OPINION:
“Multi-tasking” is the current fad word for “trying to do two things at once.” Some folks are against it. New Jersey, which doesn’t think Jersey guys are smart enough to pump gasoline into their own cars, now wants to make a misdemeanor of drinking coffee while driving.
Assemblymen John Wisnieski and Nicholas Chiaravalloti, both Democrats, have introduced legislation to bar “any activity unrelated to the actual operation of a motor vehicle in a manner that interferes with the safe operation of the vehicle.” Amid an uproar that surprised them for its passion and anger, they insist that their legislation doesn’t necessarily single out coffee.
This is hardly reassuring to the average motorist, because it opens a loophole big enough to drive a motor vehicle — an eighteen-wheeler or even an oversized SUV — swiftly through it. Their proposed law would impose fines of up to $400 and suspension of a driver’s license for motorists who eat, drink, groom, read or use electronic devices behind the wheel.
Mr. Wisnieski insists that his legislation is meant to educate, not punish. “I can’t imagine a police officer giving a ticket to someone drinking coffee,” he says. Mr. Wisnieski, who is chairman of the legislative committee to hear testimony on the bill, has surely been around long enough to see how bureaucrats can monetize anything. If they see an opportunity to impose a tax or collect a fine, they will come, like flies to a slice of watermelon.
Steve Carrellas, policy director for the New Jersey chapter of the National Motorists Association, says the legislation is “not needed, since three laws are already on the book to prohibit distracted driving.” Multi-tasking and trying to do two things at once is something supporters of the legislation must come to terms with. “Would [the law] making changing a radio station [on the car radio] or adjusting the volume illegal? And what about talking to a passenger?”
Good questions, and what about distractions from merely thinking about the proposed law, or giving a thought, as a Jersey guy will do, to the pretty girl in the car that just passed by? But Mr. Wisnieski is something of a glutton for punishment. He introduced similar legislation in two previous sessions of the legislature, and his bills didn’t go anywhere. He says reaction this year is fiercer than the fury he once unleashed with a proposal to add 25 cents to the tax on a gallon of gasoline.
When he introduced earlier no-distractions bill, he says, “people worried that I was trying to stop them from eating a sandwich while driving. It was the ’ham-sandwich bill’ last time. Now it’s coffee.’ “
Next year, no doubt, it will be something else. Nannies, as Mary Poppins teaches every generation, never say die.
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