I wish I could take some measure of joy in saying, “I told you so.” But, I can’t.  In fact, I’m just angry.

What happened?  Scott Carpenter, one of my field representatives, was pulled over yesterday morning by one of Irvine’s finest.  The crime?  Violating section 23123 of the Vehicle Code by talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device while driving.

The trouble was, Mr. Carpenter wasn’t on his cell phone, he simply had his left hand up by his left ear at a stop light.  From behind the car and to the left it certainly LOOKED like Mr. Carpenter may have been violating the new law, but he wasn’t.  You can see the potential for confusion from this series of three photos I took of Mr. Carpenter in his car.

 

As the police car’s lights flashed from behind, Mr. Carpenter wondered, “What could I have done?”  He pulled over.  The cop walked up to the car and said, “I noticed you were on your cell phone.”  A violation of section 23123 is punishable by a $76 fine ($20 for the fine and another $56 for “penalty assessments”) for a first offense.

Mr. Carpenter replied, “With all due respect, I think you’re mistaken.  I was not on my cell phone.”

The officer smugly replied, “I saw you.  I was right behind you.”

Mr. Carpenter politely responded, “Well, sir, my hand was just at my ear.  I’ll show you my call log, if you like.”

The cop said, “Sure, let’s have a look.”

After looking at Mr. Carpenter’s cell phone, and seeing that the last call was at least 20 minutes prior, the officer, disappointment written on his face, said, “I must have been mistaken.  But you know that’s the new law, so be careful.”

Mr. Carpenter speculated that the traffic officer was looking to write his first cell phone ticket.  Regardless, this exchange shows what can begin to happen as we cede more and more of our personal responsibility to the state.  Law enforcement officers begin the long migration from people whose main job is to catch criminals to people who become our keepers - minding our safety, telling us what to do.

Imagine if Mr. Carpenter challenged the officer and took his cell phone ticket to court.  What a supreme waste of time and public safety money.

Unfortunately, the bill that outlawed some cell phone usage, SB 1613 by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), was signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2006 after being supported by five Republicans in the Assembly and one in the Senate.  I argued at the time that existing law was sufficient to the task of public safety, since Section 23103 of the Vehicle Code already makes it a crime to drive “…a vehicle upon a highway in willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property…” meaning that police officers already had the right to pull over a driver when their actual bad driving endangered other people.

To make matters worse, the new law won’t have the public safety benefit it was touted to have, since studies published in the British Medical Journal, the “Human Factors” journal and others show that just talking while in a car, especially to someone not in the car, increases distraction, hands-free device or no.

Of course, some drivers appear to be able to drive and talk at the same time, which is why I thought Section 23103 on reckless driving was adequate to the task.

I’ll offer this prediction: after Californians spend millions of dollars to buy all those wireless attachments for their cell phones, a study will come out showing no difference in California’s accident rate, leading to another new law that will simply ban all cell phone use by drivers.  Thus, liberty withers, bit by bit, as we use the law to compensate for our lack of common sense and personal responsibility.

Tags: cell phones, nanny state

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Liberty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.