Cell phones

It’s going to be pretty hard to make it a law not to drive while on the cellphone when all the cops do it. Worse, they are sometimes typing on their keyboard while driving.

The problem is, the cellphone has become an integral part of our everyday lives. Some of us can hardly function without them. Admittedly, some of the calls go like this:

“What are you doing? Yeah, I’m just chilling. Driving and chilling. Well, see you later.”

But some of the calls are actually important or even useful.

So let’s take a page from the laws already on the books. It is illegal to drink and drive, of course. What you may not know is that if you get in an accident and you are driving under the influence, you must prove that you are innocent. In other words, you are automatically assumed to be guilty until you prove otherwise.

We should expand this law to include ‘talking on the cellphone, dialing a call or text messaging.’ If you get into an accident while on the phone, you must prove that you didn’t cause the problem.

Here’s what would happen. You get a call in traffic. If it is Norm checking to see if you are indeed chilling, you either ignore it or say “Yeah, I’m chilling but I have to drive. Later” and hang-up. Or if it is something that you need to know, like your appointment has canceled or something in your schedule has changed, you have the person give you the information fast and hang-up. Or you say, “I’m in traffic. I’ll pull over in a minute and call you back.”

But it is unrealistic to think that we will ban cellphones while driving.

It is also a law that bicycles have to have a light on for night driving, but the bike cops don’t have any lights.

Fewer laws, better enforcement.