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Can't help but smile Rob! As a VIP, [  ], I had my first cell phone in 1983. It wasn't even called "cell phone" back then, it was a "mobile phone" and I sure was glad to see my Fortune 500 company employer paying the $3.00 or so per minute! [ ]
Fortunately, life has changed for me a lot since then and I really don't give a you know what about cell phones anymore, I answer the call when I want it and when it's convenient. Answering a phone while driving?! Nothing can be THAT important. I just wish I could get my wife to understand that, she walks around with her Blackberry like if it was a Bible. [  !][ !][ !]
BTW, there is a device that channels your calls through your car radio. It's pretty cool, you hear the other person through your speakers. I bought one for every employee as a Christmas gift.
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Some months ago I was watching the local news and they were interviewing a cop in Honolulu about the cell phone ban on Oahu. I remember he said that people were being ticketed for using their hand-held cell phones even if they pulled over to the shoulder, were stopped with their engine off. Apparently you had to turn off the highway completely onto a side street and then stop your car. I don't know what the exact law is on this island, if someone knows for sure it might be helpful, but it's something you might need to be aware of.
Tom
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Unless you have a crisis that necessitates your being on call, I don't see any reason at all for keeping your cell phone turned on while driving. (Yeah, tell that to a teenager.) I err so far on the side of caution that for many years I have taken seriously the possibility of a link between brain cancer and cell phone use. Now there seem to be studies that corroborate this link (while other studies do not find a link). Okay, I don't have a microwave either, so I can be dismissed as a luddite, but the point is, if you turn off your phone while driving you avoid the possibility of a cell phone/driving accident.
I have one reason why I need to talk to people who are driving or when I am driving, and that is that my family does a lot of cross island visiting. Sometimes one of us leaves and we need to let them know say stop in Waimea and pick this up ... or, I'm in transit and I'll be late for the dinner, or I'll be there by a certain time. There are various need to know things that come up.
It's a two hour drive from point to point and few places to pull over. Not worth having a wreck, but it would be convenient to have a legal way to do these communications.
My younger son's job as a supervisor of more than one work crew has him driving from job to job and his boss calls as do the crew and everyone is on the clock, so yes he does spend time on the phone while on that lovely straight road between Kawaihae and Hualalai. He uses Bluetooth. I suspect a lot of work situations require people who are on the move to communicate as they are on the go between towns, and that things would grind to a halt with 45 min to an hour periods of radio silence.
Re the brain cancer, that has concerned me too, but honestly, think about the amount of brain cancer there would be at this point if microwaves and cell phones caused it in a substantial way. The cardiologists would be out of business!
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Tom, there are several regulations depending on what type of roadway, type of shoulder, etc. The commonality in all is you can pull over to the shoulder for 5 reasons without violating the law.
1. Emergency: your have an accident, flat tire, giving birth, engine problems, to summons help for an emergency, etc.
2. Direction: An authorized person directs you to pull to the side and stop. This includes pulling over for ambulances, police cars, fire and such.
3. Immediate loading and unloading of passengers. This is more tightly regulated and there are different rules depending on where and why.
4. Authorized activity. Your part of an approved litter pickup, delivering newspapers, etc. Again different types of roads have different limits.
5. Unavoidable: You have a convertible and it starts to downpour, a can of soda rolls into the drivers area by the pedals and you pull over to remove it so you don’t cause an accident, the mattress tied to the roof starts to fall off. Basically anything that was unavoidable but can cause a problem if not immediately taken care of.
Pulling over to use a cell phone (except under #1 above) is an avoidable reason and is against No Stopping, Standing, Parking regulations. That's most likely what the offense was.
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Thanks, Bob. I can't remember exactly what the cop said during the interview but I remember him saying it wasn't directly related to the cell phone ban, i.e., if you pulled over you violated some other law. Anyway, it's worth knowing this if you're someone that wants or needs to use a cell phone while driving.
Tom
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quote:
Originally posted by Bob Orts
The commonality in all is you can pull over to the shoulder for 5 reasons without violating the law.
The WHT had an article about this a few weeks ago. The Police Captain said you get a ticket no matter what, but if you prove it in court that you actually dialed "911" for a real emergency than your ticket will be dismissed. He said it's not the police's responsibility to determine whether you had an emergency or not.
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I am looking forward to not ans my phone on the drive into town!
The only issue for me personally is what to do when I have called the Bldg dept (and always get voice mail) and I see that 961-84XX on my caller id. I know I wont ans it but it will drive me crazy!
Although I think they will see a lot more of me between 7:45 am and 9 AM so I can get answers instead of voice mail which creates its own problem of 1 more car on Hwy 130 between 7 am and 8:30 AM.....
Rob Tucker - maybe you can lend me your teenagers??? lol ....
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