So where are we headed with driver safety laws?
Last week, the state Assembly passed a bill banning drivers from holding live animals on their laps.
Evidently, dead – or stuffed – pets are OK.
Now don't assume I'm going off on a Rush Limbaugh-style rant over the richly lampoonable “Paris Hilton law.”
To be honest, I want to live in a nanny state so long as she's smart and good-looking and has my interest at heart.
When backing out of the garage, I'm not philosophically opposed to the government getting all warm and fussy. At that point, all I care about is speed, comfort, cost and safety, not Emersonian self-reliance.
So I can agree with Assembly legislators that it's sheer lunacy for anyone to drive with squirming critters behind the wheel. Maybe there ought to be a law.
But here's what gets me: The legislation of common sense can lead to a stupid sense of security when, in fact, there ought to be none.
When driving, my swivel-headed view is that we should always be terrified of what's about to happen inside that car just ahead or behind or beside us.
Or inside the one we're in.
Until the day when perfected computers, not imperfect human beings, are directing vehicles, paranoia should always be riding shotgun.
On July 1, the state law banning driving with a cell phone plastered to one's ear will go into effect. From then on out, hands-free phones will have to be used by adult drivers or they will run the risk of a fine. Drivers under 18 are totally busted. No talk, no text, no zip.
Tell me, are you going to feel more secure July 1 when you see drivers staring and talking into inner space instead of staring and talking into inner space with a phone welded to their head flaps?
Well, you can if you like. But consider:
A 2006 University of Utah study concluded that yakking on any kind of cell phone – hand-held or hands-free – is as dangerous as driving drunk.
You ever wonder why traffic moves at such a herky-jerky pace?
Drivers on hands-free phones are 18 percent slower to brake and 17 percent slower to regain speed than unimpaired drivers, the Utah study found.
A 2005 study in Australia concluded that there's no difference in the crash risk between the two types of phones.
Very likely, it's a myth that no-hands is safer than one reaching to a cocked head.
A recent Insurance Information Institute survey of cell-phone safety data included this sobering nugget:
“A September 2004 study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that drivers using hand-free cell phones had to redial calls 40 percent of the time, compared with 18 percent for drivers using hand-held sets, suggesting that hands-free sets may provide drivers with a false sense of ease.”
That's just great.
Demented drivers with an enhanced sense of ease.
Frankly, I'm not sure whom I'd rather drive behind – drunk singing the blues or a soccer dad wearing a Bluetooth phone.
So what's likely to be the net effect of this new law that will change the driving behavior of millions of Californians?
A run on Radio Shacks or other gizmo outlets.
Can you hear me now?
Three seconds.
One . . . two . . . three.
That's where the rubber meets the road. Or more ghoulishly, where the metal meets the metal.
A two-year-old study, conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the NHTSA, found that nearly 80 percent of car accidents are caused by driver distraction three seconds before the crash.
While cell phones and fatigue are common causes of distraction, the study found that reaching for a falling object – a cup, say – increased the likelihood of a crash by nine times. Talking on a cell phone increased the risk just 1.3 times.
“These findings confirm an August 2003 report from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety that concluded that drivers are far less distracted by their cell phones than by other common activities, such as reaching for items on the seat or glove compartment or talking to passengers,” the Insurance Information Institute says.
So I ask again: Where are we headed with driver safety laws?
Will we prohibit cup holders on the chance that dropping a hot cup of joe is always a possibility?
Should we ban animated conversations in the car, demanding that cars be as quiet as study halls?
Should we disable car radios, CDs and iPods because they can transport us to other dimensions? How about requiring evidence of eight hours of sleep before turning the ignition?
Should we outlaw the gross practice of eating and grooming while guiding tons of steel down the speedway?
Until California banishes all cell phones as well as mood swings, spastic movements, animated talk, fatigue, rage, joy, reveries, diabetic shock, strokes, explosive sneezes and flatulence, I'm going to take the advice of a wise, old man who many years ago taught me the leery zen and art of motorcycle operation:
Ride as if no one can see you.
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
