I am torn on this issue. While I have had very close situations with driver's obviously on cell phones, I have also had 2 instances where a driver was staring at the GPS unit (that I see in most vehicles now). Cell phones are a clear distraction from the task at hand and they are an easy target if you have one up to your ear, but the same goes (in my opinion) for Bluetooth devices, CB's, sat nav's, fighting childern in the back seat.... Has anyone else been bumped into in a store by someone squawking into a bluetooth headset? So, is there an extra fine for the mother who turned around to get a grip on a youngster and drifts in to me, just like being distracted on a cell phone? Distracted is distracted, isn't it?
I have observed police (state and local) talking on cell phones while on duty, in a patrol car as well as typing on the computers they carry, weaving lanes. I argue they are not any better than I am at "multi-tasking" on the highway, at speed. Do they get a pass?
This has good intentions but it will mutate into a money generator, similar to seat belt laws and helmet laws. Even the red light cameras that were supposed to make us safer:
Public Safety For Sale Contact A Florida Legislator : Liberty Underground
No decrease in "angle accidents in intersections" and a marked increase in rear end collisions (think about that on a MC), all while while generating revenue.
Again in my opinion, while there are dire consequences, especially for folks on MC's, until an "accident" happens, have you harmed anyone? To me the penalty should be applied when an event happens: meaning your carelessness has injured someone else. If
you smack a tree because you are on a cell phone, I could care less. To me, a $1000 fine says that you can still talk on a cell phone if you have the $$$. If you really want it to stop, make it a real penalty: $1,000,000 fine, 5 years in prison and you lose the priviledge to drive forever and enforce it. The point is that you could really reduce it if that was the intent. Apply that fine to drinking and driving and see what happens. To me you can drive drunk, blind folded and talking on a cell phone. The moment you injure someone else, you are on the hook.