The National Transportation Safety Board is calling for a nationwide ban on use of cellphones while driving, including hands-free devices like speakerphones, Bluetooth headsets, and the like. What's next? Are they going to ban listening to conservative talk radio while driving? Drinking coffee kept in a car cup-holder?
I'm as annoyed as the next guy is by the car in front of me swerving or driving at an erratic speed while the driver (I'm not going to engage in any stereotypes about gender) yammers away at the phone held in the driver's hand to the driver's ear. But it seems to me the answer is in better enforcing existing laws against reckless driving, rather than taking away cellphone privileges from the rest of us who use them responsibly. As others have noted, there's been a tremendous rise in the number of drivers with cellphones over the past 20 years or so, without anything like a commensurate increase in highway fatalities. Another example of overreach in government regulation.
