To me, all the comments in some way or another are contrasting the good of society with the good of the individual. The clash comes when, say, careful driver Lorica must obey rules designed to prevent uncareful drivers (Anthony’s solitare player, say) from harming the rest of us.

Sometimes you’re judged as an individual; sometimes as member of a group. And that’s not always fair. But that’s the way it is.

I remember when I was a little girl I was in the backseat standing up behind my daddy driving with my arms around his neck. Looking right over his shoulder.

I think the increase in autism can be directly linked to the mandate to keep kids strapped down in car seats like baby astronauts or NASCAR drivers. This deprives kids of the social contact and interaction with their parents they so desperately need. If you look at it, the rise in car seat laws correlates with the increase in autism, kids aren’t allowed to move around and explore their boundaries and interact and touch their parents and such when strapped to car seats, and rear facing ones are particularly bad, as they disturb the normal locomotion sense, going backwards is bad for kids. And we all know correlation means causation!

So there, I’ve proven that car seat and seat belt laws cause autism! Hey, the correlation is stronger than that for mercury preservatives in vaccines…

Which is why mentioned banning drunk driving in my post: it’s a reasonable infringement because of what alchohol does to your ability to think clearly and make good decisons.

And the studies I cited are only a few among a large and growing body that show that using a cell phone while driving impairs the driver as much or more than alcohol — one study even showed that the driving skills of a 20-year old declined to the level of a 70-year old when on a mobile. (Hands-free sets aren’t much better, either, I’m afraid.) Whether the impairment comes from too many martinis or calling ahead for Chinese take-out, the effect is the same. That’s what we should keep in mind.

Restricting it is one thing. Banning it is something else altogether.

I’m suspicious of bans, since they only encourage people to get around them. Like I wrote before, I lean toward making people on a cell when an accident happens automatically liable, as we treat rear-enders and, I think, drunks.

If a study showed that having a radio in your car led to fatal accidents, would you be in favor of banning radios? Same same for passsengers? TVs?

If, and let me emphasize the “if,” you could provide multiple, well-designed studies that showed these activities impaired a driver’s ability as much as alcohol, then, yes, I would give serious consideration to arguments for restricting or even banning them. To do otherwise would be irrational.

(Digression: I was once driving on the 405 in heavy, slow traffic, when I passed a guy in a van who, while driving, was also playing Windows Solitaire on a laptop! )

Back to topic: Trouble is, ST, I think you’re setting up several straw-men with your arguments in the last quote. The studies I cited are only a few that have shown the dangers posed by cell-phone use while driving. I haven’t seen any that show the opposite. (Doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I just haven’t found them) And I honestly doubt you could find a single, recent, well-constructed study showing similar problems with car radios, for example, let alone several of them.

Trust me, I’m very suspicious of new regulations and laws. Lord knows, we get plenty every day out here. (Did you know the California legislature passes an average of three new laws per day? Argh!) And I well know that the natural urge of bureaucrats and legislators is to slide down that slippery slope to expand their reach and justify their paychecks. That’s why we need to be suspicious of all new laws that infringe on individual liberty. But, when a reasonable argument –backed by evidence– can be made of the dangers posed by an activity, then it would be foolish to take a doctrinaire stand against any attempt to regulate it, including banning. That’s not skepticism, that’s just stubbornness.

Good discussion! I’ve enjoyed reading all the different views in this thread. Who’d have thought a question about motor-vehicle regulations could arouse such passion?

Via The Belmont Club, we learn in The Telegraph of the latest example of nanny-statism run amok in Britain: food police who will come into your homes to make sure you don’t eat the wrong thing or waste leftovers. Home……

I can understand why people feel that there is a need for such a law, but I, too, am weary of banning phone use altogether.

Most mature drivers can deal with the radio without taking their eyes off the road or being too distracted.

I can almost always spot someone who is talking on the phone by the erratic way they are driving. In particular I am amazed at the number of people who will make a left hand turn with the phone blocking their vision since most people hold a phone on the left side.

People get run over by cars and trains while texting, listening to iPods, whatever, no idea of what the term situational awareness means. Until we generate a way to make the upcoming generations satisfied with reality alone, you’ll never get rid of this issue.

Not all the time are these folks drunk. Not all the time are these folks on cell phones. Not all the time are they grannies staring through the steering wheel while clutching tightly to what remains of their driving records, or the hyperagressive types who, heaven forfend, are so much more important than the rest of us that we should part traffic like the Red Sea in order to allow them passage. But a significant portion?? Oh yeah.

Speaking with tarnished halo,
– kd

But life in America is a constant negotiation over the boundary between personal liberty and our responsibility toward others. We do it all the time and in all aspects of our lives; one way we do that is by banning drinking and driving. We infringe on the individual’s liberty to drink not so much for what he may do to himself, but because of the grave risk to the property and lives of others.

Which is why mentioned banning drunk driving in my post: it’s a reasonable infringement because of what alchohol does to your ability to think clearly and make good decisons.

If the same can be empirically shown about driving and cell-phone use (and I think it has been), then I have no problem restricting it.

Restricting it is one thing. Banning it is something else altogether.

If a study showed that having a radio in your car led to fatal accidents, would you be in favor of banning radios? Same same for passsengers? TVs? We can find studies that support of a whole host of well-meaning but flawed policy proposals – and the left does this far more so than the right – but in the end, would it make the infringment right? How far are we willing to go before we realize we’ve gone too far and have given the state too much control over what we do? How much is too much? I’m a responsible driver with my phone and encourage family and friends to be so as well – why should I be punished for the failure of others to be responsible with theirs?