Behold the Nanny State is Back

There is a new push for states to ban cell phone use on the roads and highways, and not just the hand-held use but hands-free as well, reports Fox News.

WASHINGTON — A national safety group is advocating a total ban on cell phone use while driving, saying the practice is clearly dangerous and leads to fatalities.

States should ban drivers from using hand-held and hands-free cell phones, and businesses should prohibit employees from using cell phones while driving on the job, the congressionally chartered National Safety Council says, taking those positions for the first time.

The group's president and chief executive, Janet Froetscher, likened talking on cell phones to drunken driving, saying cell phone use increases the risk of a crash fourfold.

"When our friends have been drinking, we take the car keys away. It's time to take the cell phone away," Froetscher said in interview.

There's little doubt in my mind that cell phones pose a danger on the highway, especially those insane text-message obsessed people of whom I see more and more. However, we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water if we include hands-free cell use. Moreover, the comparison of cell phone driving and drunk driving is not appropriate. It does a disservice to the debate on this to equate them.

Froetscher's claim that hands-free usage is "just as bad" includes this incredible statement: "It's not just what you're doing with your hands — it's that your head is in the conversation and so your eyes are not on the road."

Huh? Using this logic, we should also ban conversations between drivers and passengers. Maybe mandate that drivers be isolated from surrounding conversations. And let's not forget those dangerous radio receivers and CD players that blare music and information into the driver's ears, filling his or her head with deadly ideas so that their eyes become unfocused!

In fact, let's just ban all vehicular traffic, period. That way there will be no accidents. Everyone will be safe.

Freedom requires the assumption of certain levels of risk for various activities. The only way to eliminate those risk is to declare that all human activity is "privileged," meaning it can be regulated, and thus subject to nanny state control.

Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot, in a related post, warns that "Some people see anything — even some jerk on the road on a cell phone — and say, 'hey, this looks like a job for Congress.'"

And a new, more liberal Congress is likely to place financial incentives in various funding bills to entice states to fall into line to promote the growth of the nanny state.