Ticket video: Car cellphone ban nears, shocker tips on what's still legal
Enjoy it. Talk up a storm on the road. You've got only a few days left to use cellphones in your hand while driving.
Then, ring-a-ding, the new California law takes effect requiring that you shut the heck up or use a hands-free phone thingy. The cops don't need any other excuse to stop you, no cocaine blowing out the back window, nothing but holding that hand suspiciously up by your ear. (So no ear-picking -- too risky.)
And there are no warnings for first-time offenders. Just tickets.
Politicians in Sacramento, who live by the cellphone themselves, realized they could get a lot of publicity by championing this restriction, claiming that thousands, probably millions, maybe even billions of drivers were driving on California's crumbling highways distracted by conversations on cellphones and causing a gazillion accidents.
Who hasn't seen an accident or near-accident with (always) a woman talking on her cellphone?
So no doubt, starting July 2 the number of traffic accidents in California will plummet to near-zero and our collision insurance premiums will too.
Or not.
That's because these same underemployed lawmakers did not ban such things as cup holders, Big Macs on your thigh, dripping mustard, too many radio commercials on one station, nagging spouses, CD players, children squabbling in the backseat or dogs sitting in drivers' laps to enjoy the breezes.
That's still all A-OK. So The Times' famed videographer Jeff Amlotte and Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive writer Dan Neil creatively collaborated on this hilarious video to instruct California drivers on exactly what is still legal for them to do while driving after June 30.
Be sure to watch this video while driving. That's still legal too. Oh, and e-mail this link to everyone on your contact list, one by one. That's legal too.
Just don't phone them about it.
--Andrew Malcolm
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Heard today on the news that California and Washington states are banning hand-held cellphones while driving. That's the best news I've heard in a long time. I live in British Columbia and I don't have a cellphone and I can't wait until this province wakes up and does the same. I saw a man driving a truck the other day with a cellphone in one hand holding the steering wheel, a coffee in the other, gawking out the window at some lady walking down the sidewalk on his right. It boggles my mind what is so important that they can't wait until they park their vehicle to take or make their call. Thank you all.
Posted by: L.D. | June 30, 2008 at 06:19 PM