re: LA House passes bill banning hand help cell phones while driving

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They cant even enforce the laws that stop people from texting while driving and they think they will enforce this?

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EXACTLY.

Texting and surfing the web/social media (which is already banned) are the distractions. The physical act of holding the phone against your ear isn't the distraction. The distraction is simply not paying attention while you are talking...which doesn't go away just because you are using bluetooth.

Essentially the law says you cannot even HOLD a cell phone in your hand while driving (with a few exceptions). I get the sentiment. I really do. But this proposed law is RIPE for abuse in pretextual stops

Police forces will be able to raise more revenue that way.

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I get where you’re coming from as far as the core sentiment, and I agree in principle with the need to minimize distractions. But the distinction between physically holding a cell phone and speaking through a Bluetooth system seems extremely arbitrary.

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It’s fairly well-documented that holding a phone to your ear is only marginally more distracting than having a conversation over Bluetooth. The larger issue is that it ties up one of your hands, which means you can’t use that hand to drive. But yes - from a pure reaction time standpoint it’s not that much different.

That being said, I think this may be kind of missing the point of the proposed legislation. I think most folks agree that texting, reading TD, etc. is way worse than talking in your phone. But if there are “acceptable” and “unacceptable” reasons to use your phone in your hand while driving, it becomes impossible to enforce. The proposed law basically says if you’re using your phone in your hand while driving, it’s against the law.

It’s not really about the distinction between handheld and Bluetooth phone calls - it’s more of an attempt to draft a law against texting & driving that is actually enforceable since the law would no longer distinguish between texting, posting on TD, using Google Maps, or talking to someone on speaker. All of these actions would now fall into the same category of handheld phone usage while driving.

Gotcha, that makes a lot more sense than the other poster who responded. I can see the validity if that’s the argument. Thanks

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So all an officer has to say is they saw you on your cell phone? How is this enforceable?

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It'll be used most of the time in accident investigation

C Denise is a shite human being.

What’s the status of the “weed” bill? Have we heard anything?

Thanks

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They cant even enforce the laws that stop people from

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killing each other

If they got iPhones they got headphones with a mic in the box. It says hands free, not wireless or Bluetooth.