Randall Paul Jenkins, Esq. » Blog Archive

As I hope all of you living in California know, July 1 is the beginning of the hands free cell phone law. You cannot talk on a cell phone with it pressed against your ear, you can however take your eyes off the road to text, email, blog, check traffic, etc. Yes, I actually do find the law to be a little ridiculous, how did you know?

A large movement in support of this law came from a Harvard Center study that everyone and their brother quotes as proof that this law will save lives. I decided to steal a pull from Wired, who ran an article about this law, and feel similarly to myself.

Wired

Studies by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (.pdf) suggest 2,600 people are killed and as many as 330,000 people are injured each year in the United States in cellphone-related driving accidents.

The part I really wish Wired would have brought up is as follows; How many of those 2600 people killed and 330,000 injured were in accidents involving bad drivers, speeding drivers, etc.? People don’t like to think about those sorts of things, they like to try to solve problems by eliminating things coincidentally involved. I’m not saying this is a horrible idea, and that it won’t help people to focus on the road, I’m just saying the real problem is the people who don’t focus on the road, not 1 of multiple things they could do that could distract them.

This is much like the logic that if you don’t allow kids to wear certain clothes, they will behave better and be more focused. People should start looking at the cause, to be able to solve the problem they have with the effect. It’s simple physics.

Things still legal to do in the car; put on makeup, shave, make out, wind your watch, read, type, write, search your iPod for “99 Problems” by Jay-Z, hit and/or yell at your kids, search through papers in the backseat, watch DVD’s, etc., etc.

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