The New California Cell Phone Law

On July 1st, it became illegal to use a cell phone in one’s car in California and I am downright cantankerous. Granted one can use a phone with a hands-free feature, such as a Blue Tooth headset, but really the outrageous part of this is the slippery slope down which we are now rapidly sliding.

One only needs to look at the example of other countries, such as Australia and the United Kingdom to see where we are headed when it comes to the government micro-managing our daily lives. In both of those countries the price of gas is much higher than our prices and there is so much surveillance on the roadways that cars come to a virtual standstill on highways. If one is speeding there is no longer a need for a patrolman to pull him over because he will simply receive a citation in the mail. The local municipality will be expecting a check in the next twenty-one days, thank you.

When it comes to cell phones in cars, usage is already illegal in both of these countries. The fines in the U.K. are up to five hundred pound, or roughly one thousand dollars! For using a cell phone in your car! It seems that Orwell’s compatriots have taken his novel as a manual rather than a warning.

Herein lies the problem and said slippery slope. As soon as the state decides to make it illegal to use a cell phone, what is next? Eating a large cheeseburger is surely as distracting to one’s driving as simply talking with one hand on the wheel and one hand holding a phone to one’s ear. And what about screaming children? Should we make it illegal for children to scream in the backseats of cars because it will be too distracting to the driver? What about shaving, or doing one’s nails or hair or makeup, things that have been witnessed many times on Southern California’s freeways? Will listening to my favorite song, and God forbid singing along with it, soon be passé on my morning commute because they are just too distracting?

Besides focusing on simply one of the many distractions drivers can potentially face, this legislation is clearly missing the boat in another way. When I was a freshman in college we did an experiment in my psychology class. There were two parts; both to be timed. In the first part the participant had to try to perform two mental tasks at the same time, and in the second part the participant had to perform a mental task and a physical task simultaneously. The mental tasks were reading and listening, and the physical task was tapping one’s head.

Of course, the results showed that the first part was much slower than the second part, or that it is more difficult to perform two mental tasks than it is to simultaneously perform a mental and a physical task. Driving a car is both a mental and a physical task, like many things, while talking on a cell phone is mental task. Simply holding a phone to my ear isn’t enough of a physical task to distract me from driving well. I can hold a piece of wood to my ear with the same net effect. Therefore, if it is illegal to use a cell phone in a car for fear of mental obstruction, it must be illegal for a driver and a passenger to engage in a conversation while in the same car. It would then also be illegal to have a conversation with oneself, because then you are doubly distracted. Logical, right?

Californians, or at least many Southern Californians, live in our cars for hours per day. In an age in which all bills can be paid via telephone, the entire Internet is available via telephone, and all communication to the outside world is conducted by cell phone, the economy of time is crucial to those looking to get business done between leaving the driveway early in the morning and returning to it late in the evening.

Upon announcement of a recent proposal to tax beer at $0.30 per twelve ounce container a local radio show host suggested that if the California state budget is so askew and we are trying to find things to tax, we should place a premium tax on hotels close to the state capitol in Sacramento for the “morons” who write and pass these laws. I tend to agree. Better than continue to restrict our lifestyles.

Today I filled up my gas tank. Well, I didn’t fill it up all the way because I am an optimist, and I thought that the $4.65 per gallon was too high and would have to go down before my next fill-up. This price was a new record for me, but I am getting used to that benchmark. Every time I buy gas it becomes the highest price I have every paid. Considering that gas was a quarter of this cost just six years ago – reflecting a 345% increase when adjusted for normal annual inflation – this price seems rather high.

It also seems that perhaps the government just does not want us to drive. Imagine a train system running the lengths of Wilshire and Lincoln Boulevards, and down the middle of the 10 Freeway, Fairfax Avenue and all over the rest of the Los Angeles grid. That must be in the cards, right? With gas prices going through the roof and squeezing the middle and lower classes as hard as the economy already has been, and new legislation to stop us from using our phones in the car, the government is trying to make it so difficult to drive that we will be forced to seek alternatives. Well, when can I purchase my annual train fare? Maybe it will be available as soon as it is illegal to talk to my passenger.

I can live without my cell phone. I have lost it or intentionally left it at home before and never felt more connected to my surroundings. I enjoy time in nature and out of cell service, devoid of contact from any other life forms. The purpose of this paper is not to demand use of my cell phone at all times as a God-given right, but to demand my civil liberties. America was created out of outrage toward an oppressive mother country that would not listen to its demands and created laws out of control, and not necessarily logic or concern for its citizenry.

True, there will be car accidents caused by people using cell phones, but there will also be business and personal relationships cultivated, directions found and boredom quelled. But no longer legally. People tend to do what is best for them personally, but also tend to do what is right. If it is dangerous to drive on a phone many people will hang up. Some will not, at their own risk. Everyday life involves assumed risk and that may be one of the things that just makes it exciting.

The solution is for the government to create awareness on the potential dangers of reckless driving, including DWT (driving while talking), and not take away our right to make our own decisions just because a small percentage of the population chooses not to be responsible and know when to hang up. Education, not legislation, will make our roads and communities safer. We are now only left with the choice to hope our legislators will not continue down the slippery slope that could become much more European, Australian, and Orwellian. Call yours and encourage him or her to do so, just don’t call from your car.