It's ironic to see a UPenn student writing this defense of biking while talking on the cell phone, considering it seems at least 1 or 2 Upenn kids get flattened every year by cars or wind up injuring themselves by getting caught up in trolley tracks, but the real funny here is that moyse totally misses the point. Council's bill is not meant to "ban stupid", it is mean to "raise revenue". That's why so many other people are targeted in the bill, including bikes, rollerbladers, etc.

I also enjoyed Moyse's inane jab about inconsistency, because the bill exempts truckers, cops and others "who need to use communication devices in the car for work." Duh? How do you expect cops in cars to respond to crimes in progress if not by giving them an exemption from the legislation? That's not inconsistency, that's called "foresight".

If this guy's column is the result of an Ivy league education, man i am glad i went to a state school.

I was commuting back and forth last year to NJ when they decided they were going to take their ban seriously. And, after seeing a number of people being pulled over, I stopped talking on my phone in New Jersey. But, with my hours on the road every day or two, I would get pretty bored, and as soon as I crossed the PA state line, I would start back up.

I think the law will be overturned, but I think it is sensible, especially as it relates to texting and checking your blackberry as you are driving around.

The idea that I wanted to write something in opposition to parts of this bill had been kicking around in my head for a while until I realized that I probably couldn't articulate what bothered me about it well enough to avoid looking like a total crackpot who wants it to be ok for bikers to talk on cell phones.

But since you brought it up...

The gist of this is that I don't like that this law essentially gives official, city-sanctioned, legal equivalence to bikes/roller blades/skateboards and cars. It contributes to an overall public perception that ignores the fundamental differences between the two. Driving while on a cell phone is dangerous to everyone else - including, but statistically not mostly, the driver. Biking while on a cell phone is dangerous to a cyclist and to the extent that it's dangerous to a pedestrian, it's nowhere near as lethal to a pedestrian as a driver on a cell phone.

A car is essentially a 1000-3000 pound bullet. Driving it while using a cell phone turns it into a stray bullet. A bike, by contrast, is a BB... doesn't even break the skin and is most dangerous to the user who could end up shooting his own eye out. (Again... not so articulate.)

Most of all, as far as I know, there is no statistical evidence that points to an epidemic of cyclists being injured because they were on cell phones. I'm not a big fan of any legislator coming up with legislation because he happens to see someone do something and thinks it might be dangerous. If City Council is going to write a law to protect bikers from themselves (hmmm... legislation to protect people from themselves, sounds kind of like prohibition against marijuana, right?), then why not mandate helmets since helmetless riding has far greater potential to cause serious injury and is a much more common occurrence? And to the extent that helmetless riding is more common and leads to increases in health care costs that are borne by all, then we all feel the effects.

Again... I really don't think cyclists should talk on cell phones while biking and I may even be ok with some separate regulation prohibiting it, perhaps with a lower level of fine or even just the hassle of being stopped by law enforcement and being made to wait while a non-fine citation is issued.

But by putting the bikes/roller bladers/skateboarders in the same bill as the cars, we're tacitly endorsing an equivalence of lethality that isn't reality.

Alright... that's out of my system.

"Girl, 6, hit twice by driver reportedly on phone"

I bet the driver, that scurried away twice, will blame the girl, the ice cream truck, or the parents who weren't tethered to their daughter at the time.

apparently.

And that they like it.

Since I am betting very few of this anti-Philly bill's sponsor's Altoona constitutents drive into Philadelphia on daily basis, I begin to wonder if micromanaging Philadelphia's City Council will ever stop being a popular electioneering tactic for upstate Republicans.

Hey don't you guys have a state budget to pass or something?

-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.

I see I'm way behind commenting here, but the worst part of this is that they're so excited about the cell phone ban that they extend it to bicycles et al, and yet leave hands-free units unregulated despite evidence indicating that hands-free sets are just as dangerous as regular cell phones. The problem isn't occupying your hands; it's diverting your attention from the task at hand, and talking on the phone does this a hundred-fold more than does listening to radio or a book on tape. Any kind of cell phone usage in a car has the incapacitating effect equivalent to driving drunk (!), and until we can get the social appreciation/stigma up to that level, we can't let our legislation go only half-way.

acm

(with apologies that I don't have the time to refind/link the relevant research right now...)

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
— Margaret Mead