banning cell phones (was: 30 days...)

[quk@isham-research.demon.co.uk (Phil Payne)]

In message <35DF9D83.243A9B86@felix.physics.sunysb.edu> Andrei Talalaevskii writes:

>> Cellphone use while driving is unsafe period.
>
> And so as giving an access to anyone to the liquor store. Do you think
> that fighting alcohol related crime and alcohol related health problems
> with the PROHIBITION was a right choice in '30s ? Did it make sense? Did
> it help?

WHOA!!!

Who changed the thread title?  This isn't about banning cellphones -
it's about banning distractions while driving.  Swigging from a Scotch
bottle is also dostracting - so is shaving, applying makeup, reading
the paper, putting on a necktie, etc.

NO ONE HAS SUGGESTED BANNING CELLPHONES.

> Tuning the radio while driving may also be unsafe.

It is.  It's why Audi commissioned a professor at Munich University
to produce the ultimate "low intervention" car radio.

> There were several political campaigns recently: SPEED KILLS! DWI KILLS!
> Both statements are true _in_principle_ . What was and still is wrong
> with these campaigns? First of all the motivation. The main motivation
> is fundraising for budgets at all levels.

This is unique to the USA.  In the rest of the world, income from fines
does not go to the collecting authority.

> I feel that simply banning cell phones is of as much common sense than
> above mentioned campaigns.

Again, who's talking about banning them?  Just pull over for a couple
of seconds.

> ...  But no less than looking up the direction without first
> pulling over to stop. There is no law banning that.

There is here.  And a tanker driver who disobeyed the law and common
sense on the M56 about eighteen months ago and failed to notice that
the traffic in front had stopped is still in jail because of it.

--
 Phil Payne
 Phone: 0385 302803   Fax: 01536 723021
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