California to drivers: Drop the cell phone, dude
30 Jun 2008 - 09:03:55

By Dan Whitcomb Thu Jun 26, 5:58 PM ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Next week California will try to wrest cell phones from the hands of drivers, telling everyone from movie starlets and dot-com millionaires to surfers and soccer moms that conversations behind the wheel must be on a headset. Several U.S. states and some two dozen countries around the world already have restrictions on mobile phones while driving but now such a law has come to California -- where the car is king and much of life is spent on the famously snarled freeways. Californians interviewed by Reuters mostly supported the law requiring hands-free phones in cars and outlawing cell phones entirely for drivers under 18, which takes effect on Tuesday -- though they were puzzled by a loophole that allows seemingly more dangerous text messaging. Others cast a jaundiced eye on lawmakers, who they blame for failing to build more freeways or public transportation in the face of increasingly gridlocked roads in the nation's most populous state and say hands-free conversations are no safer. "I can't believe that (Californians) will put up with all these nanny, nit-picking laws," KFI-AM radio talk-show host John Kobylt told Reuters. "It's stupid because we've gone over about seven different studies and each one of them says it's the conversation that distracts you, not holding the phone," he said. TEXT MESSAGING OK? Besides, he said, many Californians are forced to use their cars as offices while stuck on th...

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