California has only recently changed its cell phone laws to make it so that you can’t text while driving. Prior to this change, you couldn’t talk on the phone while driving but you could text. How smart is that? After all, texting obviously requires more of your attention to be focused on your phone than on the road right?

The reason that I’m thinking about this is because I recently researched an article on 10 Tragic Accidents Caused by Cell Phones. These are primarily car accidents involving someone who was texting or talking on the cell phone whilr driving and hit and killed someone else. There was also the tragic case of the LA Commuter Train accident that was partially caused by the distraction of cell phones. And even one case in which a man merely went inside to go get a forgotten cell phone and ended up getting run over by his one car.

I’m not honestly sure how I feel about talking or texting while driving. I do think that it causes accidents. On the other hand, I don’t think that talking on a cell phone is particularly more distracting to drivers than talking to the three kids in the back seat or trying to navigate around an unfamiliar area by fiddling with the GPS system.

What do you think? Is it good that texting while driving has been banned in California? Should we ban other types of fiddling around in cars?

Tags: cell phone laws, cell phones, driving, issues, kathryn vercillo, laws, mobile phones, texting, transportation, Wireless

I got my first car when I was still fifteen because I was that eager to start driving as soon as I was legally allowed to do so. At 18, I took a photography job that had me in my car two days per week traveling to and from all of the little cities of Arizona. When I was 21, I took off in my pickup truck with the guy that I liked at the time and we traveled all over the country together. And at 25, I accepted a brief job helping an artist which included driving him across the country to different conventions where he sold his work.

The point here is that I’ve spent a whole heck of a lot of time in cars. Sometimes I loved it. I like road trips. I like the convenience of driving. But ever since I moved to San Francisco, I don’t own a car and I almost never drive and I much prefer life this way than the way that it was when I had a car that I drove every day.

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of things that I don’t like about not having a car. I don’t like the days when it’s raining out and my umbrella doesn’t work right and I’m trying to decide whether it’s worse to walk in the rain or worse to get on a crowded bus with dozens of wet people. I don’t like the times on the bus when the creepy people bother me. I don’t like that I can’t get in my vehicle and just drive up the coast for the day because I don’t have a vehicle anymore.

But overall, I’d rather have a car-free life. I live in a place where I can easily walk to and from most of the things that I need to do on a daily basis. I like that a whole lot better than living in a place where I’d have to drive to and from my daily stops. I live in a place where public transportation is decent and I can go a really long way from here on trains and ferries if I want to. Mostly I prefer that to those lonely hours spent on highways around the country.

Because of the way that I live now, I have trouble understanding how people drive every day. I don’t know how my mom and my brother can each spend multiple hours in the car each day running errands and running around. I don’t understand when friends mention that they commute several hours each day to and from work. And I don’t remember how it was that I drove as much as I did back when I did. But everyone is different. Some people love driving. What about you?

Tags: autos, cars, driving, green, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, transit, transportation, Travel