc.
None of these are true. You can be pulled over for distracted driving for any of these items (smoking cigarettes might be tough; you might have to be lighting matches to make that one work).
Shitty drivers will stay shitty, and they will stay on the roads. OTOH, when I pull up to a red light I have to worry about getting a ticket for quickly using my phone while I am stopped OR while I am driving down a highway with little traffic.
You shouldn't make a call at a red light or while driving on the highway, even if there is no traffic. If you use your phone at a red light, you are a shitty driver, because you are the jackass that sits there for 10 seconds after the light turns green in a left turn lane when the signal only lasts for 12 seconds. Worse, you don't even realize that you are a shitty driver. Buy a fucking bluetooth headset so that you have both hands to control your vehicle. There really is not a time where you have a phone call that you have to take while you are driving. Stop at the next exit and call them back. If it is an emergency, pull over to the shoulder of the road, turn on your warning lights, and call them back when you are not traveling in a multi-thousand pound machine at high rates of speed.