From your link:
"The city ordinance says it will be illegal to use a hand-held device to “compose, send or read:”
Text messages
Instant messages
Photos
Videos
Emails"
So the officer claims he saw you with a photo up on your phone, and wrote you a $100 ticket.
You don't have any proof to the contrary, and your cell phone is almost always transferring data of some sort, so there would be data transfer logs that correlate to the officer witnessing your offense. Have fun getting out of that one.
do it in Bethany, they have their own ordinance about it... doubling the fine...
I drive a big brown truck and can't wait to see all of the offenders pulled over... hell, I'll wave the cops to the offenders.. they're hazards to me and my job
I drive a big brown truck and can't wait to see all of the offenders pulled over... hell, I'll wave the cops to the offenders.. they're hazards to me and my job
While driving in the pouring rain on Hwy 169 earlier, I saw a white sedan come onto the highway from an entrance ramp in front of me. The driver proceeded to drift to the left into the middle lane, where there was already another car. The second driver had to move to the left to avoid rubbing fenders with the drifting car, and the car in the passing lane had to drive onto the shoulder to avoid the same fate. The first driver straightened out in the lane in front of me - and proceeded to slow down almost to a crawl, forcing traffic to go around him. As I passed him, I glanced over... sure enough, he was peering down at a cell phone.
Laws may not be the answer, but until people get their heads out of their butts, put away their phones, and focus on their driving, I'm all for slapping them with a tax on their mentally myopic stupidity. It also makes me wonder something; automobiles first turned up in appreciable numbers in the early 20th century, and cell phones followed some seventy years later. How did the driving public ever survive without cell phones in those seventy-odd years?
Laws may not be the answer, but until people get their heads out of their butts, put away their phones, and focus on their driving, I'm all for slapping them with a tax on their mentally myopic stupidity. It also makes me wonder something; automobiles first turned up in appreciable numbers in the early 20th century, and cell phones followed some seventy years later. How did the driving public ever survive without cell phones in those seventy-odd years?
I survive without a cell phone all day every day. It's a slight inconvenience once in a while, and people look at me funny when they tell me to text them or whatever, but it's not a huge deal.
Easy, they got lost. Or they drove all over town trying to find their friend that was supposed to be at this place but wasn't there and they needed to be in contact with them immediately, so they went look for them. Or they waited for a passing motorist to come by so they could drive to the nearest farm/house/town to report the accident that they just had.
Are there bad things about modern technological conveniences? Yep. Are there good things about them? Also yep. Technology has saved lives probably at least as much as it cost lives. I have been known to text while driving, but now that modern phones have gotten a lot better at voice to text, I rarely ever have to touch my on screen keyboard to send those texts. I have a bluetooth intercom on my helmet that I use while riding my motorcycles. I use voice to text while riding to let my wife know that I'm not part of that accident she just heard about, or that I'm running a little later than expected. I also use that bluetooth intercom to communicate with my brother when we ride together to advise each other of obstacles in the road.
I'm happy for those of you that can and do live without technology. Some of us, on the other hand, embrace it's usefulness and move forward.
As soon as I see a police officer getting a ticket for their use of cell phones while driving, then maybe I'll be more accepting of me possibly getting a ticket for doing the same. If I had a dash cam installed in my truck, I'm fairly positive I could have ruined the day (possibly career) of a police officer that I was behind not long ago. He spent more time on his phone, nearly hitting other cars, never using his blinker, and cutting off everyone around him than most teenagers I've seen driving.
Just to clarify, are you using the term "technology" in the general sense of technology as a whole? If so, I'll agree. If you're using the word applied specifically in the sense of cell phone usage while driving, I'd like to see the statistics you use to make that claim.
The reality is that using a cell phone has been proven to render such a driver four times more likely to have an accident than a driver whose attention is given over wholly to the task of driving a vehicle. In fact, it's the same as driving while legally DUI. Check the NSC white paper about this: http://www.nsc.org/DistractedDrivingDocuments/Cognitive-Distraction-White-Paper.pdf
Also, texting while driving makes that driver twenty-three times more likely to have an accident. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/technology/28texting.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The same fourfold increase in the likelihood of having an accident applies to hands-free cell phone usage as it does to hands-on cell phones.
I do some work in the IT field, and I have a couple desktops, a laptop, an iPad, and a cell phone. But I don't use any of those while I'm driving, as I recognize that it's a demonstrated reduction in personal responsibility. To use a cell phone, whether hands-on or hands-free, is to signal a lack of concern for one's responsibility when driving a vehicle. Sure, a person should be able to do what he or she wants within the confines of a vehicle, but when that translates into a 4X or 23X increase in the likelihood of being rear-ended by such a person, I take exception to that notion. Advances in technology are often very beneficial, but along with those advances go the need to be responsible in the use of these technologies. It's not just about moving forward, it's about recognizing the caveats and addressing them.
Fair enough, but why not start by taking the high road and avoiding the use of cell phones altogether while driving? Then you can point out the double standard while being personally and socially responsible. To say, "Look, he's doing it too!" is a weak argument. No disrespect intended, but that's how I see it.
History has shown that these laws make things worse. http://www.drive-safely.net/driving-while-texting/
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety agrees.
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/deskt...ce-crashes-effects-are-slight-crash-increases
These data only reinforce my conviction that cell phone drivers have less regard for personal responsibility than those who realize cell phone usage while driving is a needless and unnecessary risk except in emergency situations.
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