bad formatting day yesterday, not sure what i was trying to do but hopefully it was coherent. so today we have the announcement that talking or txting on cellphones whilst driving is to be banned. fines will be handed out. the government is getting tough.
what i am seeing a total absence of (maybe i'm not looking in the right places?) are cries of nanny-state, interference in our lives, heavy-handed government... you know the spiel. where is it? when this issue was being discussed last year, there was plenty of righteous indignation to be found. maybe the forces of righteousness are gathering their strength and will come out in force tomorrow.
what also don't hear are accusations of this being yet another revenue-gathering exercise that will have little effect on safety. those wily police officers, who'll be hiding in the unlikeliest places, just waiting to catch you out so they can fulfil their quotas. instead of putting their resources towards catching the "real" criminals. surely someone is going to put in a vocal complaint about them? haven't heard any yet.
this is the closest i could find to any kind of dissatisfaction with the proposed ban, from the dog & lemon guide. but even they are simply asking for a change in the punishment ie instead of a fine, confiscate the phone. now that would definitely be more traumatic and actually a better deterrent.
but really, i'd like to hear from all those people who are sick of government interfering in our lives. you're going to put up a decent protest, right? right??
(disclosure: blogger has been known to occasionally talk or txt while driving.)
6 comments:
Hi - I think that even the most libertarian and 'anti-nanny state' of us out there recognise that one of the most legitimate roles of government is to stop people from hurting each other... this ban just makes sense and it's pretty hard to argue against. I think even hands-free should be disallowed, but it probably won't be banned as its harder to police.
i think you miss the point of my post anon. i'm not opposed to the cellphone ban at all. but remember when labour brought in the smoking ban in public buildings and workplaces? wasn't there such a hue and cry about "nanny-state" and "PC gone mad" and "over-regulation" etc etc. and you got the same thing ad naseum for any piece of legislation like this. i'm just wondering why all those people are so quiet now.
Sorry - I did miss the point. From memory I think that most of the tantrums over the smoking ban were thrown mainly by the hospitality industry itself, not by individual citizens. This time, the only industries who will lose out are those who profit out of car crashes (panel beaters, etc) and there's no way they will be complaining out loud...
well, the telco providers will also suffer but they seem to be on-board. however, it hasn't just been the hospitality industry complaining about over-regulation. any number of political commentators and ordinary citizens have been extremely vocal, particularly in the last 3 years.
I guess the general population just sees this as a sensible law, and not an example of over-regulation.
i disagree anon. even when restrictions on cellphone use were floated last year, there were a lot of people talking about over-regulation, about how there were many things as distracting or more distracting than cellphones etc. i continue to be surprised why these people are silent now.
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