| speeder |
07-17-2014 01:37 PM |
WRT the WA. state cell phone law, it's pretty cut and dry. Using a speaker phone held in your hand is legal. There is no "spirit of the law" here...they could have written it any way they wanted. You may not like the law, (and obviously you don't), but if your arguments with scooter were about the law itself, he is right and you are wrong.
You would not even need a traffic lawyer for this one, it's right there in black and white.
I've been thinking about this subject the last couple days because of this thread. I do think that talking on a phone is a distraction while driving but so are a dozen other things and many are a lot worse, IMO. Yes, cell phone use has made people who are already bad drivers a lot worse but I don't think that they make good drivers who use common sense dangerous.
There were people turning left in front of MCs way before the cell phone came along. Was the person who tagged you and your wife yapping on a phone? I'm a pretty vigilant person about safe driving and I can honestly say that cell phone use is low on my list of personal distractions. I get WAAAY more distracted, (momentarily), by all of the smoking hot women walking down the sidewalk or stepping into or out of their parked cars in this town. It's absolutely non-stop. My best friend devised the technique years ago for not rear-ending the car in front of you on the Sunset strip while in heavy traffic: You turn your head to look and slightly brake at the same time/turn head back to windshield/if all clear, you get one more quick look. It's brake/turn head/turn head back/one more look. If you're good, you get 2 quick looks w/o driving into the car in front of you. :)
I also get momentarily distracted by hot cars or bikes, anything that catches my eye. Knock on wood but I haven't been in an accident, much less caused one in decades of daily city driving and LD trips. i remember getting my license in 1976 and telling my friend who was a couple years older that I did not think that I could drive safely while listening to my favorite Led Zep or Black Sabbath at the preferred volume, 90db+. He told me that once I got a little experience under my belt, it would not make any difference if there was loud music playing in the car. And he was right. I love listening to music in the car and still do to this day.
I don't like talking on the phone while driving because I cannot pay attention to the phone call. My primary focus is on the driving. I answer some calls but keep it brief. I mostly text now days and DO NOT text while driving. If my cell phone use was causing a dangerous distraction, and I'd know it by near collisions, etc., I would not use it at all. There are times when out on the open road when it presents no danger at all. It's all common sense but unfortunately some people don't have any.
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