As if we needed any more proof that the push for cell phone bans is driven emotion and fear more than rational debate. But I guess since the main effect of this legislation is to appease stay-at-home moms and technophobic seniors, signing the bill on the Oparh show is probably a good stunt.
WNEM has the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘cell phone ban’
MI Governor to sign texting ban on the Oprah Show
Michigan did it [distracted driving]
From Gongwer:
The House has just approved a move to make texting while driving a primary offense.
The Republican-controlled Senate passed the primary offense measure after the House originally had approved making texting while driving a secondary offense, meaning a police officer would have to pull someone over for another traffic violation to cite a person for [...]
Why is no one talking about the benefits of using cell phones while driving?
Last year I was lost in Washington DC. It was late at night, I had just arrived in the city and I needed to make my way to a friend’s house in Virginia. Trouble was, my GPS device decided to stop working. This was particularly problematic because the only place I had the address stored [...]
Arguments for banning cell phones in cars
I spend a lot of time poking fun at the New York Times and other ’safety experts’ who want to banish cell phones from cars, so I thought it only fair to take some time to listen to some of their arguments. To kick things off, here is a recent public service ad from the Highway [...]
Will the safety experts call for a bumper sticker ban now? [distracted driving]
Trying to read a bumper sticker on another car can be distracting for many of us. And it can be especially dangerous if you tailgate the car in order to get a better view of the sticker.
But for some people, seeing a simple Obama-Biden sticker is enough to send them into a mad rage and deliberately cause [...]
Roads safer than ever before but the NYT still wants to ban cell phones
If you read all of the scary stories about how distracting cell phones are to drivers, you’d probably think that our roads are becoming a more dangerous place. After all, how could they not be? The ‘safety experts’ keep telling us that talking using cell phones while driving is as dangerous than driving drunk! And [...]
You can ban cell phones but you can’t ban stupid [distracted driving]
One of the reasons that cell phone bans don’t seem to reduce traffic accidents is that in the scheme of things, talking on the cell phone is not one of the more dangerous activities that drivers regularly engage in.
And even if you do managed to stop people from yakking on the phone, they’ll just come up with [...]
They thought car radios were dangerous too… [cell phone ban]
It strikes me that a lot of the hysteria about the dangers posed by cell phones in cars boils down to little more than plain old technophobia.
After all, there is no reason to believe that cell phones are uniquely distracting. Both academic studies and surveys suggest that they are in fact less of a distraction [...]
Cell phones aren’t dangerous, toddlers are.
For months I’ve been saying that when it comes to distracted driving, passengers—crying children, in particular—pose a greater accident risk than cell phones. That is why I proposed banning carpooling.
It seems that others are finally catching on. Today the Consumer Reports blog ran a post about how dangerous diving with kids can be and the [...]
This is where I draw the line [distracted driving]
Regular readers of this blog know that I am very skeptical of schemes to ban the use of cell phones in cars. After all, there is little reason to believe that using a cell phone while driving is any more distracting than, say, adjusting confusing radio controls or driving around with a car full of [...]
