@LKidKyle1985: I didn’t say that the federal gov’t couldn’t, I just said that I don’t think they should be given that authority, or feel that they have the justification to do tit for tat kind of dealing with highway funding. I was also just focusing on the “nationwide” aspect of the question, but if I hadn’t known that before, it would’ve been helpful (thank you AP US Gov, haha.)
@Allie: I work at a pizzeria, and three of our drivers have been hit by other people while on the job. None of them were at fault and there weren’t any cell phones involved. People just can’t drive sometimes; making more restrictive, unnecessary laws is just uncalled for.
@Bri_L: I actually did a ten-hour marathon drive, from St. Louis to Atlanta today, talked on the phone and texted for quite awhile, and didn’t even have any semblance of trouble! Maybe I’m just good at multi-tasking, but I figure if I can do, so can others… and I don’t want the government interfering and telling me what to do! The thing about hands free devices is that it seems silly to allow that and not the cell phone itself – the conversation is the distracting part, not the hand off the wheel. If you weren’t distracted by your conversation, you could easily drop your phone to have the use of your hand. I know that I don’t always drive with two hands on the wheel, regardless of whether I’m on the phone or not.
@emilyrose: This isn’t meant to sound sarcastic at all, just prefacing with a disclaimer because we all know how things can come off in type… Just wondering if you have any statistics on accident rates since the law was put into place in CA; I think they’d be interesting to look at. Also, regarding headsets and hands free devices… see the comment just above to Bri_L. Is that really much different from having the phone in your hand or having your phone on speaker? Is the driver not still distracted from the road, just as if there were another person in the car?