Archive of posts for March, 2009:
From the Pottstown Mercury:
A Montgomery County legislator’s efforts to enact a ban on cell-phone use while driving has received the boost of a Berks County crash victim whose story offers compelling testimony in support of a ban.
Jacy Good, 22, was critically injured in a three-vehicle crash last May 18 in Maidencreek Township while traveling home to Lititz from her graduation at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. She was traveling with her parents, who were both killed in the crash.
Matthew Major on Public Opinion Online:
Here’s an exercise for those who think driving while talking into a hand-held mobile phone amounts to efficient multitasking instead of a potentially dangerous distraction.
Try mentally reciting pi to 20 digits while singing the words from your favorite song. You might pull it off for a while, but we guarantee your attention will be weighted toward one or the other during the process.
That’s not a knock on anyone. We’re simply not wired to process two simultaneous tasks with the same degree of mastery as when we focus on one or the other. And our example doesn’t even account for the extra brain power required to process the visual input associated with driving.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Brad Bumsted:
[Jacy Good] is the “face” of a state House effort to ban hand-held cell phone use by drivers and to make text messaging while driving illegal.
“I will not stop until this bill becomes law,” Good said Wednesday after a news conference. Enacting the law would honor her parents, she said.
Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
[Jacy Good] is still in physical therapy and walks with a cane, but came here to support a bill by Rep. Josh Shapiro, D-Montgomery, that would require motorists to use only hands-free cell phones if they want to talk on the phone while driving.
(…)
The measure would also prevent all “junior drivers,” those aged 16 and 17, from using any type of cell phone while driving, again to remove distractions. It would also ban drivers from sending text messages while driving, because they have to take their eyes off the road so often.
David Wenner writing for The Patriot-News:
A group led by state Rep. Josh Shapiro, a Montgomery County Democrat, said at a Capitol rally that a large body of evidence, and increased support from both parties, makes passage of the bill likely, possibly in spring.
Another factor is the accounts of people, including [Jacy] Good, who have been hurt by drivers using cell phones, the lawmakers said.
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