Using a Cell Phone while driving in NJ...

**Nobody Famous** · 02-26-2008, 02:35 PM

becomes a Primary Offense on March 1st, 2008. To cops, this must be what you call a target rich environment.

Too bad there's not a strong law against piss-poor driving habits, if there were the world would be rid of all these SUV driving, tailgating, got-to-get-there-30-seconds-sooner-than-anyone-else ass wipes.

"There will be no grace period" says a State Police spokesman. As if the last 8 years of an entire state full of drivers that talk while driving aggressively, speeding, tailgating and cutting everyone off was not a grace period enough.

Link: http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news...g_drivers.html

**mrw** · 02-26-2008, 02:44 PM

Just another opportunity for Corzine to fuck the public.

If I can successfully fly an aircraft while twiddling knobs to navigate, talk to ground and watch for traffic, I am pretty sure I can manage a telephone call while avoiding potholes in the "Garden State"

**road trip** · 02-26-2008, 02:59 PM

Originally Posted by mrw

If I can successfully fly an aircraft while twiddling knobs to navigate, talk to ground and watch for traffic, I am pretty sure I can manage a telephone call while avoiding potholes in the "Garden State"

Good for you.

The other 1.2 million people on the road.. notsomuch.

This is one of those laws that I like. I have had to swerve too much because of morons with one hand stuck to their ear. The difference between twiddling your knob while flying is that you take your hand off your knob intermittently. Morons on the phone while driving have to keep one hand on their head the entire time, effectively driving with one hand (and not being able to look over the offending shoulder when they switch lanesO.

**Cliff Huckable** · 02-26-2008, 03:00 PM

mrw, you'll have a point once the skies are so crowded you're flying with other airplanes about 30 inches from yours.

.

**rideit** · 02-26-2008, 03:10 PM

Teenagers should not be allowed to own I-Pods.
Adults, either.

And Blackberrys...don't get me started.

**Buzzworthy** · 02-26-2008, 05:25 PM

Originally Posted by rideit

Teenagers should not be allowed to own I-Pods.
Adults, either.

And Blackberrys...don't get me started.

Hell, why not just go back to before the wheel was invented while you are at it.

Roadtrip, now the 1.2 million idiots will be fiddling with their new Bluetooth Headsets trying to answer the phone and cause even more accidents.

**Steven S. Dallas** · 02-26-2008, 05:48 PM

Originally Posted by Buzzworthy

Roadtrip, now the 1.2 million idiots will be fiddling with their new Bluetooth Headsets trying to answer the phone and cause even more accidents.

The study I saw about this concluded that driving while talking on a headset wasn't any safer than holding the phone to speak. The danger is the distraction of conversation, not the failure to have both hands on the wheel.

**VTskibum** · 02-26-2008, 05:51 PM

Originally Posted by Steven S. Dallas

... The danger is the distraction of conversation, not the failure to have both hands on the wheel.

So we should ban passengers then too right?

**PaSucks** · 02-26-2008, 05:58 PM

My take is if you aren't skilled enough to drive and talk on the phone at the same time, you probably aren't skilled enough to drive while not talking on the phone. Make the driving tests more difficult and weed out some of the biggest idiots, PLEASE!

**Steven S. Dallas** · 02-26-2008, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by VTskibum

So we should ban passengers then too right?

That was actually addressed in the article- it's safer to have another passenger, because it's a second set of eyes that can alert you to road hazards, etc. Also, and I was suprised to learn this, but it turns out that driving while getting a hummer is probably the safest mode of travel- something you might want to remind your wife about.

**Buzzworthy** · 02-26-2008, 06:26 PM

Originally Posted by Steven S. Dallas

The study I saw about this concluded that driving while talking on a headset wasn't any safer than holding the phone to speak. The danger is the distraction of conversation, not the failure to have both hands on the wheel.

I have seen similar reports. I am just talking about the ones trying to figure out their headsets after they get in the car (have been guilty of putting pin code in while driving).

**iscariot** · 02-26-2008, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by mrw

Just another opportunity for Corzine to fuck the public.

If I can successfully fly an aircraft while twiddling knobs to navigate, talk to ground and watch for traffic, I am pretty sure I can manage a telephone call while avoiding potholes in the "Garden State"

All of the talking and twiddling your doing is integral to flying the plane...eg. talk to ground

You're not exactly on the phone talking to Sonya about "OMG! Can you totally believe what Tina was wearing at Greg's party last night. eggghh. I'm so disgusting, right! Wait I, like, have a call on the other line."

"Like Hallo? Tina! OMG! Me and Jody are like totally talking on the other line. We were just saying how much we totally liked the outfit you wore to Greg's party! I'll totally call you right back!"

"OMG! Sonya! It was totally like Tina and I was all 'We were just saying how much we like totally loved her outfit at Greg's party' and she was all like 'Oh! Totally thanks!', What a like total bitch...I'm totally not calling her back..."

And then she drives into you at 60km/h while you're stopped at a red light.

**gr8fldoug** · 02-26-2008, 07:21 PM

My sister did an internship with NY State one summer where she studied accident reports before NY announced their "cell phone driving ban law". Her dept was disappointed to find no correlation to accidents and cell phone usage. I currently work for a construction company in NY and several of our employees have been pulled over or ticketed for driving and talking. All but one of them have gotten out of the ticket by explaining that they were using the "direct connect" feature, which is essentially a CB radio!
Laws like this IMO are good hearted but somewhere between a legislators brain and the paper its printed on things go horribly wrong.