Soapbox Derby: Cell Phones

Should there be laws governing cell phone use while driving?

Sean Faircloth

You’ve heard the saying, “You can’t legislate common sense.” If they really believe you can’t legislate common sense, we must repeal the law requiring car seats for kids and repeal speed limits, too. Those laws legislate common sense.

I agree with many cops: Driving while using a cell phone is dangerous, disproportionate to the convenience. Scientists agree with the cops. A Harvard Center for Risk Analysis study found that using a cell phone while driving contributes to 6% of all crashes. That’s 636,000 wrecks killing 2,600 people and injuring 330,000 every year in America.

Our ability to talk about the latest gossip isn’t worth a life. Neither is telling our secretary something we could tell them when we’ve reached our destination—people have done this for decades. We survived. When some people talk on cell phones while driving, death results.

I’m guilty of cell phone use while driving. Cell phones, like other technologies, seep into our lives. We don’t immediately notice the societal implications. I have spent a lot of time on the road. I, like most people, fell into driving and talking on the phone, usually hands-free. Intuition told me that this is safer than the cell phone in my hand.

Unfortunately, this intuition may be wrong. Some studies indicate the real danger is the mental distraction, not whether you use an earpiece or not.

Let’s tell a dirty truth: The real reason we talk on the phone is mostly for something to do. Instead, listen to an audiobook or CD. The radio works, too.

An Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study found that motorists who use cell phones while driving are four times more likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. Texting while driving causes a 400% increase in time spent with eyes off the road.

Just writing this stuff makes me realize how dangerous this is, while, simultaneously, how embarrassingly commonplace.

California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah, Washington state, and the District of Columbia ban the use of cell phones while driving unless they are hands-free devices. Rep. Patsy Crockett and Rep. George Hogan, two thoughtful legislators, have introduced bills to prohibit driving while using cell phones. Maine will pass these laws eventually. We might as well do it now and save more lives. No states currently ban all cell phone use, even though a University of Utah study found hands-free phones aren’t any safer than handheld, and that, regardless, driving while on the phone is equivalent to driving over the legal alcohol limit.

Since 2007, Maine has had a law banning cell phone use for drivers under the age of 18, but drivers using cell phones are just as dangerous at age 19, and, let’s face it, not much less dangerous at age 49. “Adults only” for cell phones won’t make sense to the mother of a child killed by a cell-phoning driver aged 30.

Prohibiting cell phone use while driving is common sense. That’s exactly what is, and should be, legislated.

Sean Faircloth had the idea for Maine Discovery Museum in 1996 and led that multimillion dollar project through every step to completion in 2001. Faircloth is the former Majority Whip of the Maine House.

Scott K Fish

What do you think of this idea? Starting in 2010, we declare a time-out on anyone proposing or enacting annoying nanny-state laws: laws we’re told are meant to solve matters that are, in truth, best left to common sense.

For example, there are bills (ideas) now before the Maine Legislature to make it illegal to drive while talking on a cell phone. LD 40: An Act to Prohibit Certain Uses of Cellular Telephones and Handheld Electronic Devices while Operating a Motor Vehicle would prohibit “the use of a handheld cellular telephone and a handheld electronic device while operating a motor vehicle,” unless you work for the Maine Turnpike Authority, the Maine Department of Transportation, or certain professions. First offense? Fifty bucks. Offenses thereafter? A minimum $250 fine.

What’s a “handheld electronic device”? Maine law says it’s “any handheld electronic device that is not part of the operating equipment of the motor vehicle.”

LD 41: An Act to Prohibit the Use of a Handheld Cellular Telephone while Operating a Motor Vehicle” adds text messaging to the “no-can-do” list. Minimum fine: $500. As I write, this bill’s in trouble, but could be rolled into another bill like Sen. William Diamond’s LD 6: An Act to Establish a Distracted Driver Law, which gets high marks for its nanny-state bill title into which all kinds of driving “no-no’s” can be stuffed. But it also gets very low marks for wanting to impose $250 fines if you’re busted for driving while “apply[ing] cosmetics,” “performing personal grooming,” or “engaging in an activity that impairs the driver’s ability to drive.”

Really? It could cost me $250 for driving/listening to Governor Baldacci’s weekly radio address?

I was behind an SUV on Main Street in Bangor not long ago. The driver’s actions were nonsense: applying the brakes for no obvious reason; turning, then not turning. I took the first chance to go around that vehicle, glancing at the driver as I drove past—a woman on a cell phone, yapping away while apparently trying to get to McDonald’s drive-through on autopilot.

Then there’s me. My wife, Claudia, no longer drives. Her mobility’s limited. I first bought our cell phone when I had to drive to Virginia for work. The peace of mind of knowing Claudia and I could be in touch at a moment’s notice made all the difference in the world. Even now, I primarily use my cell phone in the car to stay in touch with Claudia.

The time to drum into people’s heads that steering 3,000 pounds or more of metal at 65 mph or more is serious business is before the driver’s license is issued. Instead, the Democrat sponsors of these bills would punish every good driver in Maine to make themselves feel like big shots.

Won’t you help me declare a nanny-stater time-out in 2010? That’s our next chance to vote out the legislature nannies and vote in adults who have their heads screwed on right and can set adult priorities.

Scott K Fish is owner/editor for the political web forum www.asmainegoes.com.