Bill Aims to Force Drivers to Put Down Cell Phones: P.A. DEMOCRAT WANTS HANDS-FREE DEVICES
By Edwin Garcia, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
Jun. 25–SACRAMENTO — A car creeps along in the fast lane. A turn signal blink, blink, blinks for no apparent reason. A driver drifts off in one direction, then the other.
Drunk? Nope. Just another DUICPG: driving under the influence of cell phone gabbing — one hand on the wheel, the other on the phone.
There oughta be a law, you think. Well, there soon may be.
For the sixth time since he became a state lawmaker, Sen. Joe Simitian of Palo Alto is calling for legislation to prohibit drivers from chatting on cell phones unless they’re doing so with hands-free mobility, such as using an earpiece or speaker phone.
And this time, the measure — similar to recent laws in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — might be approved. It heads to a key committee hearing Monday.
About time, says Peter Ohlon, a design engineer who lives in Morgan Hill.
“The distraction of people driving is horrible,” Ohlon said. “I can see people driving in two lanes — you pass them, I can see their cell phone, their ear is cocked, they drive slow.”
Simitian, a Democrat, tried to pass four similar measures after joining the Assembly in 2001, and once since his election to the Senate. Each measure faced strong resistance from the wireless phone industry, as well as many legislators from both parties who argue that cell phones are just one of many distractions drivers face.
This time, however, only one wireless company, Sprint Nextel, has registered opposition to SB 1613, while police, insurance companies and firefighters have expressed support. The bill has cleared the Senate floor and will be heard in the Assembly, where many of its current members voted in favor of a nearly identical measure three years ago.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Simitian said.
If passed by both houses and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the law would go into effect July 1, 2008. Violators would be fined $20 for a first offense and $50 for the second infraction.
“I introduced the bill for one simple reason,” Simitian said. “It will save lives.”
Divergent statistics
Simitian is relying on motor vehicle collision statistics compiled by the California Highway Patrol to make his point.
Cell phones, he said, citing the statistics, are the principal cause for accidents in which drivers were distracted — not eating, fiddling with CDs or reading the paper. And in 2004, he added, data showed that drivers using phones pegged to their ears were involved in 25 times more accidents than drivers who used hands-free devices.
“There’s a growing mountain of evidence,” Simitian said, “that makes it next to impossible to deny the safety risk that we’re facing with cell phones and driving.”
Sprint Nextel’s opposition also is based partly on CHP statistics, but from 2002. Those figures showed that of California’s 491,083 car crashes, 5,677 were because of distracted drivers. And of that number, 611 were blamed on cell phone use.
Sprint Nextel Public Affairs Manager John Taylor said legislation targeting cell phone users is “inappropriate and bad public policy” because dozens of other things distract drivers.
“I have two kids in the back seat of my car. Are we going to ban them, too?” Taylor said. “That’s a bigger distraction than talking on my cell phone.”
Taylor, by the way, talks into a speaker phone when he drives, abiding by the hands-free law in his hometown, Washington, D.C.
Other distractions
Assemblyman John Benoit, R-Riverside, will vote against Simitian’s bill if it goes to the Assembly floor because it’s not comprehensive.
“If you were driving home tonight and were eating a hamburger and looked down and got distracted and caused an accident,” Benoit said, a police officer could write only one citation: “Unsafe speed for conditions.”
What the state needs, he said, is more data on crashes attributed to cell phone use, and a distracted driver section written into its Vehicle Code, like the one he introduced in 2002, which failed to become law.
“There’s a lot of distractions that can be involved with the inattentive driver,” Benoit said in a cell phone interview, which he conducted without a hands-free device, but while pulled over to the side of the road.
If the California law passes, sales of speaker phone kits or Bluetooth ear modules would presumably increase for Sprint Nextel and other wireless companies. And ironically, Sprint Nextel claims to offer “the largest selection of hands-free accessories of any competitor,” Taylor said.
Simitian, who swears he drives with an ear bud when making and taking phone calls on the highway, points to surveys showing that 70 to 75 percent of the public supports hands-free laws.
The measure will be taken up at 1:30 p.m. Monday by the Assembly Transportation Committee.
Contact Edwin Garcia at egarcia@mercurynews.com or (916) 441-4651.
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Copyright (c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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