[Igottago]

Originally Posted by Gozer

That's what bothers me about this law. No one can fully oppose making people safer, but passing a law that picks out one (obvious) distraction and making it illegal isn't going to dramatically increase driver attentiveness.

Instead, people will file this law away in the back of their head and only use their phone for "this time because it's important" or they use their phone often but instead of texting with the phone at the horizon, they have the phone on their lap so they won't get a ticket.

The danger is that drivers don't treat driving as a life-threatening task - which it clearly is.

I think it is. Cell phones are the single most distracting widespread technological change that drivers have had to deal with in the last 20 years. There are other things, but none have been as pervasive as cell phones. This law isn't coming out of nowhere, obviously cell phones have been a significant factor in safety on the roads. If eating pizza was a common factor in accidents as well, Im sure we would have legislation banning eating pizza from behind the wheel as well. But it just isn't as common a problem. Cell phones are a clear danger on the road. Its obvious. I don't see how anyone could really dispute that.