Texting and Talking While Driving

Driving and Texting or Talking,
my response to a newspaper column:

Mr. Roadshow.

Your Happy New Year column featured your number one wish
as being the raising of fines for using a handheld cellphone
while driving.

The Sacramento crowd are having a field-day coming up
with laws to keep people from texting and talking while
motoring, while auto manufacturers come up with ways for
drivers to do just that.

Having driven over a million miles as a courier qualifies me
to opine;

* Talking on a phone, or radio, can cause the process of
driving to become subconscious, meaning that the driver
becomes totally unaware of what is going on consciously,
something that can unnerve even a professional whose
workplace is the drivers seat.

* Texting, I suppose, can be done by touch and maybe even
single handed but, what about that pesky steering wheel?
And I reckon texters have the same loss of focus as talkers.

* There are drivers, like professionals, with legitimate
reasons to be talking while driving. I found those chats to be
irritating and terse because neither my dispatcher nor I
wanted to be talking.

The point is that there is a reason for some talk while
driving but damn little.

Michael Shatto
Concord, California

Call me dense, but I'm not sure what your stance is?

Me? I'm all in favor of people paying more attention to their driving rather than talking/texting/eating/applying make-up/playing with the radio/having an animal in their lap while driving, but I'm also OPPOSED to any and all laws that deal specifically with any of the above. Fact is, there are many people who do any (or a combination) of the above things on a regular basis, and never have an accident, close call, or are any more of a threat to other motorists than someone driving with their eyes straight forward and their hands at 10 and 2.

We already have penalties for those at fault in accidents. We don't need any more laws restricting individual freedom(s).

Society needs to promote and demand individual responsibility. That's not politically correct to call people out for their bad decisions. We're not telling you what you can and can't do. However taking risk, something occurring, the consequences shouldn't come as a shock.

It's a unrealistic goal to protect people from themselves. What we'd all like is a people that are responsible, have consideration for others as many people don't want to be impacted by other's poor choices and decisions. The failed approach to move in this direction is laws. Doesn't work.

Three accidents with deaths and injuries in San Francisco, New Years Eve.
All caused by inattentive drivers.

Zero deaths from terrorism during the same period. Yet all the money attention goes here. Go figure.