Comments on: Columbia Falls Considers Cell-Phone Ban for Drivers
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By MontanaTrace on 06-10-12 @ 6:29 am
It’s not so much the talking as the dialing and texting that needs banning. Those two are killers.
By mooseberryinn on 06-10-12 @ 11:23 am
eyup, I figir them folks driven throo C Fawls are jest sudenlee struk stoopid and krash cuzz of ther cell fones radiaten ther braens. must be too complikated to push a butten, tawk and drive. ya no?
By mooseberryinn on 06-10-12 @ 11:57 am
On second thought, maybe the list of things not to do while driving should be expanded. For example; no referencing the fancy navigation screen on the dash, or playing with the multiple CD selector,
adjusting the 10 way seats, watching the moon-roof open and close, reviewing movies for the kids in
back on the DVD selector. ooh, think of the trouble some folks could get into shifting a 6 speed
manual tranny! And then, ya might add, talking to anyone in the back seat. Why the list is endless.
By MontanaTrace on 06-10-12 @ 12:14 pm
As my sister/teacher was coming home from a day at school, she sat stopped at the red light. Theteenage girl, coming up behind her at 35 MPH, never even hit the brakes. Lives changed forever.
Make fun of it all you want.
By JB on 06-10-12 @ 7:20 pm
I predict the next thing that will be banned are cupholders…you just can’t have people “drinking and driving” out there…right?
Next thing ya know, cars will be banned because they are “too dangerous” and humans can’t be
trusted to operate them safely…
You can always depend on the government to get in your way…that’s because we all pay them to
do it!
Silly citizens…
By JCW on 06-10-12 @ 8:17 pm
If you’re going to make EVERYONE PAY for the stupidity of a few, then just tear down ALL THECELL TOWERS and BAN CELL PHONES….........PERIOD.
Let’s see how long C-Falls Police officers can do without THEIR cell phones. Let’s see how long
the CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS can do without THEIR cell phones.
Ban ALL CELL PHONES…......period. Let’s see how long Verizon, AT&T, and the other cell
companies allow that.
There are laws. If the law is broken, or if someone can’t talk on a cell phone and drive at the
same time, THEN TICKET THEM…........and make THEM PAY, and not the rest of us.
It’s a sad day in America when so many people are SO STUPID, they are willing to make others pay
for THEIR mistakes. Our politicians and (allegedly) elected officials are so inept that they
can’t develop a system that punishes the stupid while allowing the ones who do nothing to be
LEFT ALONE.
By JCW on 06-10-12 @ 8:21 pm
MontanaTrace,
Do you think for ONE, SINGLE MINUTE that the alleged girl who hit your sister/teacher would have
NOT been texting even if there was a “cell phone/driving ban” in place…..........STILL
“changing those lives forever”.......??
Who are you kidding…?
By MontanaTrace on 06-10-12 @ 9:05 pm
Let’s see what other states and cities are doing:
Handheld Cell Phone Use: 10 states, D.C., Guam and the Virgin Islands prohibit all drivers from
using handheld cell phones while driving. Except for Maryland and West Virginia (until July 2013),
all laws are primary enforcement—an officer may cite a driver for using a handheld cell phone
without any other traffic offense taking place. Eleven more state will enact bans in November and
January.
All Cell Phone Use: No state bans all cell phone use for all drivers, but many prohibit use by certain
subsets:
32 states and D.C. ban all cell phone use by novice drivers (mostly ages 16-18).
Text Messaging: 39 states, D.C., Guam and the Virgin Islands ban text messaging for all drivers.
All but 4 have primary enforcement. It is expected most of the 50 states will ban texting within the
next two years.
Draw your own conclusions.
FYI: My sister was hit at the stop light almost twenty months ago. Both cars totaled. Pretty much
recovered but it’s been a long, painful process. She lost over 100 days of work. The driver wasn’t
wearing a seat belt. Head down (texting), the airbag saved her. However, broken nose and facial
lacerations, several neck vertebrate fusions. She missed most of a year’s school. Will graduate
with the next class.
Rules are made for when brains run out. I guess that’s why we have speed limits and DUI laws.
Laws are written to PROTECT most of us from some of them. Are you one of us or one of them?
By JB on 06-10-12 @ 10:01 pm
I will certainly draw my own conclusions - and laws like cell phone bans are a direct threat to individual liberty. Liberty allows people to be stupid - and we have laws already in place that make
people accountable for their own actions - we don’t need more laws to protect us from ourselves.
If you want to live in a society that legislates complete, total protection, I suggest you move to
Canada - trust me, it’s not far.
By hotfishmt on 06-11-12 @ 7:45 am
Common sense is….keep your eyes on the road & conditions. Some people minus the cell phone can’t concentrate….or as its know in the real world…..multi-tasking is not for everyone. I see more
people pulling off the road to talk….good.
Columbia Falls is so small, a ban is not going to hurt anyone, you will be outside of city limits in no
time. And you need not be driving in C. Falls, with all the places to pull over an chat rather than
drive like a drunk
And some of the other comments on not liking a ban…..are the same people that object to 99% of
things anyway. But, if it saves one trip to the hospital….its worth it.
Just the last week, back East; a young mam admitted guilt in causing a fatal accident while he
was texting…..got 2 years in prison. Cell phone ban is a good idea.
By MontanaTrace on 06-11-12 @ 7:46 am
California’s nearly four-year-old ban on drivers using handheld cellphones is saving lives,according to a University of California, Berkeley, study released Monday.
The study found that overall traffic deaths dropped 22 percent, while deaths blamed on drivers
using hand-held cellphones were down 47 percent. Deaths among drivers who use hands-free phones
dropped at a similar rate.
The university’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center examined deaths for two years
before and two years after the cellphone ban took effect in July 2008. It found a similar drop
in injuries attributed to drivers’ cellphone use.
The number of deaths among drivers using hand-held phones fell from 100 to 53 during that
period, while the number of injuries dropped from 7,720 to 3,862.
By JB on 06-12-12 @ 12:47 am
Who is to say that educating the public about the use of cell phones in a moving vehicle wouldn’t be as effective as a total ban? Oh, that’s right…because we have people who think they know better
than you do, and want to legislate a perfect society.
Statistics can always be made to look to convey “facts” - without direct conclusive proof, they mean
nothing - and it wouldn’t do to have statistics that don’t convey that cell ban laws are effective in
saving lives.
Having been in California several times, the empirical evidence I observed in vehicle cell phone use
doesn’t convince me that this legislation makes a difference. Laws don’t change people’s behavior.
By JB on 06-12-12 @ 11:13 am
Only a liberal would want to silence those who don’t agree with them - and anybody who doesn’t agree with them only “regurgitate talking points from Faux news”...what a perfectly narrow minded viewpoint.
You’re right Hankie…can I blow my nose now?
By ICallB.S. on 06-12-12 @ 4:10 pm
Perhaps JB, on his way to the bank to cash his government support check, will be hit by an idiot who is texting while driving….
By kalispelling bee on 06-13-12 @ 5:57 pm
Come on, Hankie. JCW really, really means what he says. You can tell by the capital letters,weird elipses and saying “period” at the end of thoughts. Maybe that seems like blabbering to
you, but to some of the rest of us… Nah, you’re right. It’s blabbering.
By ICallB.S. on 06-14-12 @ 8:16 pm
I CONCUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@#$%^&*()_+
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