From today's News-Gazette:
Police Chief Mike Bily said he doesn't see major problems with enforcing a proposed new ordinance that would impose a $750 city fine on drivers who get into a traffic accident while talking on a cell phone or two-way radio.
The proposed ordinance, which won tentative city council approval Monday night, also would ban drivers from text messaging while driving.
A final council vote is scheduled for next Monday.
Bily said city police officers investigating an accident will ask the drivers if they were using a cell or mobile phone, two-way radio, or text messaging, at the time of the accident. Passengers and other witnesses will also be interviewed.
"I'd like to believe a portion of the public will be honest," Bily said. "That's typical of what we do when we investigate an accident. We're not usually present when an accident occurs. We ask what happened and seek out witnesses."
In some cases, such as when a fatality occurs, a driver's phone records might be subpoenaed, he said.
This makes a lot more sense than banning them outright, but the nanny-staters won't be satisfied.
When the new Court House tower is completed Charlie Smyth and the rest of the Urbana City Council members will be stationed up there with surveillance gear IE, binoculars and semaphore flags "no cell phones" for a 3 hour shifts to make sure violators are identified and taken out by the SWAT team!
This ordinance is reasonable and defensible. Smyth's proposed ban was not. I'm glad to see this one go forward. On the text messaging part, there's no question that such activity by definition takes your eyes off the road for significant periods of time. No matter how well one multi-tasks, good driving requires eyes focused out the windows instead of your lap. The accident fine will probably be more punative than deterant, but maybe over time it will become the latter. At least this only punishes those who really can't talk and drive at the same time.
"I'd like to believe a portion of the public will be honest," Bily said. "That's typical of what we do when we investigate an accident. We're not usually present when an accident occurs. We ask what happened and seek out witnesses."
I decline to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me.
Well I live in the city that is not even tackling this topic so my degrees of freedom to comment are many. All of the arguments that I have read over these months on this topic are so reminescent and parallel to the ones used when laws mandating the wearing of a helmet whenever on a motorcycle were beginning to be proposed and then passed. Every motorcycle rider wanted to be "Easy Rider" and made the argument that this is a personal decision and did not impinge on anyone else. Well the insurance companies stepped up to show just what the cost to society is when a motorcyclist without a helmet has an accident, not even accounting for person miseries. Driving and using a cell phone, eating the McDonalds, drinking whatever as the cup cuts off your line of vision, etc. are all circumstances that set up the environment for a potential accident. There are thousands of studies about driving and the use of cell phones--all of which confirm that these activities need to be mutually exclusive.
People have declared that they drive and talk on a cell phone all of the time and have never had an accident. This proves nothing other than you have been d_____ lucky and that the cars driving near and around you are driving defensively rather than offensively as you are.
But there are two aspects that intrigue me the most--1) why individuals perceive it so difficult to pull over to have a cell phone conversation that on the average is less than 5 minutes long and 2)people are comfortable with the cognitive decisions that they make while driving and talking and how many of those decisions on 20-20 hindsight maybe were not quality decisions.
Personally, I am delighted that the citizens of Urbana are wrestling with this concept.
Pattsi Petrie
Pattsi,
Correction: The insurance companies stepped up to show what the cost <i>to them</i> is.
Insurance companies are for profit and are highly motivated to lobby on behalf of any legislation that could potentially reduce their expenditures/increase their profits. They only have their own best interests at heart, not yours.
But there are two aspects that intrigue me the most--1) why individuals perceive it so difficult to pull over to have a cell phone conversation that on the average is less than 5 minutes long
My personal opinion - people see the driving time as "wasted" time, that they can put to good use by talking while driving. So pulling over to talk defeats the whole purpose.
I thought Illinois didn't have a "helmet law"..??
Absolutely, the insurance companies are for profit. In being structure this way and to keep profit shares up, any increase in cost is passed along to you and I in some form or another. If you drive a car, ride a motorcycle, etc., all of our insurance rates go up when there have been too many claims in the region within which we are insured. This also applies to our health insurance rates. The more the claims and the more the cost of the claims gets passed along to you and I as insurees. The insurance companies NEVER take the hit.
As an aside, it was the home insurance companies, specifically State Farm, that did the research as to the effectiveness of roof straps to minimize roof damage and in turn all of the water damage that follows when the roof is blown off during a tornado. Just being able to keep the roof on even if the shingles are blown off prevents the subsequent damage. The savings is in the millions. The cost for each roof strap is less than a $1. So for the average house the added cost to the builder $16. And for you and I another chance that the home owner insurance companies will not raise our rates outrageously because the damage claims will potentially be less.
Pattsi Petrie
"My personal opinion - people see the driving time as "wasted" time, that they can put to good use by talking while driving. So pulling over to talk defeats the whole purpose."
That is exactly how I feel about it.
Wow, all of you who think your time is so valuable that pausing or pull off the road to have a short conversation and possibly avoid an accident that probably would take much more time than the 5 minutes, could easily solve your problem of thinking it is a waste of the time you value so highly by just riding mass transit and then you can talk your hearts out. Or always drive with a passenger who can answer your phone and convey the conversation. :-)
Pattsi Petrie
I am glad that Chief Bily had sense enough to say that this was not a high priority on the part of his officers. For some time now, it has been illegal for 16-17 year olds to talk on cell phones while driving. It would be interesting to see how many of these tickets countywide have been issued. My guess is <10.
"Well the insurance companies stepped up to show just what the cost to society is when a motorcyclist without a helmet has an accident, not even accounting for person miseries."
I got this really painful twitch after reading that. With "universal healthcare" looming over the horizon, the "cost to society" argument is growing even more worrisome that ever. As with the insurance companies, the government will be watching out for its bottom line. When that bottom line is threatened by personal liberty, personal liberty ever so steadily becomes threatened by the government. [/slippery_slope]
--
Glock21 Op/Ed
It's gr8.
Sent from my blackberry while driving in a school zone drinking coffee.
I'm okay with this ordinance, similar to curious. If it's a serious accident with you at fault and your phone is found, it's easy enough to check the records of calls.
If you're Mr. Awesome Driver, this shouldn't happen, so should be no problem.
If you were on your phone stopped at a red light and get rear-ended, will you be fined? Why not do what they used to do with seat belt laws (not that those are good)? If you are pulled over for some other reason and are found to be on the phone, you get a ticket, but being on the phone alone is not cause for being pulled over.
Wow, all of you who think your time is so valuable that pausing or pull off the road to have a short conversation and possibly avoid an accident that probably would take much more time than the 5 minutes, could easily solve your problem of thinking it is a waste of the time you value so highly by just riding mass transit and then you can talk your hearts out. Or always drive with a passenger who can answer your phone and convey the conversation. :-)
Talking on the phone while driving prevents me from falling asleep.
Here's the problem....There's no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt (or even a preponderance of the evidence) that someone was talking on the phone at the time of the accident. All one has to say is that they were talking on the phone 30 seconds prior to the accident happening but they hung up before the accident occurred. Despite what many of you think about cell phone records, it can't get that specific.
It's a good idea, but in all practicality, it would be hard to enforce. By the way, IDOT has been tracking cell phones as a cause of accidents for the last couple of years now. It's listed on the officers copy of the SR 10-50 report that's forwarded to IDOT. I find it funny that most police administrators aren't aware of this, but most of them haven't actually done real police work for several years.
I have been trying to figure out how in the world you could possibly enforce a cell phone ban when the new cars are coming out with these systems built in so that your phone is operating through your car's sound system. Are the police going to pull people over who look like they are talking to themselves? People who are using speaker phones or blue tooth technology are equally invisible as users. In addition, there are not thousands of studies on this issue. In fact, there is not a single study that proves any causality between cell phone use and crashes. If there were studies proving causality you can be sure the Federal transportation folks would be advocating for bans. They are not. The evidence is is not solid. Is talking on a cell phone while driving a good idea? No, but then neither is driving with screaming fighting kids in the back seat. Are we going to make it illegal to drive with children? They are extremely distracting as any parent will attest.
anon 9:22--
Are you saying witness testimony, from passengers in the car or even the party at the other end of the cell conversation, (in addition to the billing records of the cell company, which can establish who started the call and when, and what towers the call bounced off of as it was in progress) wouldn't be enough to establish proof that you were chatting (or arguing) away before you caused an auto accident?
What about the accidents where the officer or paramedic pulls up and the other party is still on the line?
The article points out that this is the sort of thing you wouldn't do unless it was a serious accident.
So...I'm sitting at red light talking on my hands-free cell phone when I get rear-ended. According to this ordinance I get to pay the city $750.00 for this "trangression"?
I go back to my original point in these discussions, which is that the gov't should show that the distraction of talking on the phone, not the act of talking, was a proximate or contributory CAUSE of the accident.
"If you were on your phone stopped at a red light and get rear-ended, will you be fined?"
Yes, unless the cars involved are a Celebrity and a Probe.
"Find the person on the other end of the line and ask if they heard "Oh crap ... screeeeech ... crash!" before the other person hung up."
Or maybe:
Shit! What? Rollers. No. Yeah. Shit.
My understadning is that access to cell phone records is a time-consuming and difficult task. In order to access cell phone records the police have to make an official request to the State's Attorney to issue a supeona to the phone company.then they have to contact the coprorate headquarters of the phone company and ask them to process the request and send the information. The police stated that even in homocide cases they have had trouble obtaining access to cell phone records. I do not believe that it would be a wise use of our tax dollars to spend the money and time to get records, if we even could, for fender-benders.
Anon 5:12
You are absolutely correct.