Oregon State House Rep. Greg MacPherson (D-Lake Oswego) is planning on introducing a bill banning the use of cell phones by drivers under 21 years of age.
It’s an interesting idea — especially because studies have shown that talking on a cell phone impairs driving as much as being intoxicated.
New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey have banned non-hands free cell phones, and California recently passed a law requiring drivers who use cell phones to use hands-free phones. Of course, the cell phone itself — not that it’s hands-free — may cause the problem.
While the evidence is mixed, one recent study argued that hands-free cell use is just as dangerous as holding cell phones — and a lot more dangerous than talking to a passenger in a car.
According to the BlueOregon discussion, the idea came after MacPherson’s wife’s ex-husband was hit and very seriously injured while riding his bicycle, and the driver only had to pay a $700 fine.
Of course, there’s lots of resistance to the idea, because we’re simply not willing to put safety first.
What do you think? Contact Rep. MacPherson (and post it here!)
Update: more of Rep. MacPherson’s story at JackBog’s blog, bojack.org.
that’s awesome.
Why not ban all ages from using cell phones while driving? I’ve been paying closer attention to those drivers who ignore traffic rules and are otherwise not focusing on the task at hand and most of them (guess what) are talking on cell phones. These are also the drivers who tend to “not see” me on my bike and/or have severely delayed reaction time. If we know talking and driving is dangerous, why not flat out ban it?
On BlueOregon, Rep. MacPherson’s wife said that they thought an outright ban would not be possible politically.
How is this enforceable? Cops would not pull over a driver unless they are absolutely sure that driver is under 21. This will not prevent reckless driving.
This is my test comment
Two things:
1) Ban phones for all ages. Adult drunk drivers are not safer than underage drunk drivers, so the argument to take phones away from underage drivers only is specious.
2) Forget cell phone bans; that’s a stop-gap. We need criminal negligence legislation that would make the “accident”, that prompted the legislation in the first place, a crime. If you *can* drive well while using your cell phone, fine. But if you can’t, put it down for face criminal neligence charges when you injure or kill someone. It’s not perfect, but nothing is.
Here’s an idea. Cars should have a small set of strobe lights activated when the driver’s cell phone is in use and have a black box feature to indicate time of use and accident if necessary. OR, we can just call a negligent accident a negligent accident (with appropriate punishment) regardless of whether the driver is trying to deprogram that god awful country music out of the radio that his gilfriend put in there or to get their makeup to blend just right with the office lights or are talking on the cell phone about where they are and where the person on the other end of the conversation is because it is still so cool to not be attached to a wired phone in the kitchen at home. Somebody someday will say they were not on the phone but were messing with the radio and thereby avoid any anti-cell phone law.
I agree that a ban on under 21 only isn’t going to accomplish the job. First off, there are more over 21 drivers than under 21. At least in this discussion, the only reason we need to get rid of cell phone use in cars is because we don’t have any negligence legislation. Why not fix the root of the problem instead of something that is relatively petty?
Well, there are multiple ways to attack the issue — one is trying to remove dangerous activities, and the other is to create penalties when a crash actually occurs.
We’re working on negligence legislation as well.
my view of cell phone use by those that are driving vehicles is that all should be banned as they are empirically proven to influence the drivers level of attention to what they are doing with a lethal weapon. After being struck from behind by a pickup truck last year and being completely in the legal position on the hiway to ride my bike I know intrinsically that most drivers are not paying full attention to the lethal weapon they are managing. We need a serious legislative push to remove one more attention deficit item from drivers. Tired of being hit by vehicles!!!!
my $.02 is, the feds should be allowed to monitor every single step/move/action anyone takes, including making calls from phones integrated with the car’s stereo system and how often each individual visits a restroom. oh, yes, all tree-haters (those who use computer printers too much) should be executed (ok, sent to gulags if it’s the first time). people, be realistic, this is not enforceable. morons will be morons no matter what. some morons will be carrying guns, some morons will be driving slow in the left lane, some morons will be on the phone, some morons will become politicians. have a good day, mates.