Look, Ma…No Hands…

Volume 1, Number 22

The much hyped day of July 1st has come and gone, and California now requires all motorists to use a headset when operating a cell phone while driving. This is an annoyance because headsets frequently turn a conversation into something akin to shouting in a wind tunnel. It will be particularly annoying to people like me who frequently conduct conference calls via cell phone with clients on the east coast, making the 45 minute morning commute somewhat productive. But I don’t want to be selfish. We all ought to put up with annoyances and inconveniences in order to make the road safer, right? Wrong.

This latest mandate from Sacramento is like so many of them before – seemingly good ideas pushed by seemingly well-meaning politicians with little or no evidence that the idea will actually work in practice. Unlike other bad ideas from Sacramento, however, this one will cost consumers billions of dollars with nothing to show for it.

The idea behind mandated cell phone headsets is to make driving safer by encouraging drivers to have two hands on the wheel, instead of using one to hold a cell phone. But does it improve safety? In a word, no.

According to an in-depth study reported in the journal Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, there is no difference in performance between drivers who use a headset and those who hold the phone manually. Drivers talking on a cell phone – headset or not – are lousy drivers, period.

Furthermore, the headset legislation itself contains two glaring loopholes. First, drivers are able to pick the phone up in order to initiate a call. Holding the phone to punch the keypad full of numbers is the single most distracting act in the entire process of conducting a cell phone conversation. One must look at the phone while hitting the keypad. Many phones require you to first hit the ‘alt’ button and then the numbers, which can sometimes require using both hands. But doing so is entirely legal under the law. So you’ll have drivers taking both hands off the wheel to dial a call, utilizing the famous “knee steer” maneuver, but you can’t have a driver safely hold the phone to his ear to talk afterwards. That’s just stupid.

The second glaring loophole in the law is that it doesn’t cover text messaging. That’s right. Drivers can legally sit behind the wheel typing texts --  a process that almost always involves using two hands and the aforementioned “knee steer” -- to their hearts content. That’s beyond stupid.

Aside from the fact that there is no evidence that the law will actually improve driving safety (and plenty of evidence that it won’t), the legislation represents political correctness gone amok. Surely, there are many other activities that occur while driving that hold far greater potential for causing driver distraction. Eating while driving is one of those (especially when the driver is trying to eat a cheeseburger and put ketchup on his fries). Putting on makeup is another. Driving a car with a manual transmission is a third. Disciplining unruly children in the backseat is a fourth. Reaching for the cup of coffee is another. Even flipping through radio stations can cause more distraction than talking on a cell phone. Yet none of these activities were targeted for correction, because the politicians know the backlash that banning them would produce.

Sadly, this legislation is not the first time that the Nanny Class of politicians has meddled with our driving habits. The experiment to force everyone to drive on highways at 55 mph had as its primary justification a desire to save lives. It didn’t, and was eventually repealed. Like the headset legislation, there was scant evidence to suggest it would work, but the politicians approved the mandate anyway. Most recently, the state mandated that 100,000 owners of cars utilizing hybrid technology that met certain mpg standards were eligible to get special state-issued permits to drive in HOV lanes even with just a single person in the car. The intent, they claimed, was to encourage more people to purchase clean-driving hybrids. This despite the fact that only the Toyota Prius qualified for the stickers. And the fact that driving a hybrid at 65 mph in the diamond lane virtually negates any environmental benefit of hybrid technology. And the fact that other automotive technology such as that on cars meeting PZEV standards are more affordable and better for the environment under normal driving circumstances. None of this mattered. What mattered is that the politicians were able to point to a feel-good, politically correct bill they supported to “improve” the environment. The mandate did no such thing. What it did do, however, was add as many as 100,000 single-occupant cars to lanes intended to encourage multiple-occupant vehicles. And they also succeeded in significantly driving up the price of any Toyota Prius that happens to have the state-issued HOV lane permit.

The solution to the problems with the cell phone headset law is not to fix the loopholes or outlaw more activities while driving. The solution is for the political nannies in Sacramento to butt out of our private driving habits and to junk the law entirely.

* * *

I read with great interest Assembly Speaker Karen Bass’s comments in the Sacramento Bee yesterday that there were “real consequences” for Californians as a result of the Legislature’s failure to enact a budget by the constitutional deadline of June 30th. I am finding it hard to reconcile that statement with her decision to let the Assembly adjourn for vacation for the next week.

* * *

I note that House Democrats are objecting to President Bush’ proposed free trade agreement with Columbia. Apparently representatives of organized labor are opposed to the deal, and that’s all the Democrats need to know. Perhaps they haven’t heard that Columbia has historically been the world’s largest exporter of cocaine and, just maybe, it might be a good idea to encourage trade with them of something other than a highly-addictive narcotic. Perhaps if members of the drug cartels in Medillin and Bogotá would agree to unionize their workforces, organized labor in the U.S. would agree to drop their objections to the free trade deal.

# # #