Schwarzenegger signs ban on teen cell phone use while driving

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't as much fun as a Governor as he was in The Terminator... just ask California's teen drivers. The former action movie star has signed a new bill -- which we told you about in August -- into law, making it illegal for anyone aged 16 or 17 to use a mobile phone, pager, laptop, or handheld computer while driving a vehicle. Effective July 1, 2008 (the same day that California's ban on non-hands-free mobile-use while driving takes effect), the state will begin to fine offenders $20 for their first incident, and $50 for each recurrent violation. The law is targeting teen drivers due to the wealth of statistics that demonstrate young motorists are more likely to end up in car accidents which result in death. According to reports, 13.6-percent of all fatal accidents are caused by teenagers, and studies show that car crashes are the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 16-19. "The simple fact is that teenage drivers are more easily distracted," said Schwarzenegger in a statement, adding, "We want to eliminate any extra distractions so they can focus on paying attention to the road and being good drivers." He then paused and remarked, "We just don't want to say 'Hasta la vista, baby' to young drivers anymore."

[drater rojam @ Sep 16th 2007 8:11AM]

so if 13.6% are teenagers, why not do what CT did, ban it for everyone? Ah, yet another case of blaming the children for everything. Like the cops back in my day, rather bust us for skateboarding than bust the kids down the street for selling crack. Good times, thanks for bringing back memories terminator.

[psyche @ Sep 16th 2007 8:23AM]

Why pick on teens? They can't vote!

[Rob @ Sep 16th 2007 8:40AM]

@psyche
Sure at 17 you can't vote. But, what happens the following year? 18 years old and straight into the voting booth. So this is not the smartest move here. I'd agree with everyone else posting here, this ban should go all across the board. Anyone can get into a car accident when distracted with/by a cell phone.

[Gerald Tan @ Sep 16th 2007 10:00AM]

Being superstar doesn't justify you pointing your middle finger as and when you like it, Arnold!

[nojok3 @ Sep 16th 2007 11:01AM]

I live in NY and it is banned for everyone. None of the police officers follow the law and ticket offenders nor do they ever stop them. It was so blatant after a set of Rochester girls were killed in an accident that may have been related to text messaging that FOR A WEEK they would start penalizing people. Its not just teen drivers, its all drivers that are distracted from cell phone use. Interesting to note that these kids won't be voting for Arnold later.

What are the cops going to do? Stop every person talking on a phone and if they are an adult just let them go? Thats stupid.

[Stefan @ Sep 16th 2007 11:18AM]

And how many 18 year olds vote?

[ethana2 @ Sep 16th 2007 11:44AM]

Well, there's the ones that are well educated, plus the ones that are pissed...
Then there are omniarchists like me who resent our lack of suffrage.

Base voting on IQ if you must, but leave age out of it.

[Paul @ Sep 16th 2007 11:59AM]

He's a douche. Age is a small determining factor in your inability to multitask, it's discriminatory to decide arbitrarily that that is the reason for accidents. I think it should be linked to your ability to multitask. I'm sure the DMV can come up with some test that throws multiple inputs at you and tests your ability to process all of them.

I mean there may be some 16 year olds out there that can't drive and talk, but I'm betting there are a lot more 60+ year olds that couldn't do the same thing.

[Carbonize @ Sep 16th 2007 2:18PM]

He should of just made it a universal ban like we have here in the UK. Anyone caught using their mobile whilst driving gets and instant fine and 6 points on their driving licence (12 points means you're disqualified from driving)

I misread the headline at first and thought they were saying he signed the ban whilst he was driving .

[Jonathan-DBOSS @ Sep 16th 2007 5:58PM]

So 86.4% are not teenagers, then how are they helping?

[PhotoJoe @ Sep 17th 2007 9:39PM]

A shame. This law needs to be vetoed. We need idiot teens to self select themselves out of the gene pool. How will humanity retain its fitness if we continue to eliminate every method of weeding out those that we don't want swimming in the gene pool? It's a shame that they do bend lots of nice cars in the process though, but it's the price one must pay to weed out those who can't be bothered to pay attention to the job at hand when operating dangerous machinery.

[Dias @ Sep 16th 2007 8:20AM]

The law is good, but it should extend it for everybody (like we have in Italy). You can't imagine how people are distracted when they use a cell while driving.

[Alan Partridge @ Sep 16th 2007 8:22AM]

In the UK the ban also applies to everyone, which I think is the right way to go.

[DAZA @ Sep 16th 2007 9:13AM]

Same here in Australia, talking and driving is a pretty serious offence and there are some large fines for it. I can't believe how little it is in the U.S. though, here I'm sure it's at least $200 but $20!? That's peanuts, you need to shock the hell out of people and the way to do that unfortunately is with a huge fine.

As a pedestrian I've had so many close calls with assholes who drive and use their phone at the same time. No call is that important you should have a phone stuck to your ear and drive at the same time. I guess Bluetooth headsets do help, but I'd prefer it if people just stopped talking on the phone + driving altogether.

[Ashish @ Sep 16th 2007 12:45PM]

Replying to DAZA's post:

My father is a doctor and if there had been instances in the past where he didn't answer a call while driving, patients would have died. No kidding.

Yes, my dad always uses a handsfree)

[Liam @ Sep 16th 2007 1:01PM]

I understand that use as a doc would need to answer the phone but to my knowledge (i live in the UK) a handsfree kit is perfectly legal while driving and i have no problem with people using them.

[Ashish @ Sep 16th 2007 1:35PM]

My post with reference to the last line of DAZA's post.

[strider_mt2k @ Sep 16th 2007 8:20AM]

Quoth the Governor:

"It's not a rumor!"

[Rob @ Sep 16th 2007 8:29AM]

Wait, did you mean "It's not a tumor"? From Kindergarten Cop, right?

[strider_mt2k @ Sep 16th 2007 8:48AM]

Gold star for Rob.

[Rob @ Sep 16th 2007 11:03AM]

Thank you, thank you. I'm here every Thursday night.
Thank you.

[Alexander @ Sep 16th 2007 11:17AM]

*WOOOOSH*

[Cam @ Sep 16th 2007 8:32AM]

I was elected to lead, not to read.

[Scooby @ Sep 16th 2007 8:35AM]

If teenagers are responsible for 13.6%, what's he doing about the other 86.4% who are presumable adults?

I the UK, everyone is banned from using a phone while driving, and there are much more serious penalties - £60 fine (around $120) and 3 penalty points on your licence.

[Bloobie @ Sep 16th 2007 9:54AM]

Considering that teens represent only 6.3% of all drivers in the US, being involved in 13.6% of all fatal car accidents is a disproportionately high number. Drivers aged 16-19 have a fatality rate that is 4 times higher than drivers aged 25-69, according to a 2004 study.

[Craig @ Sep 16th 2007 1:34PM]

Maybe they should ban the car not the cell phone if they are going off the studies alone. None of the studies link any of the fatalities are caused by driving while using a cell phone.

[Pedro @ Sep 16th 2007 8:39AM]

$50 for repeat offenders? So he expects them to be back?

[Kaps @ Sep 16th 2007 9:04AM]

"They'll be back."

[rudebo @ Sep 16th 2007 8:56AM]

This is something i would get behind and applaud .. but exactly why only teenagers ?

[evenSong @ Sep 16th 2007 12:54PM]

Because adults might have important business to attend do, so they allow them hands-free. Teenagers would just be talking about who broke up with who, who is giving BJs to who, and pointless etcs like that.

[Jared @ Sep 16th 2007 3:27PM]

Teenagers have very little experience operating motor vehicles - it takes at least five years of driving to have a firm grasp of your car's physics. My guess is that California will test the waters with this bill, and when teen accidents drop they'll expand the law to apply to all drivers, which I think they should.

[Kris S. @ Sep 16th 2007 8:58AM]

Good, hell, I think they should extend this ban to everyone.

I am sick of seeing people with their cell phone up to their ear while driving. Not to mention they drive like maniacs.

The only legal thing would be to use a hands free set up or one of them blue tooth things on your ear.

Even if it does appear that you are talking to yourself.

[hp540 @ Sep 16th 2007 9:01AM]

"The only legal thing would be to use a hands free set up or one of them blue tooth things on your ear.

Even if it does appear that you are talking to yourself."

Err no. Just because it's handsfree doesn't mean the call is any less distracting/disruptive of driver attention and reaction times.

[nate @ Sep 16th 2007 9:07AM]

but at least they have both hands on the wheel.

[rudebo @ Sep 16th 2007 9:29AM]

hp45 is right .. its not the hands on the wheel thats the problem .. its the distraction ... nobody can multitask without giving priority to one thing over another .. not even women ;?

[aschmack @ Sep 16th 2007 9:58AM]

So you're saying that there should be a ban on having a conversation in a car? How about listening to the radio?

[John @ Sep 16th 2007 11:07AM]

And how exactly is talking with handsfree cell use worse than having other persons in the vehicle? At least going hands free, my scan of the road remains the same as if there were no one in the car with me. Of course, you could say that most folks wouldn't be smart enough to simply let the convo go if something happened to the handsfree connection, BT or wired...

[Rik Feilden @ Sep 16th 2007 11:30AM]

Because the passengers can stop talking when they see something happening on the road which might distract the driver. Because the cognitive load when listening to a person via phone is far higher than when talking to someone in the car - the compressed, lower quality sound is harder to interpret. It has been shown time and time again that talking on a cell phone - hands free or not - gives you the reaction times of someone on the drink drive limit. The same has not been shown for having a radio or passenger in the car.

[Zach @ Sep 16th 2007 12:17PM]

"So you're saying that there should be a ban on having a conversation in a car? How about listening to the radio?"

Think about when you're in the car driving and listening to the radio, then compare it with talking. It's not exactly the same part of your mind at play here. The radio is more of an ambient surrounding.

Now with a conversation in the car, even then, while distracting, not so much as talking on you're cell phone. You can actually see a person sitting next to you, they're talking to you. When you're on your cell phone, you still visually try and picture the person you're talking to you. You have to ACTIVELY engage in the conversation. It's a much larger distraction.

In New Jersey, it's a $50 fine the first time then they execute you the second time. There are no third time offenders. People still do it, and they still drive like assholes, but really... hasn't that always been New Jersey

[John @ Sep 16th 2007 1:38PM]

"You have to ACTIVELY engage in the conversation. It's a much larger distraction."

Maybe that's why people are so much more likely to become irate when I speak to them via the phone in the car...'cuz I actually care more about the road than themselves.

Alas, I will have to resign myself to the fact that most people just can't handle this level of multitasking.

Btw, I will gladly take that reaction time test. Not trying to be smug, but it would be very interesting to see quantifiable results!

[Jeff_McAwesome @ Sep 16th 2007 7:25PM]

This sounds like a job for the Mythbusters.

[Zhalfim Deyn @ Sep 16th 2007 8:58AM]

it's a decent attempt...but seriously, this does nothing in the end, especially considering if they are expecting repeat offenders...

btw, how important are you that you just HAVE to take the call while you are driving?

[Jim @ Sep 16th 2007 9:09AM]

So, I guess this means that teens talking on their cell phones will be....terminated?

[moe @ Sep 16th 2007 9:09AM]

are you all blind? learn to read the fine print. this is one of 2 bans. the first being a ban of non-handsfree across the board. you can not catch someone using handsfree. he just made it seem like he was targeting them by adding handsfree to the list of bans for 16-17 year olds. sometimes you idiots read 3 words of an entire article and start shooting your mouth off. bunch of retards, probably from america.

[pr_master @ Sep 16th 2007 9:33AM]

Hallelujah

I was feeling alone in a sea full of retards
who don't read. Agree with you Moe.

[Bloobie @ Sep 16th 2007 9:50AM]

Thank you. I, too, was feeling like I was the only one who could read past 2 lines, in addition to other articles on the Internet regarding cellphone "bans" throughout the country. California will have 2 laws. One requiring hands-free use by adults, the other banning all cellphone usage by "inexperienced" drivers, namely teens. This is similar to Connecticut's law, which bans any cellphone usage by anyone with a learner's permit. This includes hands-free accessories.

[Sean DL @ Sep 16th 2007 3:29PM]

And I don't know why everyone is acting like he created this bill..he only has to sign it or veto it..it first had to go through TWO houses of law before it got to him.

[JB @ Sep 16th 2007 4:54PM]

no shit! i was hoping i wouldn't have to get to the bottom of the page before i found someone who could read the whole damn article. these are the idiot fanboys who freak out about the 3 words in every engadget post that pulls at their sensitive heart strings...

[Simon @ Sep 16th 2007 9:11AM]

I totally agree that all people should be banned from speaking on the phone. Teenagers are a small (high risk) demographic. I am sure if someone did a study on motor vehicle accidents with mobile phones that teenagers would only be a small part of that.
Too little if you ask me.

[Caffeine Addict @ Sep 16th 2007 9:15AM]

Down here in Australia, well, at least Queensland, I do believe we have an across the board ban.