Now that the elections are finally over, I hope there will be people in Augusta with a backbone.
The "distracted driver law" was a total waste of legislative time and effort, and the Nov. 1 accident on the Casco Bay Bridge affirms that.
The law reminds me of the old saying about closing the gate after the cows got loose. Give people tickets for not paying attention to the road after they kill someone?
It took years of pounding people in the head that wearing seat belts saves lives. Finally, after many fatalities, wearing a seat a belt became law with a penalty imposed for noncompliance.
How many deaths will it take before state lawmakers get the message and ban cell phone use in vehicles? The law should be just like the seat belt law: if you're not wearing one, you will be fined; and if you're driving with a cell phone attached to your head, you will be fined.
Many lives, maybe mine or someone else's, won't be taken by a distracted driver.
Al Pelletier, Norway
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You asked "How many deaths
You asked
"How many deaths will it take before state lawmakers get the message and ban cell phone use in vehicles?"
It's not about life or death it's about dollars and cents.
The cell phone companies in this country make million, approaching billions of dollars every year. That money has and will continue to keep most states from enacting laws banning the use of cell phones anywhere.
In most cases, and in Maine, when corporate $ talks politicians listen.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.You can not legistlate common sense
Unfortunately, Al, no one has figured out a way to legistlate common sense. People still insist on smoking while on oxygen and burn down theirs and other peoples homes in the process often taking someones life as well, DUH! And then there are those who insist on trying to navigate a motor vehicle through a foot of fresh snow with one hand bracing a cellphone to their head another navigating a coffee cup to their lips and can't figure out how they ended up taking out a line of parked cars, a telephone pole, a mail box or god forbid the neighbors kid. Unfortunately, Al, common sense is in short supply and the supply seems to be getting shorter every day.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Al's point is, I think,...
now that we have this law, perhaps it will be used to eventually drive down the number of accidents where a distracted driver is the cause. Distracted driver is a common sense issue, for which too many of us appear not to share in that common sense, but one can be legislated. The question then becomes, if it will be enforced and upheld in court.
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