As Cellphone Ban Advances, Yakkers Fight Back

BOSTON.  A bill that would make it illegal to use a cell phone while driving cleared a major hurdle here yesterday, causing opponents to jettison their strategy of lobbying legislators and focus instead on weighing the proposed law down with amendments to attract others to their cause.

“I’ll have to call you back–I just crushed a Prius like a bug!”

“It turns out cell phone users aren’t as popular as they think,” said Ted Crowley of Beacon Hill Strategies, a lobbying firm.  “There’s been a backlash from people who don’t want to hear you break up with your girlfriend while they’re having breakfast at McDonald’s.”

The safe way to eat while driving.

Crowley’s approach is to expand the bill to reach drivers with other dangerous habits, and legislators say they’re receptive to the message that our highways are more dangerous because of Americans’ tendency to “multitask”.

“I looked at the statistics on banana eaters and they’re really scary,” says first-term representative Holly Ross of Amherst, Mass.  “If people don’t like those stringy things, there is a 70% chance they will cause personal or property damage trying to peel them off while driving.”

Slim Whitman 3 CD Set:  Hidden killer that is unfortunately not also a silent killer.

Another “hidden killer” is three-CD “greatest hits” collections of obscure recording artists sold on late-night cable TV, according to Jeffret Freedman, a statistician with the National Transit Safety Board with too much time on his hands.  “If you like music that’s popular, you can push the ’scan’ button on your car radio and eventually find something to listen to,” he notes as he opens a plastic “jewel box” containing a greatest hits collection.  “If you’re a fan of Slim Whitman, you have to buy these cumbersome multi-CD sets, which are hazardous to open when you’re going 85 miles an hour.”

You try putting these on under a seatbelt.

Opponents say their biggest target is women running late to work, who must frequently put on panty hose while complying with mandatory seat belt laws.  “I preach safety first to my kids,” says Marci Erickson of Upper Newton Lower Falls, Mass., ”but after I drop them off at school I sometimes kick my shoes off and pull on panty hose while cutting across three lanes of traffic.”  Isn’t that dangerous, a reporter asks.  “Not if I finish my latte first.”

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman