Beginning July 1, 2008 cell phone use in vehicles in California will be required to be hands free. My fellow motorcycle lawyer in California, Norm Fernandez, has an excellent review of the new law on his website. I agree that hands free use of cell phones is a step in the right direction but is not a real or satisfactory answer. Norm raises a number of good points like what about dialing the number or texting - are they illegal too?

Cell phone use has become such a common problem as a cause for accidents that in my law practice we routinely ask whether the offending driver owns a cell phone and whether they were using it at the time of the accident. We also ask for the cell phone telephone records to be produced just to make sure the offender is telling the truth - sometimes they are not.

The University of Utah has been at the forefront of cell phone use and has published studies that show that drivers who drive while using a cell phone operate at a level of a drunk driver. Not only do drivers who use cell phones while driving operate as a drunk driver but like studies indicate that hands free use makes little difference. Regardless of the real impact of hands free cell phone use on decreasing traffic accidents I think it is a step in the right direction. Anything that raises the awareness of drivers that they are less attentive and spurs them to pay more attention to others on the road - especially motorcycle riders - is a step in the right direction.

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