Possible cell phone ban in a small Kansas town

It hasn’t become law yet, but may if it’s passed by the town’s council at next month’s meeting. It’s not just a law against texting or a law requiring hands free use while driving, but a law banning ALL cell phone use while driving within the city (if they can call it a city) limits.



See http://www…6710401859

At the top of this page, click “topics”…Scroll down to “Distracted Driving”…THAT’s the topic for this thread…

I’d vote for it. Just this week a woman driving another car waved at me while she was also holding a cell phone to her ear and driving. What was she thinking about.

Joseph, Maybe She Was Just Being Friendly Or . . .

. . . Maybe the phone call was her dumping her boy friend.

:wink:

CSA

I think a ban would be a good idea. Have you seen how people drive when they are in an argument with their significant other? Even hands-free, driving on the phone is as bad or worse than driving drunk.

Would there be an exemption written in if you needed to report either a UFO or “Men in Black” following you?

I think an outright ban is short sighted. I could agree with a ban on texting and a requirement for hands free phones which every cell phone can do. A complete ban makes no sense to me.

IIRC, California banned cellular phone usage while driving, and did it over 5 years ago. If you get a call, just pull over. It should be easy to do in your small town; a lot easier than on an interstate highway.

Calif allows hands free cell phone use. This little berg wants to ban them all together.

See: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc23123.htm

Good! There is not a single phone call that is as important as someones life. I would only hope that more municipalities and/or states would adopt such a law.

I can somewhat see their point behind this but the the fly in the ointment to me is always this; will this enforcment apply to every single person in town? This means the mayor, the city councilpersons, the police who are doing the ticketing and violating the law themselves, people of “substantial means”, etc.

When OK City passed a seat belt law some years back multiple warnings were issued by the police about their being aggressive on this issue. One of the local TV stations staked out the PD and found that approx. 80% of the cops leaving the station were ignoring this newly enacted law. It’s always seems to come down to a do as I say, not as I do thing.

This could also be seen as a revenue generator with the police stopping auto and truck drivers from out of town or out of state who are not aware of this law.
What would really be interesting would be if a reporter would follow some of these people around who voted for this and with camera running, see if they’re spending half their driving time with their hand glued to their head.
Safe gambling money says that most of the ones who voted for this will violate this law themselves the very next day. And quite likely every day after that.