by Patrick Corcoran

Created on: September 28, 2008   Last Updated: October 08, 2008

A law to ban cell phones is not needed in Vermont or any other state. There already exists a law that prohibits inattentive driving in all fifty states. It says that the operator of a vehicle must pay 100% attention to the operation of their vehicle. That means they can't be doing anything other than driving the car. Taking your eye off he road for any reason, to light a cigarette or apply makeup is illegal. Why make a law to specify one type of action when all actions other than driving are already illegal.

Many states have passed similar cell phone legislation but it has been a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that already has a solution. Whenever a police officer investigates an accident and he or she determines that the operator of the striking vehicle was changing radio stations or applying make-up, then that person is issued a ticket for inattentive driving. Under that same law a police officer could also issue a ticket if he or she sees someone talking on a cell phone.

Before cell phones were in wide use people were causing accidents by applying make-up, changing the radio knobs or just not paying attention. A pretty woman in a short dress walking along the street has caused many an accident too. Should we pass a "no day dreaming while driving" law?

Talking to a passenger in your car is not much different than talking on a cell phone. The driver's mind is focused on conversation and not the road. The driver may even look in the rear view mirrir or turn to look at the person he is talking to. Should we have a law that says you can't talk to passengers?

The old inattentive law is a catch all for doing anything other driving the vehicle. To pass a cell phone ban is over kill and contributes to beurocratic waste. When a new law is enacted a memo has to be sent to all police officers that the law is now in effect. Additions have to be made to every traffic code book. Motor vehicle personnel and law enforcement officers have to have in service training. This manufactures a lot of paperwork and waste of government man-hours that isn't necessary in the first place.

Should the legislators of every state pass a new law for every single activity a driver may be engaged in? If so then why not have the Federal Government pass a natioanl piece of legislation banning call phone use while driving? We cannot legislate everything. We cannot make our world entirely safe from accidents. To do so is to slowly increase our dependency on government as to the point we have to ask big brother, "Brother may I?"

The prudent thing that needs to be done to reduce cell phone caused accidents is to enforce the current law. The legislators only need to make it known to the police department heads that the inattentive law needs to be agressively enforced until the cell phone driving issue is addressed and accidents are reduced significantly.

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