Legislating Common Sense For the FAIL

California, in an attempt to legislate common sense, instituted a law banning the use of a cell phone while driving unless a hands free device was used. The fine for a first offense is $20, additional offenses are $50 each. From what I've seen around town, the law has done absolutely nothing to change people's idiotic and totally self-absorbed behavior. They continue to blather away on their phones while drifting from lane to lane on the highway in their mega-SUV (they are invariably alone too).

The thing is, the law is already pretty clearly covered by laws against reckless driving. Reckless driving is when you are driving your vehicle in a negligent and dangerous manner. Studies have clearly shown that people on cellphones drive as bad OR WORSE than drunk drivers. Their attention is limited, their ability to react is severely impacted and they make themselves a far more dangerous road hazard than not gabbing away on their phone.

My recommendation is to either remove the law altogether and just start enforcing the existing laws against reckless driving or give the cell phone ban law some real teeth. Nobody cares about a piddly $20 fine. Make the first fine $50, the second $100 and add $100 to each subsequent fine. If someone's facing a $400 fine just for talking on their phone while driving, they might think twice about it. Probably not but maybe.

Side note, reckless as a word to describe dangerous driving is nearly the same as wreckless, meaning not having a wreck. Odd.

Some Cell Shots from Target

Here are some shots from a recent foray into the land of the concentric circle also known as Tar-shay or just plain ol' Target.

The Sonic Blade just made me laugh, its a wireless electric knife, that's comedy gold. And the Monkey See shirt was in the kid's section, it was a pretty cute shirt. The last shirt was in the big boy's section and I expect that I'd see a couple on St. Pat's day if I were heading out for a tipple.

The camera in my cellphone has become alot more usable now that I've finally figured out how to sync the phone with my computer via Bluetooth. But I can't get the phone to work with my Clie for some reason which is kind of a bummer. Nor can I get my wireless Bluetooth headphones to work with the Clie or the cell. I had thought that Bluetooth was a pretty standard standard but I keep getting told that the device doesn't have the services to sync. Oh well. I'm still all "Bond" when I sync wirelessly.

Cingular Can Suck My Balls

Cingular Wireless can blow me.

I got into work this morning and, during my commute, my phone turned from a usable device into a brick. I didn't do anything to it, I didn't get it wet or bash it on anything, it has just stopped functioning.

So I call Cingular to see about getting it replaced, repaired or whatever.

And, because my account was added on to my wife's several years ago, I cannot get access to support because I don't know her friggin' password. This is on top of the long annoying fact that I can't change what appears on other people's caller ID when I call. Its an add-on line that has to display my wife's name, they can't change it or, much more likely, they won't change it and my add-on line feels like a red-headed stepchild.

Nice work, Cingular, you've just lost me as a repeat customer. I will be going into one of your stores tomorrow and if you do not deal me right, I will never even consider buying services from your company again.

[Update: After much fiddling and irritation, the battery has decided to accept a charge again and my phone is theoretically back in business. We'll see how it goes but I'm still annoyed.]