Slippery Slopes in the Car
A new study shows that more than a third of motorists in Edinburgh admitted texting on a mobile phone while driving. Tons of people are getting tickets over there for using their cell phones while they drive.
I recently had a conversation with somebody about this sort of thing. I tend to be weary of slippery slopes in the law.
I can agree that it can be distracting to use a cell phone in the car. I think people can potentially be more distracted by speaking to people in the back seat, or by selecting music on their ipod, or by navigation systems they have to look at, or by DVD players showing movies in the back seat that the driver listens to. Pagers are worse too, because you have to look at them.
Where do we draw the line?
I recently had a conversation with somebody about this sort of thing. I tend to be weary of slippery slopes in the law.
I can agree that it can be distracting to use a cell phone in the car. I think people can potentially be more distracted by speaking to people in the back seat, or by selecting music on their ipod, or by navigation systems they have to look at, or by DVD players showing movies in the back seat that the driver listens to. Pagers are worse too, because you have to look at them.
Where do we draw the line?
I currently live in NJ, one of the most over-regulated states in the US. It's just too darn populated. One of the chief mistakes a society makes in this situation is to try legislating common sense. There is no end of fools and idiots on the loose. You can't make every stupid thing they do a crime. If you did that, you'd be locking up a ridiculous portion of your population. That would spawn a prison-based economy and then you'd end up with... The United States of America. Land of the Free: no way! By the way, tell smokers to quit now, before they're turned into criminals, too. It's coming...
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