Quote :

"TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: They may or may not be in their cars, but there are definitely a lot of people tweeting, texting and talking today about the sweeping ban being proposed by NTSB chair, Deborah Hersman. DEBORAH HERSMAN: We know that this is going to be very unpopular with some people, but we're not here to win a popularity contest. We're here to do the right thing."

NPR Transcript

This being a college board, I would assume most people are going to be on a similar pace with this story, but I'm still curious what everyone thinks. It just seems like at some point in time you reach a boundary between eliminating carelessness of drivers who might danger other motorists, and just being too controlling. I remember going through drivers ed prior to them updating a lot of the statistics on car crashes and them talking about how many people got into collisions due to 'distracted driving' by messing with their radios. Are we going to outlaw those, too?

To me, one of the people interviewed during the NPR story nailed it...

Quote :

"SMITH: Jerry Cibley says a hands-free law might have saved his son, Jordan, who was 18 when he dropped his cell phone on the floor of his car and crashed into a tree trying to pick it up. But Cibley says the argument that even hands-free talking is distracting and needs to be banned is silly. JERRY CIBLEY: Let's ban car radios, too. I think that would be a good idea. And let's ban passengers and let's ban children. I mean, one of the biggest distractions are children in the backseats. We're not going to outlaw people from having their children."

I'm all for doing something to keep people from texting/looking through their contacts/dialing numbers while driving, but saying you're going to completely disable a device while driving seems a bit too meddling.

12/15/2011 9:17:22 AM

It is possible to drive safely without a hands-free set. It just means prioritizing your driving over your conversation.

That said, most people probably can't do it. I can't do it unless I'm having a really really really focused day and I'm actually aware of my own focus issues, a lot of people aren't. I can totally understand wanting to ban texting/emailing/surfing/and non-hands-free talking while behind the wheel.

I would also add that we should consider banning hands-free devices for young (under 18) drivers and old (over 70-or-so) drivers. Two groups of drivers who really needs a few distractions as possible.

There are too many stupid drivers out on the road, and even good drivers have bad days. Just the mere idea of a bunch of humans with different reactions all driving 1-3 ton vehicles can be a little scary and we just keep adding more and more distractions to the equation.

[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 9:27 AM. Reason : /]

12/15/2011 9:27:19 AM

Yeh, there are tons of distractions while driving and I'm not a fan of starting to ban certain behaviors/devices will others are left alone. I'd like to see some stats on the increase (?) in distracted driver wrecks over time and what was the distraction. While I don't particularly care for banning texting, in the end, it's a good thing since the law applies when moving. I don't agree with banning talking on a phone while driving (it's no different than talking to someone in the car or concentrating on listening to the radio). Further, would banning cell devices all together mean I can't use my phone for navigation and music? Are we going to ban stand-alone GPSs? Radios? MP3 players? CDs?

[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 9:31 AM. Reason : .]

12/15/2011 9:30:40 AM

The ban for minors is probably a good idea. Hell, many states already "ban passengers" in a sense by limiting how many non-relatives you can have in the car with you. Saying you can't be talking on a cell phone doesn't seem any less reasonable.

12/15/2011 9:42:37 AM

the real solution is to not hand licenses out all willy nilly.

bad drivers are bad drivers, regardless of if the distraction is a phone, the radio/mp3 player, a kid, or putting on makeup/eating in the car. Likewise, many people are perfectly fine talking on the phone while driving.

12/15/2011 10:30:26 AM