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Friday, June 29, 2001

Cellphone use pitting life against liberty

By MARK LANE
NEWS-JOURNAL COLUMNIST

Let me start with an admission. I am a marginally competent driver. As a teen-ager, I passed the driver's test with only a couple points to spare and stayed at that level ever since.

I also own a cellphone.

Look out.

Using the cellphone on the road moves me from being a marginally competent driver who always shifts a half-second late into a category of driver exemplified by Mr. Magoo, the Elwood Blues or any other character in the assigned-risk pool of popular culture.

In New York state, this sort of thing is no longer legal. In Florida, nobody messes with road warriors.

Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney has declared himself uninterested in any limitations on car cellphone use and a bill to do that went nowhere last legislative session. "There is a personal liberty-issue," he declared.

The guarantees of life, liberty and pursuit of long-distance dialing are what this country is all about.

Maybe. But this is no mere question of road etiquette. The increase in the number of cellular phones in use, the popularity of heavier, bigger cars and the way technology has jumped in front of people's ability to appreciate what the heck they're doing have combined to create a monster.

Personally, my rule of thumb is to talk only on the open road well out of town. Use a headset if you know you're going to get a call. Stop in a convenience store if you really need to talk and reward yourself for your prudence with a Slurpee afterward. (Cola only. Call me a traditionalist, but anything else doesn't feel right.)

Such practices are hard to codify into law. Particularly the part about cola.

But that doesn't mean nothing can be done. About 40 states have considered bans on driving while dialing and more than 20 countries.

Florida is a state where it's illegal to drive a car while plugged into a Walkman. Where it's illegal to have fuzzy dice hanging from your rearview mirror. Where it's illegal to have a snazzy "Starfleet Academy Alumni Association" sticker on your back window. Where it's illegal to have windows tinted too dark. But where it's perfectly OK to make right turns on red in an SUV the size of a shrimp boat while pounding a 10-digit number into a phone.

Are we amazingly inconsistent about the boundaries of personal liberty or am I missing something?

My opinion on this issue was formed pretty much on the spot when I was almost creamed by an SUV driver who was in the middle of an animated discussion. He took a turn too wide and was coming toward me in my lane. I lurched to the lane on my right, praying there wasn't another car where I was heading.

There were no shrieking brakes. No look of panic on his face when he saw a car in his path. His windows were up so he couldn't even hear my unkind characterization of him. My horn didn't work, leaving me helplessly thumping the steering wheel.

He drove on without a break in his conversation. He had no idea anything had happened.

He probably would be shocked to hear anyone wants to take away his personal liberty to talk on the phone in traffic since he's never noticed any problem with it. I imagine him calling Rep. Feeney to congratulate him on his stand. His voice grows louder and he waves his free hand as he does so.

That's when the cement truck appears out of nowhere.

But that's a bad thing to imagine.

This doesn't need to be harsh, safety-freak legislation. There is room to treat cellphones with the same respect the state of Florida regards Walkmen and fuzzy dice. I don't think police should be able to pull you over for it. But there's room for extra penalties for using a phone while involved in an accident or fines if you're using one when stopped for another infraction.

Yes, it would mean another rule to memorize in a driver's test that almost stumped me, but liberty and the pursuit of happiness sometimes must give way in favor of life on the road.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist.

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