A Call to Transit Operators: Please Hang Up and Drive

For years, state Assemblyman George Nakano has tried in vain to get his fellow lawmakers to limit cellphone use by drivers in this car-happy, yack-happy state.

But each time irresponsible schlubs like me (and everyone I know) come close to being saved from ourselves by one of Nakano’s bills, the wireless companies leap in with a free-speech argument and a lot of lobbying bucks, and the issue goes away.

During last fall’s election season, for example, AT&T; Wireless contributed $628,983 to candidates and political action committees. Verizon Wireless spent about $28,000 last year on campaign contributions, and the two companies have lobbyists both on staff and as consultants from outside firms.

Now Nakano, a Democrat from Torrance, has a new approach. His latest bill takes a whack at cellphone use, prohibiting both hands-free and hand-held devices. But instead of targeting drivers of automobiles, this bill is aimed at bus drivers.

“This bill narrows the focus,” said Nakano, who explains that bus drivers, because they are responsible for the safety of others, have a special responsibility to keep their eyes on the road, and not on their keypads. .

Cellphone use by bus drivers has been banned in several states, and Nakano’s bill appears to be gathering support in Sacramento. Last week, it passed the Assembly Transportation Committee.

It bans all cellphone use -- hands-free or not -- among transit drivers and school bus drivers in the state.

The bill has the support of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles County, as well as the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Transit officials say there has been genuine concern about drivers talking on their phones while piloting buses. MTA Deputy Chief John Catoe says he has seen drivers from both his agency and Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus agency chatting away while barreling down the road in a bus filled with passengers.

Mary Couch, a Santa Catalina Island resident, said she saw a bus driver in Ventura County who was too busy talking to let a woman disembark.

“He’s on the phone and she pushes the stop button, and he passed her stop,” Couch said. “The lady just fell apart.”

After the passenger made a fuss, Couch said, the driver let her out, even though there was no bus stop nearby.

At the MTA, the agency handed out about 125 cellphones to drivers whose two-way radios weren’t working. The drivers, who had the phones for about four years before returning them, weren’t supposed to use them except in emergencies.

“But even though we had a policy that said you’re not supposed to do it, let’s be real,” Catoe said. “Human nature says you do it.”

Last month, Catoe said, the radios were fixed. The MTA took back its phones and negotiated an agreement with its unions to increase the penalty for improper use of drivers’ personal cellphones.

At L.A. Unified, drivers carry cellphones, but are to use them only in emergencies, said school bus chief Tony Rodriguez.

“The last thing you want to happen is for there to be an accident, and, afterward, somebody says the driver was on a cellphone,” Rodriguez said. “If they’re waiting on the loading dock or waiting in the zoo parking lot for the kids to come back, that’s OK.”

Rodriguez, who supports Nakano’s bill, said no accidents had been caused by an L.A. Unified driver using a cellphone.

In fact, there have been only a few reported instances of bus drivers getting into accidents while using cellphones. By contrast, each year there are hundreds of accidents attributable to cellphone use by automobile drivers. There were 611 vehicular crashes in California attributed to cellphones during the first six months of 2002, the latest period for which the California Highway Patrol has statistics.

That’s about 11% of all accidents in the state caused by distracted drivers, making cellphone use more dangerous than fiddling with the radio, managing children and eating. (Reading caused 112 accidents during the same period.)

“There have been bills prohibiting hand-held phones [in cars], but they never pass,” Nakano said.

The bus-driver bill, on the other hand, has bipartisan support, and does not seem to have roused the wireless companies.

“Maybe this is a way to raise the issue and start the discussion,” said Rodriguez. “So they can say, ‘Bus drivers are doing it -- how about you?’ ”