Making cell phones illegal?

[cmountford]

In many locations here in the USA, they have already made cell phones illegal to use while driving.

They are looking at doing that in the state where I live. I'm furious. Some people can't drive in the first place (don't know how they ever passed their driving test)--and they often happen to sometimes be using a cell phone. I've seen people not talking on cell phones driving far worse than the responsible drivers like myself who can drive and talk at the same time.

Back in the Prohibition days, they made alcohol illegal--even for responsible drinkers. Should you punish the responsible users for the users who are not? Why not just enforce a policy of policing bad driving rather than cell phones? Would you pull over every person driving after 12 am assuming they may be drunk and driving? Or only the vehicles that are swerving and driving badly?

You might as well ban other passengers from being in the vehicle because if you're not talking on the phone, you'll be talking to your friends IN the car. Some people can multitask...some people can't. Most people can't even drive in the first place...with or without a cell phone.

I think if you use a bluetooth headset, it's no different from talking to someone in the car. You might as well ban passengers because they're as likely to be a distraction to me as a cell phone. Or the radio...or...etc.

Why not give people a multitasking license or whatever? If you can pass some rigorous test to check your multitasking ability, then you can use a cell phone while driving. I know most pilots talk to their copilot while flying...often just chit chat stuff. I've heard the analogy that you wouldn't want your pilot texting or talking on his cell phone while flying...but that's irrelevant because the pilot would have to use a headset via his radio to be able to communicate with others on the ground--he'd have to be using a headset to hear anyways.

Also, most police officers use their radio while driving, which could be argued to be as big of a POTENTIAL distraction as talking on a cell phone. They have to hold down a button to talk while in pursuit of someone or going to a mission. So should we arrest our police officers for using their communication devices because some people could never handle that much concentration as to talk while driving? That's why a person knows their limit as to what they can do. If I'm merging on the highway I'll usually ask the person to hold on a second and I put the phone down if I'm not on a headset until I get merged in nicely. If I were having trouble concentrating/multitasking a certain day, I'd realize I shouldn't be talking on my cell phone while driving. So i I wouldn't talk on it that day. That simple. If I were drinking in a club and my designated driver crapped out on me, I'd call a cab. That simple. It's called being responsible. It's absurd to make alcohol illegal for the people who can use it responsibly without putting the public in danger. Cell phones in the hands of some concentration-impaired individuals while driving=dangerous, but not everyone.

Police officers can do it, pilots do it, but the people who can talk to someone & drive can only do it if someone is physically in the car with them?

It's crap