[IP] approve:sagapo more on more on Silliness in Action: California Poised for Cell Phone Ban
Begin forwarded message:
From: steven cherry <steven@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 27, 2006 4:31:22 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] more on more on Silliness in Action: California
Poised for Cell Phone Ban
From: Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Of course, cell phones pale compared to the distractions of, say,
spilling coffee in your lap, unwrapping a sandwich, managing
children in the car, and so forth.
To my experience, they're not. There are no social conventions that
keep you from just ignoring the spilt coffee or from tossing the
sandwich onto the passenger seat.
I drove a 104-mile-per-day highway commute through northern New
Jersey for more than two years, about six years ago. During that
time, I myself ate breakfast, drank coffee, did word puzzles, fiddled
with the radio, and wrote stray notes into a notebook I kept in the
car for that purpose. I also got pretty good at driving with my left
leg and also with driving with cruise control in traffic and steering
with my knees.
My fellow commuters did pretty much the same things and more,
including applying makeup and reading broadsheet newspapers draped
across the steering wheel.
None of this, in my opinion, did much to impede our abilities to
drive safely.
Driving with a cellphone, on the other hand, is an interactive
experience, one that has long years of social norms attached to it,
social norms that were developed in offices and living rooms and are
ill-suited to high-speed mobile situations, or any mobile situations
for that matter. On the streets of Manhattan, where it seems every
other person is on the phone, I've seen pedestrians walk into other
people and even trees and newsstands because they're so involved with
their phone calls.
I know I myself am a much worse driver when on the phone, indeed, I'm
not as good a driver when I have a passenger, and the cellphone
interaction is much more involving and distracting. I honestly think
if the average IP reader looked inward he or she would see the same
thing. I agree with Lauren. The hands-on/hands-free element is the
least of it, and either we ban all driver cellphone use or none of it.
Steven
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