CELLS: Council has the right idea

 The General Services Committee of the Coeur d’Alene City Council should be complimented for taking a proactive role by looking into a city restriction on cell phone use while driving. John Bruning, Mike Kennedy, and Ron Edinger see the need to look into this. Mr. Edinger stated that a message needs to be sent to our legislature to do something.

Our legislature has shown no propensity to do anything about a serious problem. They are proposing a ban on cock fighting. Cell legislation is more important than that.

The statistics are there. A person on a cell phone is four times more likely to get into an accident, and the risk increases to 23 times when a person sends text messages.

The situation is out of control. A Caldwell teen was killed when he turned in front of a school bus while texting. Locally, a 16-year-old teen, Kaylene Palanak, was killed in Spokane on a snowy road while she was talking on the cell phone with her boyfriend; hitting a tree ended her life.

In a state where they track cell phone accidents, Pennsylvania showed 1,093 cell phone accidents in 2007 and there were 50 deaths. Eighty-five percent of people now have cell phones in their cars. Cell phone car accidents in Pennsylvania rose 43 percent from 2003 to 2006.

In 2002, a Harvard Center study estimated that 2,600 people die yearly from cell use on our highways. The actual number of deaths is likely grossly understated, because of the priorities at a fatality scene (as a former prosecutor I went out on fatality scenes). If the person causing the accident was on a cell phone, he isn’t likely to volunteer this information to police without a search warrant. And the other party to the accident is dead; their lips are forever sealed.

We need to change a bad habit (myself included). Some people don’t want more laws, but I am talking about saving lives.

What is wrong with pulling over, and then using your cell phone?

STEVE BELL

Coeur d’Alene