Actually, I think we should

Reader comment on: Cellphone While Driving Ban
in response to reader comment: Bring back drunk driving?

Submitted by Tom Elliott (United States), Dec 19, 2011 00:34

DWI arrests, which usually result in Americans going to prison, are not often like the horrendous things you see on TV. Sometimes it's a dad who's had two wines over dinner and happened upon a checkstop. Or a farmer thousands of miles from civilization, who's taken along a Bud to fix something at his barn 3 miles away. The crime itself should not be driving after, or even during, the consumption of alcohol -- but rather actually driving drunkenly or distractedly.

Distracted driving is what police are supposed to be looking out for. That's the kind of driving that actually imperils street safety. As a law, "distracted driving" can, and should, cover eating while driving, applying makeup while driving, talking/texting while driving, etc., if those things do in fact end up hurting your driving ability, you should get arrested. If not, you're not driving distractedly. This means we don't need all of those laws for each specified behavior. Correlation, after all, is not causation. Better to consolidate criminal statute in more general ways so that the police become less needful of being everyone's personal busybudy.

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