Quote:
Originally Posted by Red-Mile-DJ
I like this idea.
Don't want your phone taken? Don't talk on it while driving. Pull over. Get a Blue-Tooth device, etc. Lots of choices. Don't text and drive. Put your freakin' phone away while driving!
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Agreed. I don't see how this is so hard for people to understand. If you don't want to be pulled over for speeding, don't speed. If you don't want to have your phone taken away, don't talk/text on it while operating a vehicle.
Go take a quick look in the gear grinder thread. There are hundreds of posts in there about how crappy drivers are. There are posts on them being distracted, not following rules and endangering the safety of others. These are people who are fully concentrating on driving. Now add in a phone conversation on a device that fits in the palm of your hand and is tough to see. This creates more unsafe drivers, both in quantity and danger levels.
I'd prefer they took away the cars for 24 hours, but there was likely some logic that people would rather keep their cars rather than their phones. It's probably easier for the police to hold 100 phones at the station, rather than towing 100 cars and storing them for 24 hours. When you leave people their cars, they are able to drive to pick up their confiscated phones.
If you gave $1,000 fines instead of confiscating property, you'd get the argument that it's just a cash grab. I'd be fine with this, and I'm also fine with the city being funded by cash grabs from law breakers instead of raising property taxes.