Posts
The Monona Public Safety Commission has recommended that the city council pass a resolution asking the state legislature to adopt a statewide ban on cell phone use and texting while driving. The vote was 6-1.
The committee felt that adopting a Monona-only ban would be problematic given that a driver can travel from Madison to Monona, the Town of Madison, Fitchburg, and back to Madison in just a few miles on the Beltline. It would be difficult to give a driver fair notice.
Here is a list of state cell phone laws.
Consumer Reports blogged the topic recently. And here.
The NYT presented a series of blogger views.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Do we have any information regarding the number of accidents that were caused by handheld phones in Monona? While I am aware of the issue (NY had one of the first state-wide bans on it and I've gotten a ticket for it as well), I'm also concerned about it's impact on Monona as well as the possible drain on resources trying to enforce it (unless of course this is just looking to increase revenue through tickets).
ReplyDeleteProbably not. You could look at crashes where 'inattentive driving' was cited as a factor and read the report to see if a cell phone was involved.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally, there was a crash late last week, I think, on Broadway that was caused by a driver using her cell phone and not seeing the vehicle stopped in front of her. It caused the closure of the road and messed up traffic big time.
I don't think Monona is likely to be different from national stats.
But anyway, this was never a proposal that I was going to do the heavy-lifting on. And now it looks like we will just ask the state to adopt a statewide ban.