Wireless Guide News

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

After seven years commuting from Richmond to the District, I often think we need phone-booth lanes here, not HOV or HOT lanes.

I just got back from California, where I drove from Burbank to Santa Barbara on Route 101 and throughout the towns. Not one driver on 101, which is sometimes five lanes wide but always packed with vehicles, was holding a cellphone to talk or text.

In town, if someone was on a phone, he was parked. It was wonderful. Drivers were actually paying attention to other drivers, pedestrians and bike riders.

Everywhere, I would ask why no one is on the phone in the car, and to a person, young or old, they would respond that there is a steep fine and you better not have a phone in your hands (hands-free is allowable). Clearly, everyone has the religion.

Eventually, we might get the religion here in

The Obama administration on Thursday said that stronger state laws and crackdowns by local law enforcement are the best way to prevent the thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries caused by drivers using cellphones or sending text messages.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the administration would pay for pilot crackdown programs in Delaware and California to see whether the results replicated those produced by a pair of federally funded programs last year.

Hartford, Conn., and Syracuse, N.Y., officials said distracted driving in general and text messaging in particular dropped greatly during the highly publicized campaigns.

“If you have good law enforcement, you can drive down distracted driving,” LaHood said in announcing $ 2.4 million for the two states. “We think we’re going to make a difference here.”

The National Transportation Safety Board has called for a ban on the use of mobile devices while driving a vehicle.

Although the federal government doesn’t have the con…………… continues on Washington Post