Bill to Limit Teen Cell Phone Use While Driving

Some reasons why teen-specific legislation makes sense (2.00 / 1)

Teen drivers are inexperienced drivers who really need to concentrate on the road. More experienced drivers shouldn't use cell phones while driving, either, but for most of them it's not nearly as dangerous.

Teens use cell phones (and other new technology) a lot more than older folks, making it more of an issue.

Habits are easy to form and hard to break. By shaping drivers' behavior at the beginning of their time behind the wheel, you get a lot of them to drive better throughout their lives. Admittedly, this makes just as much sense for adults who have just learned to drive (as does the first argument), but the vast majority of new drivers are teens.

Politically, restricting teen phoning while driving is a lot easier than restricting adult use. Teens under 18 don't vote, while their (over-?)protective parents do. If you tried to restrict adult use, you'd get a lot of voters screaming that you're taking away their freedom.

I'll confess to taking, and even placing, calls while driving, but it's a dumb thing to do. I'd support a ban for all ages, but it's probably impossible. If the realistic options are restricting teens or not restricting anybody, I'm all for restricting the teens.  

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by: LSadun @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 03:25:20 AM UTC

yeah but (0.00 / 0)

...that does nothing to discourage it as a habit by people who start driving after 18. Like me. I'm sure there is a curve of what the average age to start is and I'm curious if it really is so heavily weighted to under 18. I would think that at least out to 21 or 25 would cover much, much more people.

And do we really think that people who start driving at say 16 or 17 after a couple years time aren't going to pick up the habit anyways?

I guess we're looking at 2 factors- when do people start driving and when do they adopt the technology that is disruptive. The first group is probably fairly static, while the second from this point forward is actually going to start becoming older and older (in terms of cell phone use and texting) if only because it's much closer to near universal at the young end with way more room to grow at the older end. What's going to keep 30-45 year olds from breaking the habit as they start using cellular devices more? Or 50-65?

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by: Karl-Thomas Musselman @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 06:38:25 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

point i'm trying to make (0.00 / 0)

Is what is the point of just limiting it to 18 and under. I think you might have hit the nail on the head about the under 18 not being able to vote. People might actually vote against politicians who tried to take away their right to use cells while driving because it's a very real, very tangible issue. It's also far easier to agree with this when it is set up as "oh yes, those young people and their gadgets, they need to pay attention to the road and be responsible" which I find a little ageist.

Sure, people without cell phones or responsible users hate people on the phone while driving, but amazingly, once they become cell users they are prone to... talk on the phone while driving.  

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by: Karl-Thomas Musselman @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 06:42:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh, it's definitely ageist! (0.00 / 0)

A better law would apply to everybody in their first two years after getting a license, or maybe to everybody period. But that's a heckuva lot harder to pass. I'd much rather pass a bill that protects the teens (and the people the teens might hit!) than fail to pass a bill that protects everybody.

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by: LSadun @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 07:00:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hit the nail on the head (0.00 / 0)

Teens have little driving experience and need to form good driving habits, this bill helps get us there. And it is more politically feasible to pass than an outright cell phone driving ban.

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by: el_longhorn @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 16:39:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Nanny state slippery slope (1.00 / 2)

First they ban it for teens, then for adults.  Keep your goddamn hands off my cell phone.

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by: El Yoss @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 03:34:36 AM UTC

Insight from a Teen (5.00 / 1)

I must I concede that it can be challenging to not check an endlessly vibrating phone with the knowledge that a text has just been received. I find resiting to be especially difficult when I need to focus on something else. I'm also aware that

"after just 3 minutes of driving and talking on a cell phone there is a higher risk of an auto accident than when the driver is legally impaired with a .08 percent blood alcohol level."

I would assume the statistics are worse for texting because drivers must look at their phone...

I question why the ban doesn't span all age groups. If there is empirical evidence showing that adults using phones while driving are less dangerous than teens, I would understand limiting solely teens. However, I doubt this evidence exits. If it does, I would think that adults are still dangerous enough to warrant a ban for them as well.

Regardless, I support this bill because it will make driving safer for everyone, especially my peers.

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by: Grant McClure @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 03:38:34 AM UTC

So law enforcement (0.00 / 0)

is to guess the age of a driver before pulling them over or not?

Is the only reason you are limiting this to teens because of the huge opposition it would have if were to apply to all?

   

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by: citizenx @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 17:29:31 PM UTC

They already do (3.00 / 1)

Cops already have to guess. There are laws about children sitting in car seats up to a certain age. If a cop guesses wrong and the kid is old enough to not be in a car seat, he apologizes and move on. There are rules about drivers under 18 not being able to drive with certain kinds of passengers in the car, and the cops have to guess before enforcing those rules, too.  

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by: LSadun @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 19:55:12 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Expand it to all drivers (3.00 / 1)

in moving vehicles, period.

DRIVING is far more important than texting or yakking on the cell phone.
DRIVING is done when you're supposed to be paying attention to the conditions around you and other vehicles on the road, as well as pedestrians, animals, etc.
DRIVING obligates you to behave safely.

Nanny state? No. And if you want me to keep my

goddamn hands off

your phone, fine. You keep your phone turned off when you're driving on my road.
Or any road anybody give a damn about is driving on. Pay some attention to something besides your own convenience.

The life you save might be your own.

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by: BlackSheep1 @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 18:32:56 PM UTC

This bill doesn't go far enough. (1.00 / 1)

If our goal is to protect lives, Austin should take a truly progressive step and ban all cars.  Car accidents and fatalities are insanely frequent; this would protect many more lives than simply banning cell phones.  People would be forced to bike or walk resulting in a healthier population.  And it would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and decrease the need for war.

See how far hypothetical logic can go?

"Idle hands..."

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by: tonsoffun @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 20:22:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

dont like this at all (0.00 / 0)

I understand the importance for this kind of law but I just dont think its fair to single out a group of people, when its a trend among all drivers.

it will encourage police officers to profile younger looking people.  

And just logistically speaking how can an officer prove you are texting if they dont directly see your phone? Would an officer have to see a phone to suspect the driver is texting?

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by: alyssa chaos @ Fri Jan 23, 2009 at 23:44:18 PM UTC

Technology is not the enemy (0.00 / 0)

When I was 16, a month after acquiring my driver's license, I rear-ended a car while adjusting the sun visor.  Will Ortiz's law cover that?  You can focus on tech gadgets, and maybe it is a good idea, but the bottom line is that we need to keep our minds on the road and nowhere else.  Everything we do while driving, we must do carefully.

If we want to talk about car-evil tech gadgets, though, my vote would be to outlaw TV sets that attach to the front windshield.  I'm seeing more and more of them on the freeway, and it scares the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of me.

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by: Dale Napier @ Sun Jan 25, 2009 at 02:56:11 AM UTC

a ban on doing anything else while driving (0.00 / 0)

would save a lot of lives, no doubt.

Driving is tough. It's as close as 99 percent of the population will ever come to flying a plane, and it's done at high speeds in congested traffic with people who DON'T have to  be sober or instrument-certified.

The maintenance on cars is as variable (and often execrable) as the training and performance of drivers, and yes, a ban on the things would go a long way toward making us not just a healthier state, but a greener one -- and if we expanded it to the entire US we'd be doing the planet a favor.

I have an idea. Make anybody who has a cellphone and a car pay a luxury tax on both -- say double the annual fee for the car tags for each driver with a cell phone who uses that car, and double the monthly cell phone fee for each car the phone customer drives.

You'd have the money to pay for fast rail from Brownsville to Dumas in about six months, with spur lines for every town in Texas with a cell tower and a gas station.

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by: BlackSheep1 @ Sun Jan 25, 2009 at 06:48:50 AM UTC