Missoula one step closer to

[Tollwatch]

Hello Everyone!

This is my first post. I have lurked here for years and decided to chime in on the Cell phone while driving thread.

I think the only penalty should be a charge of "criminal neglect" if one is involved in a accident while using a cell.

The notion that we penalize the entire population because of the bad judgment of others is crazy and leads us down a slippery slope. Do we want a 100% safe world. How boring it would that be.

TW

[Haakon]

Originally Posted by Luke9686

It will do nothing to curb the problem. It's only a way of milking money out of people. They passed the same law here in Washington state a couple years ago. There are just as many people talking on phones now as there ever was.

That's because no police agency in WA enforces the law. They could sit on 520 and get far more people talking on the phone than speeding if they wanted to. But it's no surprise the law isn't enforced, they don't seem to care about inattentive driving, which was already a law, so why should they enforce another new law passed by the politicians?

[Timberwolf232]

Good lord! Why do so many people want the silly little laws? Yes there are dumb drivers... you could make 1000 laws about things people do while driving, yet the idiots will still be there. NOT GOING TO HELP.

Best thing to do is:
#1, make sure you are PAYING ATTENTION.
#2 Always have an out. (If you can maintain these simple things, you can survive driving in the big cities and rural areas.)
#3 Worry about what YOU do, and not so much about what everyone else is doing... simple enough?

[MTSilvertip]

I am the last person in the world to advocate more govenment intrusion, in this case I can at least see the reason as far as public safety is concerned.

I serve on a volunteer fire department responsible for a large area with a large number of roads that are poorly policed for speeding, very few control devices such as traffic lights, and a large population of "important" people that seem to feel the speed and that traffic laws don't apply to them. They have no concept of courtious or cautious driving.

Honestly, I hate cell phones worse than drunk drivers.

In my experience, you can pretty much count on drunks on Friday and Saturday nights, and fishing days and holidays.

Cell phone drivers are just as bad, (studys have proven that, the most recent I know of took place in England), but they can be on the road any time of dayor night, any day of the week.

Last year a woman on her cell ran a stop sign and killed herself and her 3 or 4 year old daughter. The baby in it's car seat survived, but there was no excuse for the wreck. Simple stupidity.

I have no problem with idiots like that removing themselves from the gene pool, but they always seem to take someone else with them.

I am not a fan of nusience laws like this one, but I can sure understand the reason it came about. If anyone would like to see why I think that, I would be happy to take you on one of our calls where the cell phone driver had their head removed in the wreck, a child is torn, bloody and broken, and the baby is in shock, it's eyes staring at you through a mask of blood and gore, and as a final ironic touch, the cell phone is lying on the seat next to the severed head, still connected to the other party.

After that, you can tell me how important it is to BS with your friend about some girl/guys butt that looks really cute in bicycle shorts while you are driving home from work instead of waiting the extra 10 minutes until you are in your drive way or stopped at the store.

I don't like intrusive laws, but sometimes there is a reason besides just money for the local coffers. When the citizen refuses to take responsibility for their own actions, the authorities sometimes have to step in to protect the rest of us.
Isn't that the reason we elect our local government, to provide protection from those too stupid to control themselves?
If not, why do we have laws against theft, or rape, or murder? I see cell phone driving as reckless endangerment not only to the driver, but their passengers, the other drivers, pedestrians, and anyone else unlucky enough to encounter these imbeciles.

Yeah, I support banning cells while driving.

[Heart]

Originally Posted by jimj

The problem is this law may or may not have saved your husband from being hit (sorry that happened btw and hope he didn't get hurt) as people will still do it only try to hide it making things worse. As has been said before, there's already laws on the books to deal with it without giving the cops more authority and causing the public more money they don't have (fighting bad tickets).
I wouldn't have much of a problem if they had said "we are tired of accidents caused by distraction and in that vein if you're involved in an accident your cell phone records will be looked at and if you were on the phone then you will be cited as a distracted driver and possibly be judged either partially or fully at fault".

There's no way of knowing if such a law would have saved his life, and yes he did get hurt. The reason I support it is so that it may deter some people if the punishment is steep enough. Same with seatbelts, I remember a time when hardly anyone wore them. People USED to laugh about this, and thought it was silly to wear a seatbelt. When I was a child we traveled all over the country without them on and I played freely in the backseat. We have known now that we don't do this, same goes with cell phone use.

The problem here is, everyone has known for years that cell phone use on the road is a serious distraction that causes wrecks. Even a recent train wreck was caused by someone texting. You can tell people not to use their phones while they drive, and lay down some stats proving it's dangerous. But you'll still have people who refuse to acknowledge this and use common sense. They should be punished and yes, there needs to be a law. When I see a person talking on their phone while they drive, this tells me this person is saying -- I DON'T CARE about YOU or YOUR FAMILY.

We have ways now of being able to use the phone in our cars with hands free head sets, and some people STILL will not use them. They'd rather put everyone elses lives at risk and complain about some silly law.

After nearly losing my husband to some idiot woman driving and chatting on her phone, I have zero respect and tolerance for people who need to hold the phone while they drive.

[ElkHunter]

The laws are already on the books. Exactly what does Wreckless Driving mean? Could certainly be used if you were weaving, not paying attention, etc, while using a cell phone.

The laws are there, plenty of them. Just need to enforce them when required.

If a person can talk on the phone and still be responsible, so be it. If they can't, ticket them with existing laws.

[mattman3seven]

Originally Posted by Timberwolf232

Good lord! Why do so many people want the silly little laws? Yes there are dumb drivers... you could make 1000 laws about things people do while driving, yet the idiots will still be there. NOT GOING TO HELP.

Best thing to do is:
#1, make sure you are PAYING ATTENTION.
#2 Always have an out. (If you can maintain these simple things, you can survive driving in the big cities and rural areas.)
#3 Worry about what YOU do, and not so much about what everyone else is doing... simple enough?

That's the biggest problem right there. #3. All most people do is worry about themselves, and are oblivious to their surroundings. You need to worry aobut yourself AND everyone else around you, because there are people who DO worry about only themselves and run into you!

But in the end, it seems NONE of the laws are made to actually protect anyone anymore. They're all made for that green stuff.