Blog 7

In the book the legislation did fail repeatedly but thanks to the state legislator that continually pushed for, what was deemed at the time to be a fairly progressive law, we now have much safer roads due to the restrictions placed on drivers regarding cell phone usage. In chapter 23 there was scientific proof showing the dangers and consequences of cell phone usage while driving and it repeatedly failed because of the lobby groups backed by the cell phone companies and carriers who didn’t want any other kind of restriction to cell phone usage while driving. The lobby groups also used the system and its history of bias against minorities and their likelihood of being pulled over and the addition of making the use of cell phones in cars illegal would add to the amount of vehicles pulled over and would add the the stigma, and lawmakers didn’t want that. The common sense education pushed by the lobbyists, I believe, was a good idea but still fell short of accomplishing the goal of safety for the thousands of drivers and pedestrians affected by distracted drivers each year. The best legislation is actually what we have today, zero use of cell phones or texting while driving, and the use of hands free devices such as bluetooth built into the vehicle. Although there is not too much research to support or refute the help of hands free devices and I believe that there could be future legislation to further regulate the use of any kind of phone usage in the car while driving.