A woman drives with both hands on the wheel. Her phone sits face-down on her lap. No officer pulls her over. No lights flash. Weeks later, a $1,251 ticket arrives in the mail. The evidence: a single frame from a Camera surveillance app. The charge: phone use while driving.
Automated camera companies market their devices as automated license plate readers — tools for catching stolen cars, flagging warrants, and aiding serious investigations.
Sold as a Crime Tool. Used as a Fine Machine.
I don’t own a car. I ride a bicycle and take Ubers and Lyfts for long distance travel, and smart phones are like the spice mélange to those drivers. They seem to need them to navigate the Universe. So this law just seems terribly ill-conceived. The lap is just an oddly specific place to focus on. So you can set them on the dashboard, center console, or anywhere else, but the lap is the danger zone?
My main phone is a dumb phone. I hate smart phones and only got one specifically for Ubder and Lyfts, so I’m not addicted. So I’m standing outside looking in and it’s a bizarre law. Sure, we don’t want people playing Angry Birds while driving, but I don’t think this is a well thought out solution that does anything at all except cause more chaos and suffering.