1) Maybe you haven't noticed, but "distracted driving" is everywhere. A Lakes Region "celebrity" was stopped on I-93 going "20-over" while unable to detect a dialtone.
'Think that case
can't be "
$quashed"?
2) Years ago, I was at the wheel when a cellphone was handed to me to answer a question. This was a first time for me, but when answering that call, I got the sense that someone had put a burlap bag over my head!
I could barely use what remained of my situational-awareness: I became a passenger—behind the wheel of my own car!
Never again, while driving, will I be
so distracted!
3) I don't have a working cellphone—meaning, the battery is long-dead,
not that I tried to use my cellphone in Wolfeboro or Alton
.
But I have sat at many an intersection, and watched the cross-traffic red light get "busted"—mostly by drivers who are alone in their cars holding a cellphone to their ear.
(This can also be observed after dark).
It's been shown that "hands-free" makes no difference—it's where your "head is at": with a cellphone, that absense of situational-awareness is taking innocent lives.
4) In Japan, the owners of restaurants and movie theaters are legally permitted to put electronic blanking devices inside their establishments to halt those patrons who would interrupt a meal (or a significant cinematic moment) with stoopid cellphone conversations.
People have been threatened with jail-time for having a cellphone ring in U.S. courtrooms posted against the ringing of cellphones!
5) The Coast Guard memo itself can be read here, and
is bolded:
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/...6&postcount=51
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(In support: One example, but
not in the Lakes Regon, so it's somewhat off-topic):
In Florida, the traffic lights at the intersection of South Miami's 80th Street and US1 were marched towards traffic about 500-feet. This was to allow cellphone-distracted drivers to pass through the intersection without colliding with anyone. 
This one intersection 1600 miles away from the Lakes Region is significant as it illustrates how a sub-segment of a citizenry can affect so many others.
Because of the many accidents, accident-affected commuters used our neighborhood to speed through.
Through neighborhood activism, the County was influenced to install Armco barriers to traffic—making an entire 200-home neighborhood a dead-end street! The only detractor who would refuse to sign the petition later apologized to me for his recalcitrance. (He was near-neighbor).
The bottom lines?
1) Traffic backups were already bad, when careless use of cellphones resulted in the denial of useful "lanes" to the public.
2) The driving-citizen who would need traffic "relief" after crashes at that intersection was denied passage through neighborhood streets that they paid taxes into, to pave!
Sometimes it happens that the carelessness of a sub-segment of a citizenry can have significant, even distant, ramifications, and can jeopardize our freedoms.