Regulations, Guidelines & Enforcement

   Should States or local governments enact laws to restrict the use of cell phones while driving?   

1)Seat Belt interlocks of the mid 70's 2)Speed limiting chips (77MPH, our real speed limit), easy to do now for no cost 3)No cell phones while in motion 4)Random numbers that must be read then entered on a key pad before starting (drunks and idiots need not apply) These all make perfect sense but limit some dim-wits freedom, so will never be the law of the land.

David, I respect your concern for yourself and your children on our dangerous highways, but where do we stop? Let's put motion sensors on lipstick so women can't put on their makeup while driving. Let's deactivate the channel selector on the stereo so you have to pull off onto the median when a song you don't like comes on. Let's make all McDonald's customers sign a contract that they won't eat their french fries while driving. I think we need to keep our roads safe, but not by limiting the things a safe driver can legally do while driving. So if you see somebody weaving all over the road because their screensaver just kicked in or their pager went off, pick up your cell phone and give the highway patrol their license plate number.

While we're mandating more laws lets make it against the law to run a red light, drive while drunk, fail to stop at stop signs, exceed the speed limit, tail gate, etc. I see every one of these laws broken every day I go to work. What's another law or two as long as we feel good about it. Just thank we can drive down the road and when we see someone talking on a cell phone we can call the cops on our cell phone to report the crime. That should cause the coffee houses to clear out as the cops go after that phone criminal. Great Ideal. I'm with you, boy! We need more laws! I'll really feel safe then!

Well said! Used with a hands-free device, a cellphone is no more inherently dangerous, probably less so, than daydreaming, tuning or singing along with the radio, carrying on a conversation, dealing with the kids, checking the map, grooming or eating while driving. The organizers of this forum are correct to frame the issue in terms of driver distraction. How often do you see the driver in the car ahead continually looking at the passenger with whom he or she is carrying on a conversation? How can you seriously maintain that a cell phone user is more dangerous? While the technology could improve, the real problems are bad drivers, and highway patrols that prefer speeding ticket revenue over real traffic safety.

The only effective way to increase safety on the road is to enforce existing and yet to be passed laws. Some people are not conscientious by nature. I'll bet there are people who deliberately run red lights as well as those who do it because they are distracted. The guy who hit Stephen King, the author, was distracted because his dog got into his ice chest while he was driving. This guy had a suspended license and this collision seriously injured Mr. King. All he got was an extended suspension and a 6 month suspended jail sentence. Should pets be required to be in cages during transport? YES. Should this guy have been treated more harshly? YES. Is driving recklessly because you are applying make-up or reading a paper or talking on the phone an offense? YES. In Texas it's legal to have a loaded gun and an open container of alcohol in your car as long as you are traversing at least three counties. Would I ever do it? NO.

DITTO!

DITTO

Ditto. Sorry I can't be more original, but I could not have said it better.

We live in a society today where no one wants to take responsibility for their actions. Distractions while driving are so numerous you could go on for days listing them. Are we going to legislate laws for each and every one or enforce the current laws for poor and dangerous driving. The other day, I kid you not, I saw a guy with a Big Mac in one hand, shoveling french fries into his mouth with the other. How was he controlling his car. Other distractions I see include SUVs, and trucks that are too high for me to see around, over, or through. Are we going to ban them? Tinted windows I cannot see through. Accidents alongside the road. Who hasn't slowed down to lookieloo possibly causing the guy behind you to have an accident? Billboards are distracting. Children screaming in the car. See, there are so many things you could list which could be distracting. Cell phone is distracting, yes, but we certainly don't need any more laws. What's next, legislation telling me when I can go to the bathroom.

Sure lets ticket people for not wearing a seatbelt; but then why is it OK for a person to be talking on the phone, smoking a cigarette, and putting on make-up at the same time. I saw that last week, just before she ploughed into a poor guy stopped in traffic. She must have had three hands to do it but it is ok right? I belive we need to spend more money on research to prevent accidents than protecting people involved in accidents(ie air bags, seat belts). Id like the idea of a radar type device that screams at you when you may be going to fast and could ram another car, or would let you know your about to back into something. I would trade the seatbelt law for a law that says you have to keep two hands on the wheel.

We do not need new laws telling people what they cannot do while driving. If we pass laws banning cell phones while driving where does it end? Changing the channel on our radios? Drinking coffee? Everything in life is dangerous and it is not the place of government to protect us from ourselves at the expense of leaving us free to live our lives as we choose. I do not currently need a cell phone, but if I did need to use one while I was driving that should be my choice, not someone in DC.

I agree that individuals should take responsibility for their own actions. But that doesn't apply here, because drivers distracted by cellphones are killing other innocent people. The highways and roads are public facilities, and the agencies which maintain those roads for public use have a right and a responsibility to enact laws that keep them safe. I suspect the true number of accidents caused by "techno-distraction" is much higher than we know. If you had a wreck, would you tell the police you were trying to dial your girlfriend on your cellphone? No, you simply "lost control". I say the above as someone who has a cellphone and formerly used it while driving. After I almost caused a wreck one day trying to dial it, I stopped. If we can enforce seat belt rules it should be easier to enforce cellphone rules. You can tell half a mile away if somebody's using one. Of course, there should be exceptions for provable (medical or legal) emergencies.

CFUs remind me of that cop-out line: "I can do whatever i like long as i dont hurt anyone" Thing is..it USUALLY DOES. CFUs who get into or cause accidents *deserve everything that happens to them afterwards*

Notihng angers me more than driving behind someone who is way UNDER the speed limit, and then i see after I pass them (legally) that they are totally into a phone conversation. It wasn't the original idea that they were driving safe. no.

What about the passengers? Are they to be banned from emailing, talking, ect? Many of the proposals by the "private citizens" would use technology that would stop cell phone use of the non-operator as well. Soon I hope to be able to afford a driver part of the time so that I can use MORE technology and remain mobile. I drive from Houston to Dallas once a month and spend almost all that time on the phone, coming and going. I can't waste to time, and flying takes nearly as long to get from my office to the airport to then fly then get a rental, then drive. No I need mobile, and if laws like this get passed at least it will make jobs for more drivers, I would have to have a driver for my car so I could make money. Not being online 24/7 and on cell 18 hours a day would cost me a third of my income. That's $30K I won't lose for a couple of hundred dollars in fines. Like spending it's a cost vs. benefits situation. A full speed I can make the airport here from my office in about 25 minutes, not a rush hour. At 70 it takes 40 minutes plus. If I need to be there then passsing you a 100mph is going to happen. But at full boogie I don't use my phone, just the e-maps! For those of us who are not wage slave but MAKE MONEY! Time is money, lost opp

What about the passengers? Are they to be banned from emailing, talking, ect? Many of the proposals by the "private citizens" would use technology that could stop cell phone use of the non-operator as well. Soon I hope to be able to afford a driver part of the time so that I can use MORE technology and remain mobile. I drive from Houston to Dallas once a month and spend almost all that time on the phone, coming and going. I can't waste the time, and flying takes nearly as long to get from my office to the airport to then fly then get a rental, then drive. No I need mobile, and if laws like this get passed at least it will make jobs for more drivers, I would have to have a driver for my car so I could make money. Not being online 24/7 and on cell 18 hours a day would cost me a third of my income. That's $30K I won't lose for a couple of hundred dollars in fines. Like speeding it's a cost vs. benefits situation. At full speed I can make the airport here from my office in about 25 minutes, not at rush hour. At 70 it takes 40 minutes plus. If I need to be there then passsing you a 100mph is going to happen. But at full boogie I don't use my phone, just the e-maps! For those of us who are not wage slave but MAKE MONEY! Time is money, lost time doesn't return

Well, I expect you'll be ok regardless of the legislative outcome. I doubt that anyone would pass laws or make restrictions on the actions of passengers. My primary concern is that people are wanting to limit the freedoms of safe drivers. I can (and do) safely talk on a cell phone and navigate by GPS and computer. I drive the same speed as the cars around me and religiously use my turn signals. If I need to jot down notes or look up something then I pull over. I don't feel that I'm doing anything wrong.

The behavior on today's roads is like living in Tombstone a century ago. The fastest gun (most agressive driver) rules the roost. Laws don't mean anything to him. We can pass laws until the cows come home, but if there isn't anyone out there enforcing them, what good are they? So, I agree. We need ENFORCEMENT, not new laws. If the local police are too busy, then let's appoint qualified citizens to phone in violations, or use cameras. Why don't we put a list of a chronic traffic offender's offences on the side of his car so he might be a little embarassed about his behavior?

I guess you were in too much of a hurry to read what I wrote. I said that if you needed to keep busy all the time you should hire a driver so you can work as a passenger. You also didn't understand what I said about the value of your time. I know you think that you are very important, and your job is just absolutely essential to the future of the universe, but your time is NOT any more valuable to me than anyone else's time. When you are in public you have no right to put people at risk just to save yourself some time, no matter who you are. This is the essence of the whole argument: selfish people who think only of themselves versus the public they are endangering. You made my point better than I did!

Right on!!! It's not HIS road.

The main problem I have seen with any enforcement is the willingness of the officer involved to actually enforce a law no matter what the law is. I am a former over-the-road driver so I have had the experience of being able to see most of our country through the windshield. I have seen drivers run red lights with an officer sitting at the light and nothing happens. I have seen drivers running way over the speed limit and officers do nothing. I am not anti-police because I have also seen officers go beyond the call of duty to help people. It is just that no matter how many laws and regulations are passed it will still be up to the individual officer to actually enforce those laws and regulations and if he/she is unwilling to enforce them because they feel that other things are more important, i.e. catching criminals etc., then why even pass the law.

You need your license pulled and be issued a bicyle. You also need spelling and grammer lessons.

A simple check of the relevant phone records would quickly and simply provide evidence as to whether or not the phone was in use at the time of the collision. That record could create a presumption that it would then be up to the offending driver to rebut, e.g. by showing that someone other than the driver was using the phone (or other device).

It strikes me that such reckless driving statutes, unless they're addressed to specific forms of behaviour, merely provide a suitably minded officer with the ability to arbitrarily interfere with drivers rather than addressing actually detrimental behaviour. I would much rather have more narrowly drawn statutes that address concrete forms of behaviour that distract drivers (such as cell-phone use) than the carte blanc given by a reckless driving statute. perhaps we ought to repeal the general and enact new, narrowly drawn statutes.

The comment suggests the need to have narrowly drawn rules that attack only that behaviour that is demonstrably detrimental. A simple compromise would be to allow hands-free use of cell-phones on, e.g., limited access roadways. Another alternative would be to provide a basic national/state framework that only addressed the worst sorts of behaviour (e.g. reading the paper while driving, or reading e-mails) and leave other, less detrimental behaviour to be addressed, or not, on a local level (e.g. by town or locality ordinances that would only have an impact on heavily traveled roadways within towns and not on highways).

Question: do you use hands-free when driving? If not then you are a danger to others. Do you glance at the computer to read a map? If so then you are a danger to others. If it takes even a second for you to orient yourself visually to a computer map then that's a full second in which your car is essentially an unguided missile. At least you pull over to take notes.

Dana, I agree that there are some, perhaps many, people that cannot safely operate a vehicle while talking on the phone, reading a map, brushing their hair, etc. However, as I've said before, I don't want to see narrow ly defined laws prohibiting cellphone use or other activities, because I and many people I know and/or work with drive safely every day while operating computers, talking on the phone, etc. Also, with respect to in-car navigation systems or computer-based mapping programs with GPS: when properly configured, these systems are far less distracting than paper maps. Very few people will actually pull off the road to fold a paper map and get their bearings, I'd rather see people occassionally glancing down at a computer screen than be totally distracted folding a map.

I wonder how many times police officers have written tickets for speeding, electric signal violations etc. only to have the guilty person hire an attorney to have the ticket reclassified to a non-moving violation. Many times the officers are required to attend court appearances on their time-off only to have the judge or attorney for the person dismiss the ticket or drop it to a lower charge rather than make the person pay the fine and hopefully learn from their mistake! On the topic of cell phones, how many times have accidents been caused and the person involved admit that they were actually using the cell phone?

You sound like a blithering idiot and possibly, a drug-lord. Any INS agents out there?

Hang on a second, let's try to refrain from personal attacks here. This forum exists to promote open discussion of several controversial issues. Attacking individuals dampens the atmosphere. If you disagree with someone's stance, chime in and counter their position. The comments in the "What about Non-Drivers" posting (I believe) was intended to counter the suggestions that electronic devices should be disabled either when a vehicle is in gear or in motion, and in this light I believe that the points brought up are valid-- we don't need to be restricting the actions of passengers so long as they aren't a distraction to the driver.

First of all let's get a handle on what is a right and what is a privilege. My right to live cannot be overuled by your privilege to drive. Period. Anything you do to endanger me or other drivers on the road is NOT A RIGHT. It is a privilege. Unfortunately selfish people often try to over ride other peoples rights so they can have their way. I find it unbelievable that some people are so hung up on their puny little lives that they think they have the right to do anything they want no matter who it endangers or kills. That callous attitude is the cause of the proposed legilation to ban cell phone use by drivers. This problem with inattentive cell phone users is highly visible and extremely dangerous therefore is being dealt with accordingly. Obviously a little good judgement would have stopped this movement before it started, but now too many people are being maimed and killed for us to ignore it. Bad judgement is not a right. Pass the ban. Save lives.

WOW I'm impressed! You must really be important. What a JERK!!! Grow UP. When you finally do have that big accident your trying to cause (just to save money). I hope you get laid up in the hospital for a couple of years to think about what a loser you are. I also hope that the peolple you hit survive OK and sue you for everything you've got and everything you will make for the next 20 years. If your so important how come you don't have a full time driver? What a phony!!!

Tinted windows are definitely a problem. Visibility is the most valuable way to avoid accidents. They look cool but I sure hate to have them in front of me especially SUV's or pickups. I usually try to get a smaller car between me and them to buy some reaction time. I would like to see something happen that would (I hate to use this unpopular word) regulate this so that it cannot be tinted so much that a driver behind can't see through to the car ahead of them. What were they thinking when they let this get started?

I REALLY LIKE THE IDEA THAT CAR CELL PHONES NOT BE ABLE TO WORK WHILE THE CAR IS RUNNING. GREAT IDEA!!!!! Or how about a law that a driver MUST PULL OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD UNTIL DONE SPEAKING ON THE PHONE - Then be able to pull back out in traffic. 99% of those on cell phones don't know if they are on foot or horseback while chatting/listening on the phone. A drivers attention should always be 100% on his driving and what is going on around him. Ever follow someone who is on a car phone? They have delayed reactions to everything!!! I am nervous when a driver in front of me is on a phone as they could easy involve me in an accident because they are not paying close attention to their driving, but even worse is when I check out my rear-view mirror and see the person behind me is on a phone!!! I tense up then as the chances of being 'rear-ended' have just increased dramatically!!! What's the difference between listening to a radio or passenger in your car as compared to a cell phone, you ask? You can stop listening to the radio any time and not feel you missed anything, as for your passinger, they can see what's ahead and why you stopped listening to them, but as for a cell phone, the driver is concentrating on THAT CONVERSATION and their driving then becomes SECOND in their mind, kind of like watching tv with the sound turned off . No matter how good a person feels they can 'handle' both driving and concentrating on a cell phone, only ONE can be FIRST in attention and having observed drivers on phones, the #1 priority is not their driving - - they do stupid stuff that endangers the rest of us and they don't even realize it!! They just keep on going , not realizing they just ran a red light (because the car on their left got the green arrow for a left turn and the person on the phone see's the car next to them move - - so they do the same, to keep up in traffic,OF COURSE!!! Meanwhile the guy across from him who has a 'green arrow' to make a left is doing a loop-de-loo trying to avoid hitting the jerk who goes on his merry way not realizing what has just happened. And while doing that loop-de-loop I almost get hit by that car who is trying to avoid the jerk on the cell phone that has no idea of what is REALLY going on in traffic!!!Car phones are GREAT for emergencies - - and should be used for just that!!! If a call is really THAT important, then why not pull over until the conversation is done and then pull back into traffic when the drivers FULL attention can be back on his driving. Some state had results from a study that showed drivers on cell-phones were FOUR TIMES MORE DANGEROUS THAN DRUNK DRIVERS!!! GREAT!!! We really need that on the road with us!!!Some states ARE passing laws that drivers must pull over and stop while on car-phones! GOOD FOR THEM! I wish it were the law in all of our great 50 states!!!! (passingers of course could use the car-phones anytime)We need laws to make the roads SAFER - not more 'toys' to distract the driver ( if the driver wants to play with the 'toys', make a law for him to have to pull over and out of traffic, then he can give the 'toy' his full attention and get the info etc. it is he is searching for.

GREAT IDEA!!! GREAT IDEA!!! It's so simple that the 'power's that be' probably won't understand or 'get it'!!! It's what should have been done right from the VERY BEGINING!!!! RIGHT ON!!! SUPER IDEA!!!!Wish I could take credit for thinking of something so 'common sense'!!

That is a GREAT IDEA!!!! Why didn't the auto industry think of something this simple and safe (safe for the rest of us on the road too!)SMART - SMART - SMART - SMART!! Auto makers - ARE YOU LISTENING??? (studies have shown that drivers on carphones are FOUR TIMES MORE DANGEROUS THAN DRUNK DRIVERS - do YOU really want someone on a carphone (same as a drunk) behind you in traffic?? I DON'T!!)

making more laws is not the solution, fisrt, it is no one elses business other than the person talking on the phone, second, you cant enfore it effectivly and we already cant or dont enforce all the other driving rules there are. third and most importantly more stupid regulations will only lead to even more. It seems like a good idea now, we all want to be safe on the road, but whap happens when politicians want to be talling us what music is safest to listen to while driving or that its unsafe to have passengers, those are potential tips to safer driving right? This does not only apply to driving, it is evrywhere, the tobacco lawsuits to name the big one. restrictive and unessisary laws will and have alreay taken away thousands of our personal freedoms... These things need to be worked out by individuals, we dont need to pass yet another one size fits all restriction, they dont work and will only cause more problems.

You quote the wonderful study that said cell phone users are 4 times more likely to get in an accident than non-users, but that is just one study-- Harvard just completed a study where they found the risk of a cellphone user being killed in a accident as 80% less than while driving drunk, and the risk of being killed by a cellphone user as 92% less than the risk of being killed by a drunk driver. The report is quoted as saying "While cellular phone use has grown 17 fold between 1990-1998, US traffic fatalities have continued a steady decline that began more than 30 years ago."

Over the last few weeks I've seen a variety of topics discussed on the regulations page. This is clearly an emotional issue for some people, and I don't think there is a simple answer to all that has been discussed. However, I believe that if government, industry and academia work together, deployed systems can be designed so lives will be saved as a result of new technology in the vehicle. Are knee-jerk reactions in the area of regulations and enforcement wise at this point? Also, making sure the systems are integrated into the vehicle is extremely important, much more than the ad-hoc introduction of technology which can lead to human factors issues.

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(Question submitted to Michael Goodman, and Response prepared by Thomas Ranney, Transportation Research Center; and Elizabeth Mazzae, NHTSA)

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Interesting point. In a similar situation a number of cities are suing handgun manufactureres because of people killed accidentally by handguns. Seems like the cat is out of the bag on this already. I would think cities/towns could sue cell phone companies for supplying phones to people to use in an obviously hazardous environment. More people are killed by drivers using their cell phones than by handguns. Looks like the precedent has been set, suing the cell phone companies for creating the hazard should be OK too.

Your article would be more meaningful if you defined the "15-second rule".