The big debate: Talking on the phone, in the car
by Paul Schwalbach on Oct. 03, 2007, under Opinion‘Not all people who talk on their cell phones are unsafe idiots, but some people should not be allowed to drive, period.’
The story: Drivers who use mobile phones without hands-free devices would be subject to a $100 to $200 fine if a proposed initiative for the 2008 ballot were to receive Arizona voters’ approval.
Your take: The Citizen’s online community is skeptical a law can keep Arizona drivers from dialing while on the road. “People who throw caution to the wind and responsibility out the window,” won’t be deterred, says Eddi M.
For Kathi G. (author of the comment atop this column), the problem goes for drivers talking on cell phones and extends to motorists who let their dogs ride on their laps as they drive, and “senior citizens doing 10 miles under the speed limit as they peer out the windshield through the steering wheel.”
Naturally, readers had juicy stories to share. Bruce S. last month watched a woman “yakking away,” with a cell phone in her right hand and a large ice cream cone in her left. The woman turned a corner, Bruce reports. “She wasn’t doing very well, but she never put the phone down. No, sir, boy, that was an important call.”
Rob M. followed a driver who put down his cell phone only once, “to pick up his coffee for a swig,” during a 10-mile trip. Then he dialed another number and began talking again. Rob wants to know: “Who the hell are these people talking to and what do they have to talk about so much?”
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