Hey distracted drivers talking on cell phones: look at this sign!

Trolling the wires yesterday, this photo caught my eye for obvious reasons: might it not be necessary to have a few such signs here? The photo was taken earlier this week in Manila. The Automobile Assn. there has called for a complete ban on using cellphones while driving.

I don't know about you, but I still see people holding phones to their ears while driving. Which reminds me that it's time to start pulling stats from local agencies on the number of cellphone tickets handed out so far. Anyone out there been nabbed? Seen anyone else pulled over?

--Steve Hymon

photo: Dennis M. Sabangan / European Pressphoto Agency

Comments

[M]

I can't tell you how many times I've been in situations where I was nearly plowed down by a car while walking or biking since this law went into effect and the driver is blabbing on the phone. I usually try to remind them it's illegal. Some will say "Oh yeah! I forgot", some seem to have no idea what I am talking about. Others just drive away. I've never seen anyone pulled over for this though.

[Cathy]

Yeah, signs aren't going to help. Yesterday the LAT reported a story of the indictment of a driver of a pickup truck who struck and killed a 14 year old boy on a bicycle on charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and driving under the influence. He not only killed the kid, but crashed through a wall and into a backyard of a home. He was on Vicodin and Xanax and was texting when he hit the boy.

You think a sign would have influenced him? How is something like this still allowed to happen? Because our city planners aren't doing their jobs. The only way to prevent these tragedies is to have physical barriers that prevent idiot drivers from killing innocent people.

The creation of the Hollywood Freeway park is a step in the right direction. Put all the traffic in a tunnel underground. So what if they sit there and stew in bumper to bumper traffic? Aren't we trying to reduce car travel and gas consumption? Aren't we?

Someday our descendants will look back at this period of carnage and wonder about the barbarians that allowed high-powered tanks and trucks to go speeding through every neighborhood, yielding to no one, talking, texting, eating, reading maps, while pedestrians, bicyclists or anyone else trying to make a difference fear for their lives.

Oh, btw, Steve. I see lots of people still holding their cell phone to their ears. But just enforcing the law on cell phones isn't going to help with the idiot who drifted onto
the shoulder on Mulholland and nearly hit me when I was running. He was intently reading a paper map, and didn't even see me. What's even more stupid is that he was headed straight for a cliff near Laurel Canyon Blvd. I guess the rough shoulder alerted him to get back in
his lane.

[Jimmy]

Don't talk on your phone while driving because you're putting people in danger. Do however, take your eyes completely off the road while driving and read the sign telling you not to talk on the phone while driving.

[Gary Kavanagh]

In regards to the sign, signs are cheap, results is what matters, and that won't change without enforcement. Signs by them selves are not very ineffective at changing behavior, even things like children at play or deer crossing signs have shown to have very little benefit.

[Gary Kavanagh]

@ Oh Please--
So reasonable regulation of driving is an intrusion by the nanny government? Does that mean 40,000 dead Americans on our roads a year is okay for the sake of driving "freedoms"? I'd rather the government intrude on driver behavior than have a careless driver intrude on my mortality while I'm sharing the road.

[Rachel]

Hilarious

[Oh Please]

Just what we needed -- another idea for more intrusion in our lives from the nanny government.

The real analysis that's needed is to determine if this ban has reduced accidents -- not how much money it's extracted from us.