Texting?

They can subpoena your phone records.

The intent of the new law is to fortify the "no talking on cell phone". That law became enforceable on July 1, 2008. You were required to use a hands free headset to talk on your cellphone.

It was obvious that without also restricting texting, the first law was a farce. As how law enforcement officers could distinguish from talking on your cell phone vs texting, who knows?

IMO, only the retailers benefited from this law.

im guessing with both laws in place, hands free, and no texting, it wouldnt matter what your doing with your phone from checking your calender, email, or even dialing a number, it would fall into one of the 2 categories. bottom line they dont want any hand held devices while you are driving, understandable.

Except the law allows you to use the speaker function of your cell phone!

What use is this law? If you complete this idiotic train of thought, make the use of the radio knobs, climate control knobs and the seat adjustment illegal as well!

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/about/no_text_law.htm

Twenty dollar fine when they say that driving while texting is more dangerous than DUI.

Welcome to California.

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Regarding the no hand-held cell phone law...

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/cellularphonelaws/

If you drive a commercial truck, police car, ambulance or fire truck or any other emergency vehicle...some how those drivers are more skilled and skirt the law than the common drivers that don't pull 120 ft trailers or have to watch scanners/radios and such.

i would guess it takes more consentration, distraction to read text, play with phone than climate controls, and radio. i dont think people keep glancing at the radio knob to change the volume, or stare at the handle for turn signal, winshield wipers. or read the dashboard to turn the headlights on....or maybe we should just do away with dashboards and speedometers, and mirrors because they are distracting

I'm in favor of the law. I've almost been smashed into any number of times by idiots blathering on their phones instead of paying attention to driving. If it was up to me the fine would start at $350 for the first offense. Second offense would be $500 and confiscation of your phone.

I'm freaking sick to death of self-centered idiots driving around with their phone stuck to the side of their head while their arm blocks half of their vision.

Where have you seen a 120 ft trailer? Not counting a specialized trailer, the longest one made is 53 foot.

Well, still long. It just seems silly to exempt those when they are so big, heavy and require more attention than driving a common car.

I never known a commercial truck to be exempt to hands free driving. I got a ticket driving a commercial truck for talking without hands free.

i agree that police officers always drive with the phone to their head, i dont know why they cant use an ear peace, especially when you know its not official duty related, they are laughing with their friends, spouses and so on, i definitly feel that they should at least set an example in the community, it can be confusing to a child to see his or her parent get a ticket, and then see a police officer doing the same.

it would be hard to subpoena phone records as i have 2 cell phones, would be hard to prove which one is which, especially since one is in my name, and the other under my job's. i could use either bill to contradict the other one, as the officer pulling me over would only see one phone out. and they are both the same model, motorolla razr. they might have to call themself with your phone to recall the phone #, and serial # on a traffic ticket

guess its just not that serious, but im sure in time people will fight tickets, find loop holes, and the govt will make the neccessary changes.

amazing how many people wont use a hands free device, especially you can get some for under 10 bucks.

I bought the nüvi 760 rather than the 750 specifically because I knew the hands free law was going into effect. I've used the bluetooth on the 760 a number of times and it worked well for me.

When I don't have the GPS with me or I'm not using it I have a good earpiece (Motorola H710) that will connect not only with my personal phone but my work phone as well. Whichever one rings it will answer and it has excellent noise cancellation so I can speak in a pretty low voice while driving on the highway and it comes through fine on the other end. It was listed at $89 or $99 plus tax at Best Buy. I bought it direct from Amazon (not some other seller that sells through Amazon) with free super saver shipping. It cost me $53 and is well worth the money.

I can barely send a text while I'm sitting in my chair at home. I would hate to try that while driving a car!
People Beware, Rick is Texting while driving!

right it defintly pays for itself, especially at the cosgt of 1 ticket, and in NY points too

Chicago just passed a law against this, too. This is in addition to requiring handsfree for cell phones.

I guess they could just watch for a minute or so. Shouldn't take more than 10 seconds to dial a phone number. Longer than that, they are probably texting.

in NY its against the law to even dial, hense "hands free" voice activation

And they probably wouldn't to it for a routine traffic infraction, but if you killed someone (or perhaps derailed a train ), then they might do it to show if you were texting during the time of the accident.

Keep the idiotic train rolling... Think about it for a minute. How long do you actually have to LOOK at the radio, climate control knobs etc. to make adjustments? Once you've done it a couple of times you can just glance at say, the radio for a second to know what you're doing. The rest of the "adjustment" can be made blindly.

Texting on the other hand, you're constantly looking at the keys and the text to make sure you're actually entering what you want, thus NOT WATCHING what's going on in front of or around you.

That is the real problem with texting, just not watching whats going on around you.

Vlingo, voice-to-text application for blackberry phones.

Wouldn't you still want to read the text before you sent it to make sure it said what you wanted it to? I don't think I would want to just assume it always captured the speech correctly and would still wind up taking my eyes off the road to verify.

well if the accident interupted your text, it may have never went through,

..against talking on the cell while driving?

A "no cell-phone unless it's handsfree" law came into effect last spring.

They took the no-nonsense approach "You're holding it, you're using it". Here's a snippet from a FAQ brochure on the subject:

That includes dialing unless it's hands free voice activated or texting, checking your calendar, etc.

Simon

What if I'm holding my BlackBerry and looking at the maps?

Seems pretty clear.

• Drivers who are holding a cell phone in their hand are presumed to be using it.

Which means you will need a cradle for it that is not attached to the windshield - it's a "phone" and not a GPS.

That can place & receive cellular calls.

I agree. If you've got the phone in your hand - I repeat IN YOUR HAND - and you are using it - GPS or Phone or Text - it can cause an accident.

If it distracts you when you are driving, there is trouble down the road.

i think the easiest and fairest thing to do is for the government to cut both of everybody's hands off. then the entire world will truly be hands free.

In Seattle you already can't text or talk on the phone while driving, unless you are using a bluetooth.

So, in Seattle I can text if I have a Bluetooth keyboard? ( )

who ran the red light and killed himself and all thoes other people was texting at the time he run the light.

lol, im sure substitute blue tooth with hands free

OR are they cell phones with an intregrated PDA?

The ones with full keyboards are data-centric, and the ones like the pearl, without full keyboards are phone-centric - so you make the call...