Mortality

[Deborah Kelly]

Darn I knew I was born too late...I still have a cb.....

Deborah

[Larry Blanchard]

Agreed - and then we can start in on leafblowers!

As you can tell, our quiet neighborhood isn't these days :-).

[Charlie Self]

Must be a lot less traffic than there was in the late '70s, early '80s now that truckers have their toy mostly back in their hands.

Today, every other driver seems to have a cell phone upside his or her haid. One little momma driving a big momma (refrigerator white Yukon) almost got me yesterday, chatting on the phone, 2-1/2' into my lane on a blind curve on a narrow road, and managed to give me the finger when I blew my horn.

Gotta love 'em. I hear NY has done one thing right: made yakking on cells illegal while driving. I hope it's true, and that VA follows suit very soon.

[George]

They make 'em with speakers now, and jacks for mikes. Can't figure out why anyone would have to give a hand to the phone just to converse. Rousted my daughter out to go shopping yesterday without taking the thing out of my breast pocket.

Day after they ban cell phones, it's gotta be the turn of fast food.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

CT has done it also. Too soon to tell if it will matter.

[Greg G]

As has Florida, several years ago. Hasn't stopped 'em, however.

Greg G.

[BobS]

Yep it's illegal to talk on a hand-held cell phone in NY while driving unless it's an emergency call to 911.

Other than that - no one pays attention to laws in NYS anyway.....

Bob S.

[Lew Hodgett]

A little trivia.

Believe it or not, you have Brooklyn, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, to thank for that.

Not only was Brooklyn the first city to enact a seat belt law back in the 60's, they were also the first to ban cell phones while driving.

Lew

[Ba r r y]

So did CT. 6 weeks after the law took effect, it's back on the phone. The law will probably be as effective as laws pertaining to fart exhausts, car boom-box stereos, pedestrians in crosswalks having the right of way, and municipal 25 and 35 MPH speed limits. Totally unenforced...

[bridger]

which touches on a weakness of our legal system- it's a lot easier to get bad laws passed than to get them removed... so we have so many laws that it takes specialists with decades of intensive training to understand them.

banning of cel phones is bad law because it imposes a penalty disproportionate to risk. smoking, eating and adjusting the radio cause a lot more accidents than cel phones, but banning phones appeals to a vocal constituency. so we have another bad bit of law that will be largely ignored, except when some racist beat cop decides he needs an excuse to pull over another young black guy...

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Actually, the new CT law bans most any distraction, not just phones. What makes phones worse than other distractions is the amount of brain power it sops up from the focus of driving. People get so involved in the conversation they tune out the driving rather than the opposite. Most of us listen to the radio in the car. When you get into a heavy traffic situation you mentally tune out the radio and take care of the business of driving. too many phone users do not.

Of course, plugging in my hands free set to make a 15 second call is more of a distraction than the call itself.

[Charlie Self]

It's not the handling, it's the lack of attention to driving when having a conversation on the phone--I doubt the jacks will improve anything.

Yes! Oh, you mean eating while driving. Well, I agree there, too.

[Deborah Kelly]

lol Well my hubby keeps burning up the ones in his truck and stealing mine (he's gone through five in three years....lol) he does have a cell phone but I'm the only one he calls....lmao

[Deborah Kelly]

Well I only use my handsfree set be it driving (yes I'm one of the morons that talk on the phone while driving) or standing out in the backyard. I did try talking on it once while driving without the handsfree set....never again I do not see how anyone can pay atention to the road while pressing a phone to their ear....And I hope it is not illegal here because I see the cops doing it all the time....lol