Nanny State Says ‘No Cellphones’

I have to admit, when California started giving out tickets for not wearing a seat belt, my knee-jerk reaction was to oppose it.

My attitude was to ask what right does the state have to force people to wear a seat belt? Common sense should be enough.

This was one more reason why California has been known as the mother of all nanny states. Our legislators love telling us what they think is good for us. If we disagree, they use the power and force of the state to get compliance.

It’s kind of like a nanny making you finish your Brussels sprouts.

Only now if you continue to disobey, instead of not getting dessert, your driver’s license can be revoked.

However, after some consideration I began to understand the arguments about how it saves lives and severely reduces injury in an accident. The numbers made sense.

I realized that a lot of the same people who chose not to wear a seat belt also did not have enough insurance to pay for their medical care when they got in a wreck. Their medical care was going to be paid by someone, and someone usually means the taxpayer. My logic was that if wearing seat belts cuts down on serious injuries, then we all save money on medical care if people wear them.

I still may not like it, but at least we have some data, and it saves lives and money.

But then the nanny state struck again with the California Wireless Telephone Automobile Safety Act of 2006.

As we all know, this gem became effective Tuesday. Putting a cellphone to your ear while driving a car is now a crime.

Now let me come clean: I spend about 3,600 minutes of my life on a cellphone each month. That’s correct: I spend 60 hours a month, 15 hours a week or 2.14 hours a day on a cellphone. I also drive a car during a large portion of that time.

To say this law affects me would be an understatement. Before you start telling me all I need is a wireless earpiece, you should know that I have spent hundreds of dollars trying to find one that works. I have a drawer full of them.

The batteries run down, they are not comfortable to wear, and they sound like you are in a cave to whomever you are talking to.

I have had to end calls because I cannot understand what someone is saying to me and vice versa.

The fact of the matter is there is zero evidence that talking on a cellphone while driving is a safety issue.

In fact, the author of this bill, Santa Cruz Sen. Joe Simitian, who has been introducing an almost identical bill since 2002, has no data that this will save any lives or prevent accidents.

The CHP, which was required to do a study, concluded that they may cause some distraction, but they had no statistics to show it caused accidents.

In fact, a 2003 study by the AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety found that ‘reaching’ and ‘leaning’ were the most prevalent distractions when driving. Using a cellphone was eighth on the list.

I have no problem driving a car safely and talking on the phone at the same time, and I think most Californians can do the same.

Just because someone can’t chew gum and drive a car at the same time is no reason the rest of us should have to stick metal earpieces with blinking lights in our ears.

So here is what I propose: Simitian cites a recent study by Jed Kolko of the Public Policy Institute of California, which says the new law will lower yearly traffic deaths in California by 300, or about 7%.

If traffic deaths are down by July 1 of 2009 by any significant amount, then the law should stay in place.

If not, the law gets repealed. However, my guess is that if traffic deaths do decrease, Simitian will push what he has always wanted: to outlaw cellphones in cars entirely. You heard it here first.