Kerostasis

Clearly we need to replace all the High-Occupancy-Vehicle lanes on the highways with Low-Occupancy-Vehicle lanes to promote highway safety! We'll worry about pollution later.

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Elwenil

No, I didn't mean to imply that truckers were more able to deal with the extra distraction, but that they have a lot more to pay attention to with EG temps, gear/MPH range and RPM matching, air brake pressure and reserve, and just dealing with a 52' trailer in general. So someone driving a car who only has a few gauges to keep an eye on, no trailer, no air brakes, no non-synchronized manual transmission, etc could possibly be just fine driving while on a cellphone, all things considered.

As far as being enforced, it's a be in the right place at the right time sort of thing. There are thousands of people turning up a beer while driving and they don't get caught as much as they should simply because there is no cop watching them at the time. And for that matter, one could argue that the cop looking inside every car they pass to see if the driver is drinking, reading, puking, talking, masturbating, etc is distracting the cop and he is now a danger on the road.

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Hambergler

I would like much rather cops put away there radar guns and sit on the side of the road watching for people masturbating, reading, eating, puking, or talking on the phone. Totally unacceptable activities while driving a car.

The majority of trucks should not be on the roads. We should have done away with them a long time ago and implement a more functional railroad system. But thats another topic.

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Elwenil

Not feasible. Rail roads are great for mass transport of single loads like coal but would be very inefficient for smaller loads. 99% of everything you buy rode on a truck at some point.

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Kerostasis

Psh, you people are weak. I can eat dinner in my car without ever taking my eyes off the road or my hands off the wheel. Not all other activities are necessarily dangers. As Elwenil pointed out, truckers deal with a lot more mental activity than your average driver without automatically becoming a hazard.

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ScratchMonkey

Ah, but can you put your pantyhose on over your head while driving? That's the real test of immunity to distraction, I think.

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INSUNABULA

The law is the law whether you're a truck driver or not - what is true for one must be true for all.

Until we start seeing the autonomous driving systems arrive on the market in 10 years.

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ScratchMonkey

You need different licenses with different requirements for truck and car, so what is true for one is not true for all.

Which suggests an addition to the driving test where one must demonstrate that one can operate a cell phone while driving an obstacle course. I suggest that the person on the other end be one's elderly mother or pregnant wife, to properly establish a good distraction level.

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ScratchMonkey

There's something more distracting than a cell phone:

http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_...efreshing.html
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

I suggest the fine be $35 per gram of drool.

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