Well written.

Go to BMW mate - my M5 is awesome.

Text?!? Web! I'm reading this post at 81 mph on I-78 AMG rules! narf!

A big, big problem with fatalsaint's logic:

It's a very slippery slope with a huge hole in it.

The reasoning employed could be used to undermine a significant number of laws that do a great deal of good yet require significant due process to prosecute. Murder is one. Since murder can be difficult to prove, and often requires subpoenas of evidence and witnesses, should we then absolve laws against it? Most cops never witness the actual crime.

Think carefully on this, folks.

The post above can be punctured quite easily, actually. The officer spies the person texting, pulls them over, and tickets them. If the driver decides to fight, they go to court as is their right. It is then incumbent upon the state to provide the proof (ie, phone records) and if that does not happen then the defendent wins.

But it doesn't stop there.

As is human nature, either way the indignant defendant will protest to anyone who will listen (and one determined to fight a ticket will naturally do so). Anyone doomed to listen to the story will then realize that yes indeed the police will hand out such tickets, and each individual must then weigh the merits of the risk. I daresay most will think twice going forward.

So never underestimate the propaganda component. In cases like this it actually tends to work against the propagandist.

Except in Canada. I got pulled over for speeding once and took the cop to court. Lack of evidence the judge sustained the charge saying that why would a cop testify falsely?

There is too much power and discretionary power police have (in Canada).

I feel that the laws against texting while driving already existed.. under reckless driving.

There's a difference... when a dead body shows up people are more inclined to go all they way through the process and spend the money to try and track down who and why.

If I receive a phone call, look at my phone (while driving), decide to ignore it and push the hang-up button, a cop saw me look down (hell, we'll even say he saw me look at my phone), and pulls me over...

We just spent a whole lot of money and time fighting in courts that should not have happened. You could be doing any number of a million legal things in your car that require your attention for a second ... the cops have *no* idea what you're really doing.

Really.. laws like this do nothing but allow cops to pull you over for anything. They don't even need a reason anymore.. "Well.. I thought I saw him texting."

I realize youre moving extremes just as we did.. but the massive gap is that nobody is going to want to go through that mess (defendant and cop included) over someone that *might* have been texting. Everyone wants to go through it if someone *might* have killed someone.

I do agree tho.. that using my logic could lose ground on a great number of laws... and personally I think a great number of laws *should* be losing ground.

This is fine... then why did we need to make even more? and more? and make it more a convoluted mess with more loopholes than already exist??

Because politicians act on the swing. X event happens, politicans create Y law for X event. Insert a "protecting the children" reason somewhere in there and then that law will be even more likely to pass.

And this, in a nutshell, is precisely what I dislike about all this.