Stu Bykofsky: No more soft cell: Enforce the car-phone law
CARE TO make a bet? Not Saints vs. Colts. (I'm taking the Saints and the points.) Here's my wager: I bet that if you go to any busy Center City intersection, in less than two minutes - oh, hell, make that one minute - you'll see a driver yakking on a handheld cell phone.
CARE TO make a bet?
Not Saints vs. Colts. (I'm taking the Saints and the points.)
Here's my wager: I bet that if you go to any busy Center City intersection, in less than two minutes - oh, hell, make that one minute - you'll see a driver yakking on a handheld cell phone.
In full view. In full violation of the law.
Any doubters?
I didn't think so.
That cellphone use creates deadly distracted driving is disputed by no (sane) person I could find - and I even looked on the Internet, the corkscrew colony for crackpot contrarians.
Cell-phone use quadruples the risk of an auto accident, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. It causes 636,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries and 2,600 deaths annually, according to the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis, which estimates the cost at $43 billion.
All age groups use cell phones while driving, but it creates an unusual effect among the young - the least experienced drivers and the most cell-addicted:
"If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone," says University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer. "It's like instantly aging a large number of drivers."
And I'm not even talking about texting, which drives crash and death numbers through the roof. The Pennsylvania state Senate will soon debate banning phoning and texting while driving - as if safety was something to debate.
Philadelphia banned cell phoning last year, a law made necessary by the stupidity and Snooki-level self-absorption of too many who use cell phones while driving.
But laws without enforcement are like potato chips without fat. The first are pointless; the second are tasteless.
The local cell-phone ban, the brainchild of Councilman Bill Green, was signed by Mayor Nutter last May. Enforcement was to begin Nov. 1, but motorists were given a grace period of "warnings only" until Dec. 1.
As we approach Feb. 1, how are we doing?
Not so hot, in my opinion.
As of Tuesday, police had written 2,456 tickets, about 1,400 in the southern half of the city, which includes Center City, and 1,000 in the northern half.
Police can stop drivers for using a cell phone, which is a violation of a city ordinance and does not put points on the driver's license. If the Senate does the right thing, maybe it will.
By the numbers, cops wrote an average of 1,228 tickets a month, about 40 a day. Any impact is welcome, but that's a small number. I can see 40 cretins jabbering on cell phones between 5 p.m. and 5:10 p.m. at 15th and Vine, often while making turns that scatter pedestrians like pigeons.
Drivers have been warned, but many continue to roam with phones in hand. Does this come from a misplaced sense of entitlement - or no sense at all?
Why do they persist? Not enough enforcement.
Solution? Blanket enforcement.
For a week, police should stop and ticket every violator they see. They are not hard to find.
Skip a few weeks, then repeat as often as necessary to drive the fear of enforcement - and the $75 fine - through their gooney-bird skulls.
Enforcement will bring adherence to the law and protect us from the distracted, self-centered clods who prize their chat time over our safety.
More enforcement, more safety. That's a sure thing.
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: