Decius wrote:
Again, I don't think its possible to explain this law rationally, because I don't think that there is a rational explanation. The people who wrote this law did not take care to craft it in a reasonable way. It is intentionally overzealous. Prove me wrong.

No. Not only is it not my job, that's not how argumentation works. One is not correct by default. You've given nothing but a few blanket statements and made no attempt to support your argument.

...as to how sloppily the law was written is concerned, cry me a tear. We've long since established that the people responsible for writing the things are generally incapable of doing so correctly.

You're dangerously close to arguing that people should be allowed to SMS while they drive, and that's not likely to be a correct determination. Joe Average can barely drive correctly without any distractions. Give 'em a tiny phone and a squishy little keypad and try to get them to redirect their attention in mid-sentence and just watch what happens... There's more to this than "just" that a phone keypad is interactive... There's also the issue that people have real and serious problems leaving some things incomplete. If they've got a map in their hand and out of the corner of their eye catch something happening up ahead, they'll have no problems dropping the map. If they're in the middle of spelling "peaches" in T9-speak and they're only as far as "peac" it's not going to be so easy for them.

Think a moment... when was the last time you were asked to get up from your computer in a hurry and you stopped in mid-word. I'm sure they didn't watch you so that they could ask only when you were between words... Oh but wait, this wanders into the issue of how immersive the activity is, which is something you pre-disqualified and why I'm not actually going to bother arguing with you about it.

RE: Texting while driving ban a challenge to enforce, authorities say  | ajc.com