Legislative Redundancy

Yesterday, New York lawmakers (yes, those same guys who spent weeks just fighting over who got to control the Senate, like a group of 1st graders arguing over who gets to play on the jungle gym during recess) passed a law banning texting while driving.

On the scale of useless legislation, this has to land just west of utterly unnecessary.

Unnecessary because New York already has a law that prohibits the use of a cell phone while driving. Shouldn't that cover texting as well, or have they come up with a new way to text without actually using a cell phone?

I'm no fan of texting while you drive - in fact I think its one of the stupidest things you can do while driving - and in no way am I defending people who do it. They are a danger to everyone around them. However, it's ludicrous to believe that a law that bans such activity will actually put a stop to it, and it's pathetic that people don't have the common sense (or even the sense of self-preservation), and self control, to put down their blackberry swurve or whatever.

I will acknowledge that government has a legitimate reason to act in this situation - unlike mandatory seat belt laws, which effect no one but yourself (and make me so angry) - because people who are distracted while driving are indeed a threat to everyone else's well-being. But the answer is not in more laws and restrictions, it's in the need of every individual to recognize the need to act in a responsible manner.

Acting in a personally irresponsible way simply invites governmental intervention into your life. If you give elected officials an excuse to impose more laws, they will almost always take it.

I can't wait to get back to a state that doesn't think it has to tell people how to drive responsibly, and allows its citizens to make rational decisions without the forced coercion of laws that ban behavior when we should know better already. People in PA probably text while driving as much as anywhere else - and are just as dangerous because of it - but at least our legislature hasn't wasted everyone's time with a useless new law that will accomplish nothing and only further the nanny-state dependency.