When I posted a while back about the Texas foray into its unbearably inconsequential limitations on hand-held cellphone use while driving through a school zone, you would have thought I had advocated the castration of all males of child-bearing age. 

In contrast, David Giacalone at f/k/a shares my New York sensibility.  Thanks, David.  I was beginning to think that maybe I was nuts (Don’t say it). 

Sometimes, it’s really hard to avoid cynicism over phony politicians, greedy special interest groups, and — let’s be frank — the spoiled, self-absorbed American public. Case in point: the so-called safety law that goes into effect in California tomorrow.

What were these guys thinking (or trying to achieve or avoid), when they decided to permit the continued use of hands-free devices while driving? They had to know what study after study has demonstrated: hands-free car phoning is just as dangerous as the hand-held variety, because the problem is mainly one of distraction (and “inattention blindness“), and not the number of hands on the wheel. DWP — driving while phoning — leaves the driver as incapacitated as does DUI, with slower reaction times, longer stopping distances, and poorer judgment.

While heresy elsewhere, not to mention the road to tyranny if Texans are to be believed, I (like David) fail to see any necessity in using a cellphone while driving that justifies any increased risk to any other human being under any circumstances.  Want to call?  Pull over.  It’s that simple.

Almost all the arguments made against my view (and death threats are not considered valid arguments around these parts) are based on the slippery slope.  Ban cellphones and the next thing is government will be housing soldiers in your bed.  The argument, of course, is a renown logical fallacy, but remarkably meaningful to true believers.  They’ll have to pry my cellphone from my cold dead fingers.

David’s post not only debunks the argument that cellphone use is harmless, but castigates the cheap political trick of banning hand-held cellphones while permitting hands-free, noting that it’s not the unavailability of a hand that causes the problem, but the unavailability of the mind.  A mind is a terrible thing to waste, particularly when it’s needed for operating a vehicle.

The flaw of the slippery slope is not only that it provides for a limitless extension of a position to all possible permutations, regardless of how tortured, but that most people are unaware of the conceptual ledge, that place on the slope where the argument naturally and legitimately stops its slide. 

My hat is off to David, both for the boldness and thoroughness of his post, as well as the exceedingly good sense to recognize just how ridiculous it is to fall in love with cellphones.  At least in New York.