So, 1,187 bills were passed in Sacramento in 2008, which is about average, and the governor signed 772 of them into law. Most of the ones that you might hear or care about have to do with driving, which is important, especially if you have a car.
The big auto-related news this year — which you’ve already seen posted on freeway message boards — is that effective immediately, you cannot text while driving. Hmm. Do you do that? I don’t. Not that I haven’t done things behind the wheel that we don’t need to discuss at this moment, but you need to be way out in the ozone to be doing 65 on the 73 with one eye on your PDA while you’re steering with your knees and typing with your thumbs.
I’m guessing this mostly has to do with 16-year-olds on a learner’s permit.
And by the way, the new law says that both writing and reading text messages while you’re driving is no bueno. Just put the cellphone down and no one will get hurt.
But let’s be honest. Whether it’s the new no-texting law or last year’s hands-free only law, what all this is slowly moving toward is a ban on using cellphones behind the wheel. No matter how the sound is getting into your ear and out of your mouth, when you’re carrying on a conversation and driving at the same time, your brain would prefer not to do both and if you insist, it will do neither well.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not being critical. I am the worst offender in the world and constantly on the phone when I’m in the car, to say nothing of checking for messages every 10.4 seconds. Most people are convinced that using an earphone or a built-in speaker is much safer — except a boatload of research has shown that it is not.
