Brandon Moyse | Banning stupid never works

I've always been told you can't fix stupid. Philadelphia, though, is trying to ban it.

Last week, the City Council passed a bill that would allow police to ticket motorists, bicyclists, skateboarders, rollerbladers and scooter riders who are caught talking or texting on handheld cell phones. Mayor Michael Nutter is expected to sign the bill, which would likely be the nation's strictest (no word yet on whether this affects people in wheelchairs, on Segways or hansom-cab drivers).

This is nothing but feel-good legislation of the worst kind. It's an ineffective measure that punishes people by restricting them from engaging in behavior that may cause harm, without attacking the root of the problem: distracted driving.

Eating; drinking coffee; talking to passengers in the backseat; fiddling with GPS systems, iPods and the radio; picking something up off the floor; yelling at your obnoxious children; brushing teeth; shaving; putting on makeup - these are just a handful of activities that distract drivers on a far greater scale than talking on a cell phone. An April 2006 National Highway Traffic Safety Association study showed that distracted driving is responsible for about 30 percent of all crashes, and a later study by Harvard pegged cell phones as responsible for about 6 percent of all crashes. So why not regulate the behaviors that cause the other 83 percent of distracted-driving accidents?

Technology is an easy target. We see enough people yammering away on their phones and hear enough media reports about them "being responsible" for fatal car crashes that when lawmakers need to say they're making the world a better place, it's not hard to turn cell phones into a scapegoat. After all, if Mayor Nutter & Co. actually cared or spent a little more time thinking this through, they'd ban all talking on mobile devices, because studies of cell phone use have shown that talking on hands-free devices is just as bad as talking on handheld ones. Moreover, the bill makes room for those who need to use communication devices in the car for work, such as truckers and cops. Philadelphia's position is mind-bogglingly inconsistent.

And let's not forget the "driving while on the phone is as bad as driving drunk" mantra, which, by the way, was borrowed from a tiny Canadian survey 12 years ago. Although it's true that studies have shown drivers on cell phones react slower, a cell phone is a distraction, not an impairment, like alcohol.

That brings me to my next point: The state (and I say it in the broader anti-big-government sense) should not regulate the inherently harmless behaviors in which people can engage. Drivers (or rollerbladers, bicyclists, etc.) who cause accidents because they were distracted should be subject to more severe penalties, like how we punish those who cause accidents while drunk more severely. But by fining people for engaging in what lawmakers deem to be dangerous behavior before they harm others, they marginalize the importance of personal responsibility. They are punishing the majority for the stupidity of the few.

Take, for example, the story of Rebecca Cunningham, who testified at the Philadelphia City Council in favor of the bill. She suffered a broken wrist and needed two surgeries to repair her ankle when she crashed into a utility pole while texting her friend.

Now, I'm not going to lie, I've texted while driving before - but she is an idiot. I suppose I'm an idiot, too. But for the most part, I feel like I use a cell phone responsibly. I certainly haven't drifted over two lanes while texting like Cunningham. When I use a cell phone while driving, I am making a judgment that I am competent enough to multitask without hitting a utility pole. By testifying in favor of the bill, Cunningham is saying: I am too dumb to make decisions for myself; please, government, tell me what to do.

More frightening is the fact that by introducing this bill, the City's government is saying that it knows what is best for us. While I have a generally low opinion of the intelligence of the public at large, I think we as individuals can decide for ourselves.

Brandon Moyse is a College junior from Montreal. He is the former Senior Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvaniand. What Aboot It, Eh? appears on Thursdays. His email address is moyse@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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