Dialing and Driving Don’t Mix

You can spot them from two blocks away. Their brake lights illuminate for no apparent reason; they drift aimlessly about from one lane to the next, and sometimes they’ll come to a complete stop right in the middle of traffic. A drunk driver? Close. The cellular phone driver.

Earlier this month, Santa Monica missed an opportunity to curtail the use of hand-held cell phones while driving within city limits when its City Council voted down a proposal to fine those caught calling and driving. In defending their decision, council members cited the nightmarish logistics of enforcing such a law and the fact that further research is required to positively link driver cell phone usage to an increase in traffic accidents.

As far-fetched as the recent proposal may have sounded, two other U.S. communities have already imposed similar bans--Brooklyn, Ohio, and Hilltown, Penn.--and no fewer than five countries, including Britain and Australia, have already placed bans or restrictions on the use of cellular phones by drivers. Even in Italy, where their passion for driving and yakking on portable phones is strong, authorities have set strict limitations on combining the two.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe phone booths were made for calling and cars were meant for driving. Since when did convenience become more important than road safety? It’s taken our auto industry dozens of years and millions of dollars to develop such life-saving innovations as shatter-proof windshields, shock-absorbent bumpers and air safety bags, but the wireless phone industry is threatening to chuck all that out the window virtually overnight.

I’m certainly not disputing the cellular phone’s merits. They’re convenient if you’re lost or late to a meeting and, of course, they’re more than convenient in an emergency. Judging from the banalities being spewed forth in the produce aisle and at the mall, however, I highly doubt that all the flapping lips we’re seeing on the road can be attributed to these purposes.

In a world where more and more of us are bemoaning a lack of privacy on the Internet and the dispersal of such sensitive information as our banking and medical records, it’s ironic that so many feel compelled to discuss their personal lives through very public telephone conversations.

We’ve all got outrageous cell phone behavior stories. My little gem is when I was at the airport waiting to pass through the metal detector and the woman in front of me, loudly engaged in conversation on her portable phone, barely missed a beat as she placed the gadget on the conveyor belt, strolled through the sensors, and then collected the phone on the other side of the X-ray machine to resume her dialogue.

Humorous, yes. But would you want to encounter someone like that while driving down the freeway at 65 mph? Restaurants and other business establishments have begun creating cellular-free zones. It’s a shame that the usually forward-thinking Santa Monica couldn’t become the first West Coast community to disconnect the reckless practice of cell phone driving.