by Annie Eitman

Created on: July 15, 2008

Please don't read this while driving!

On July 1st of this year, California welcomed a new law regarding the use of cell phones while driving. Unless it's an emergency, it is now illegal to operate a vehicle and a cell phone unless you are using a hands-free device. It will still be legal, however, to drive and text.

I rode with a driving, texting friend. Once. She was not, as you may assume, a teenager, but rather an adult, otherwise sane, mother of two. We were returning from a weekend drive to Solvang to shop and visit friends. Just the sort of lovely trip, lovely day, that in movies typically foreshadows disaster.

While she was driving, my friend received a text message and immediately popped open her cell phone to see what it said. She was having trouble reading it, probably because of the bright, shiny sunshine of the bright sunshiny day, or perhaps she was distracted by the loud, persistent honking of the oncoming traffic as we repeatedly swerved into their path. Either way, when she finished reading the byte-sized novelette and returned to watching the road, I was greatly relieved.

Relieved until my friend decided to reply to the message, texting a response while maneuvering down what was now a dark, angry, twisting mountain road. "Perhaps it would be better to pull over and do that," I suggested as my complexion turned as pale as the stripe along the highway's edge.

"Oh, no, it's ok," she replied, "I don't want to inconvenience you." As I cowered in the fetal position in the back seat, I wondered how much we might inconvenience our rescuers when we tumbled down one of these scenic California mountainsides.

Although we made extensive use of both sides of the highway and some of the curb, miraculously we did not crash. The rest of the way home I prayed that my friend wouldn't receive a reply and make us to endure another round of driving by Braille. I also pondered the fine line between polite behavior and the will to survive. At some point I should have risen from the safety of the back seat and insisted that she put Pandora's box-o'-doom down and just drive.

I don't write the laws. I didn't know why texting wasn't also banned. Perhaps there was a strong, covert, pro-text lobbying organization in Sacramento. I asked Senator Joe Simitian, 11th District, the sponsor of the original bill.

The senator introduced the legislation in 2001, reintroducing it every year until it finally passed in 2006. At the time the bill was created, the senator said, texting was not

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