“Telegraph Road got so deep, and so wide/
Like a rollin’ river…”
We do. 8 years later, it’s still ignored by people who think they’re the exception and can phone&drive 
Is it enforced?
Seat belts took a while too.
I think if everyone did those online tests that get you to count something on the road while being asked questions like you were talking on a cellphone, it would be very informative for everyone (especially when you don’t notice the guy in the full bunny costume standing there waving at you). Multi-tasking is a misperception; we don’t multi-task - we switch our attention back and forth, and I don’t know what you could possibly be doing while driving that is more important than concentrating on piloting a two ton hunk of metal at high speeds that makes it worth switching your attention away from driving.
Yup yup. Really loud noises distract me (I scare myself vacuuming!), so if I’m the driver everyone in the car has to talk in normal voices. The radio stays at conversational level, screw you if it’s your favorite song.
I also realize that the other side will say ‘if you’re so easily distracted, you shouldn’t be driving!’, but I figure knowing my weakness and compensating for it makes up for it.
Also, we have a ‘only hands-free’ law here, but no one abides by it anyway. The cops would rather do speed traps.
It’s the same here; I could go out on a busy street right now and count 10 drivers talking on handheld cellphones in a few minutes, even though it is against the law now. I think in some ways they only put the law into effect in the case of a serious collision - phone records are checked, and the one who was on the phone will be at fault. I’d prefer it if we took collision prevention a little more seriously.
I know people who think they are fine when they talk on the phone. They are wrong. I have followed my ex boss on a highway, and could easily tell when he took a call. It was hard to distinguish him from a drunk driver. His speed was erratic and he wandered. He denied it. He said he was fine and talking on the phone did not impact his driving.
I came very close to saying exactly that, but decided it was too silly. And I’ll thank you to stop reading my mind.
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I thought I was fine at it too, until one sunny afternoon when I pulled up to a stop sign at a busy, higher speed intersection, cross traffic doing about 45mph.
I looked right and saw no one coming, looked left and saw my hand with a phone in it, and pulled out RIGHT in front of an oncoming car about 70 feet away from me.
If she hadn’t been a good driver with good brakes, I probably would have lost the use of my life. That was nine years ago, and I have NEVER talked on the phone while driving since then.
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TreacherousCretin, good on you! I just don’t understand when I hear folks say they are not affected, when driving, by cell phone use.
Oh, I also thought your phrase “lost the use of my life” was funny! Can I use it?
Be my guest. I heard a comedian say it on TV in the early 70’s, and have happily appropriated it for my own use ever since. I wish I could remember who he was.
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Heh heh heh. 
State’s rights, they create the driving laws.
Because the federal government already gets it hands on far too many things that should be left to the states.
New York does have the law and I still make sure I check for drivers who may not stop at the light before leaving, if I’m the first car. That’s just smart driving. People still talk on the phone (hands free or not), and running red lights, believe it or not, happened even before there were cell phones.
Rather than specifically banning cell phones, the laws should be written (at state or local levels) against all forms of distracted driving and they should be enforced. The woman putting on eye make-up - ticket. The guy shaving - ticket. Instead we ban talking on the cell phone, then we have to go back and ban texting separately.
There are a few people who can talk on the phone while driving, but they’re rare. And hands-free sets don’t help the ones who can’t. I was driving along on the interstate one day, in the fast lane, slowly overtaking a car. His car was rock-steady in speed and center of lane. As I passed him, I saw him talking on his hand-held phone. This is NY. That’s illegal, but he was driving fine. A mile or two later, I’m overtaking another car. All over her lane, constantly varying speed. As I passed her, I saw her talking on her hands-free phone.
How would public safety have been improved by giving the first guy a ticket, but giving the second person a pass? The laws should have been written so that the ticketing goes the other way around.
The few people I know who can drive well while on the phone are also smart enough to pull over when the conversation gets intense enough to potentially distract them. And make the person on the other end wait, while they find a safe spot to do so. The ones who can’t are too stupid to notice that their driving still sucks, even with a hands-free set, on a trivial call.
Give tickets for the lousy driving, not what the lousy driver is doing to cause it. Then there’s no question about positive effect on public safety, or negative effect on people who aren’t endangering it.
The new law in Alberta is a distracted driving law - eating, texting, and talking on handheld cell phones while driving are all illegal now. I haven’t seen the law so I don’t know if that is the entire scope of it, but it does attempt to address distracted driving rather than just cell phone usage.
an idea that you might do for family, friends or coworkers.
follow them with a video camera (either a dash camera or held by passenger, not the driver that would be too weird for this experiment). have them be in an area without much traffic. have them on a schedule switch between driving, talking (with and/or without hands) and texting. go through the cycle a few times and let them see their performance.
i’ve seen on local news on tv where in high school drivers education courses there is a driving course is setup in an open area with plastic cones (so no one can die or be injured) and a person takes the course with and without use of a cell phone. they are observed and scored on making it through the course and compare performance. students were surprised about the difference, contrary to their beliefs in their multitasking. i think similar has been done on driving simulators.
You wouldn’t even passengers to make call? My wife often makes calls when we’re out and about (if I’m driving).
And what if you’re locked in the trunk??! I think you should be able to call out then.
We actually existed before cell phones. There was business being done. Conversations were done at home, not in a moving vehicle or a movie theater.
Dr. Sunjay Gupta suggests the connection between cell phones and brain cancer is getting stronger as data over the years accumulates.