New Hampshire, Welcome To The Nanny State 4

Since the Democrats in New Hampshire took over all branches of state government there have been many new tax proposals introduced, the latest one is a tax on candy. But I’m not going to talk about taxes right now. I am going to talk about the excessive bills being introduced to protect us from our own stupidity. In other words the nanny bills. See the Democratic legislature think they need to regulate bad behavior, we need to be protected from ourselves. They have introduced many bill you can read about on my blog here, here, and here.

They include cigarette bans, gun control, trans fats, and on and on it goes.

The newest bills introduced are mandatory seat belts in cars, and what this next article from the New Hampshire Union Leader talks about, cell phone bans in cars:

THERE IS no doubt that cell phones are a distraction to drivers. But House Bill 795, to ban the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, is a clumsy attempt to solve the problem of distracted driving.

Cell phones are not even close to being the primary driver distraction. According to the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the No. 1 distraction is “things outside the car,” accounting for 29.4 percent of distractions. That is followed by adjusting the radio, other occupants, moving objects in the car, and other objects in the car. Cell phones accounting for only 1.5 percent of driver distractions.

Adjusting the radio is almost eight times more distracting than using a cell phone. Eating and drinking are more distracting than using a cell phone. And yet no one is proposing banning those activities. Cell phones are a politically popular target, but not a justified one.

Forbidding all adults from using cell phones while driving is overreaching and unenforceable. A cell phone ban for inexperienced teen drivers, however, does make sense. They need all eyes on the road. Legislators should amend the bill to apply it only to these drivers, provided an exception is made for emergency calls.