Elisa,

This John Ulczycki needs to get back down in the hole he climbed out of. He believes the average person is too stupid to recognize that ANYTHING that distracts one’s attention while driving is a hazard.

I don’t buy his argument that cell phones are vastly more dangerous than other tasks. I can not believe the police go through a laundry list of possible contributing factors at every fender bender. Because of their visibility, cops probably routinely ask if the drivers involved in a crash were using a cell phone/texting while driving. I doubt if they ask if they were eating, drinking, combing their hair, applying make-up, reading the Post, etc, etc, so Mr Ulczycki’s “facts” are most likely his opinion.

Let’s urge drivers to concentrate on the task at hand and avoid ANY distraction that can increase the risk of an accident. Ol’ John’s snobbish answer makes it sound like any other activity is OK because at least it’s not as bad as using a cell phone.

I was recently rear ended by a woman using her cell phone on Olive. I could have been killed. That’s enough to ban all cell phone use while driving. The state could raise a lot of revenue by giving tickets to anyone breaking the law. If you place the fine at $500 per ticket that would make a difference and put revenue back into the state.

I am so tired of people driving in the passing lane slower than the traffic to the right of them I could scream. Most of the time it is someone on a cell phone. It is against the law to drive in the left lane if you are not passing someone. Move over if you are not passing.

Merc Man, right on! I’ve done many of these things and still have not had an accident because of them. Should I have to pay because others are not able to deal with distractions as well? Are people innocent until proven guilty, or the other way around? This John person is the one who is uninformed. It all depends on the extent of the distraction and distractions affect different people different ways. If I crank up the radio all the way, let’s compare that to his using a cell phone.

I guess that if a person was distracted by a radio and crashes into John, it’s okay, but if they were using a cell phone, it’s not. If a person is not distracted and crashes into John, that should be okay, too.

I say a person is responsible for the accident they caused if the accident was not reasonably avoidable. For instance, if I am not distracted or eating or texting or using a cell phone or drinking and cause an accident, I should be responsible as they are reasonably avoidable since I have control over any of those situations. However, if a deer crosses in front of my car and I have to swerve and hit another car, that accident is not reasonably avoidable.

John, you’re clearly showing a bias against cell phones and saying other distractions are okay. Is this fair?

However, if John does reply, he won’t directly answer the questions I posed as they make too much sense.

Merc, anything can be distracting to driving such as having the stereo at elevated volume levels, cell phones, drinking coffee, etc. There was a time that the Missouri State Government was having legislation about cell phones. Cell phones are wee little machines that are just like computers. If you are not careful with them, they CAN lead up to trouble. Food and drink behind the wheel can be trouble as well as a cell phone. But newer phones have jacks on them where you can hook up a “blue-tooth” hands-free system. Sometimes there are acessories you can buy for your phone such as an adapter for your stereo and you can turn your stereo into a speaker phone. Just dial the tuner to 96.1 FM. Also they come equipped with onboard voicemail systems. Coffee and donuts don’t have onboard systems like that. If you are on a highway, and your cell phone rings, let the voicemail system get it. That way, you can get a better chance to pull over when there is a space to allow you to do so and you can answer your voicemail messages.