I don’t know about you, but myself, I see idiots all the time on the valley freeways changing lanes with out blinkers, without looking because they are jabbering on their cell phones. I don’t know how many times I have been almost hit on my bike by some soccer mom in an SUV while she is chatting away on her cell drinking her caramel macchiato from Starbucks with 3 kids yelling in the back of her 50 thousand dollar four wheel drive piece of foreign crap. That has never and will never see the off road. OK, Yes this is an area of contention for me. I for one will vote for this law to be passed even though I am against more legislation on our lives. Will it cut down on accidents? Probably not. Will it give me an excuse to scream at the idiots who are doing it? Yup! Especially at stop lights when I rev my Harley so they can’t hear the conversation over my pipes.
Ride Safe – MRI
Voters could tell drivers to hang up
By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.22.2007
PHOENIX — Arizona voters may get a chance to do what state lawmakers will not: Keep motorists who are holding their cell phones from trying to steer the car at the same time.
An initiative drive launched Wednesday would make it illegal for drivers to talk on their phones unless they are using a hand-free headset. Violators would be subject to a $100 fine; increasing to $200 if the motorist is in an accident.
Organizers have until July 3, 2008, to gather 153,365 valid signatures to put the issue on the 2008 general election ballot.
The drive is spearheaded by Bonita Burks, a resident of Maricopa who has some political background. She ran — unsuccessfully — for justice of the peace last year.
"It's based on my personal experience," she said. That includes carpooling every day and watching other motorists.
Among the concerns she observed, she said, were, "going off into another lane other than their own, or they're driving subsequently a lot slower, or a lot faster," she said.
Burks said the effort doesn't currently have a lot of cash, something she hopes will change when the group puts up its Web site this weekend and solicits donations.
If the plan makes the ballot, it will generate some well-financed opposition from the cell-phone industry which has successfully killed repeated legislative efforts to impose similar restrictions.
Susan Bitter Smith, who lobbies for the companies, said all advise customers to use phones responsibly. But she said cell-phone use is no more a hazard or distraction than other things like changing the station on the car radio to eating a hamburger.
Burks said even if that is true — something she does not concede — this measure is "one step" to make roads safer. "I don't claim to fix all," she said.
A 2005 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety concluded that motorists who chat while cruising are four times as likely to get injured in accidents.
But that study also concluded that using a hands-free device — instead of holding the phone — did not reduce the frequency of accidents. The study's author said that may show that distraction, rather than having the phone in a hand, is to blame
