Hands-free...or else

Today, July 1, 2015, marks the imposition of a new law: a driver is now forbidden from using a hand-held phone while driving. One will be expropriated $100 for the first “offense,” $250 for the second, and $500 for subsequent “violations” within a 2-year period. This is yet another State mini-evil to increase control over us serfs. Here are some likely consequences:

• Drivers who flout the law will be more distracted because now they not only will use their phone, but they simultaneously will contort themselves to hide it while watching for police.
• Non-offenders who see such scofflaws will be increasingly exacerbated and frustrated; this will tend to increase road rage.* (Mind you, many of the supporters of this new law fly along I95 at 80 mph and change lanes without a blinker.)
• Economically, the structure of production is distorted, just as occurs with a tax. The scooter store on Epping Rd. is pushing to sell Bluetooth installations because of this law. Without the law, they would have put their efforts to other, more productive uses.
• The fines are reaped by government bureaucrats, who distort societal production a second time. Money will be spent to enrich bureaucratic departments and to buy votes, rather than to satisfy consumer demands.
• Police departments, which welcome this ban with open arms, have yet another excuse to bloat their already obese budgets. I wonder if EPD will introduce a “Cell phone hunter” award.
• Police now have another excuse to stop a car and to trick the driver into a search of the cabin/trunk or into an interrogation. That is, the law increases surveillance on us all.

Supporters ignore all these comments. “No,” they say, “this will save lives because there is one less distraction while driving.” This comment ignores the first point above, as well as the plain fact that drivers who are “distracted” are bad drivers, and crummy driving skills are not resolved by banning a specific item. The underlying problem is the government ownership of the roads. The State issues drivers licenses, posts signs, fixes (or doesn't fix) infrastructure, etc. It is the lack of market prices and competition that claims 40,000 lives in the US every year in car accidents. The real solution is for the government to remove itself entirely from road production. Roads consequently would be safer, cheaper, and faster.  See Walter Block on this point.

Additionally, the ban is a simple violation of property rights: I have a right to use my phone and my car as I please, provided I do impose physical harm on someone else. Hitting person or property should be considered a crime, but using a phone per se has no victim. "No," the supporter say, "The government sets the rules of the road, and you are free not to drive on it." This anti-choice comment ignores the paragraph above: it is precisely the government that creates the havoc in the first place. Further, it ignores the fact that "we" are all owners on the road. If this is true, as any good citizen believes, we should be allowed to use the road as we see fit. If not, then "we" are not really owners of the road, are we?

Finally, of course, there is zero way to test whether this restriction will increase safety. There are two possible cases. Either (1) there are fewer accidents, or (2) there are more. If the former occurs, politicians will claim that this ban is the reason and will tout government regulation of evil individuals. But, if the latter is the outcome, they will say that the law didn’t go far enough. Par for the course, the State wins either way, and we taxpayers suffer from the crisis of interventionism.

*As a concrete example, consider the “Right lane ends” sign that was installed a few years ago on 107N just after the I95 interchange. Before, when the dotted white line ended, people naturally and politely figured out which car proceeds first. Now, there is always a rush, for the right driver to “cut” into the right, and for the left driver to prevent this trespass into “his own” lane.