Somehow the conversation in my Sunday School class last week turned from the Ten Commandments to Tennessee's new hands-free mobile phone law.
Apparently, Moses didn't anticipate cellphones, or at least not Bluetooth.
Get ready. Two weeks from tomorrow, July 1, Tennessee drivers will face a $50 fine for holding a phone while driving. Fines of $100 to $200 can be imposed for repeat offenders and those who violate the law in school or roadwork zones.
The consensus among my church buddies is that the new law is a good safety measure, and several said they are making plans to comply. We are rule followers, so having an actual law is the nudge some of us need to do the right thing.
One person said they saw a funny picture - anticipating the hands-free law. It was a man with a flip phone duct-taped to his head.
The text-free-driving push feels like the anti-drunk-driving movement of a generation ago, which helped change public opinion and driving habits. As the father of two boys, anything that makes driving safer is OK by me.
While we are on a roll, I'd like to suggest three other common-sense ideas about driving safety (aka random ramblings of an agitated old man):
* Ban bicycles on the W Road. This will probably get me in hot water, but I feel strongly about this. In most circumstances, I'm a law-and-order, share-the-road-law advocate; but this is a pure safety issue. Recreational bicyclers who choose to climb the W Road up Walden's Ridge during peak traffic hours are putting themselves (and other people's children) in danger.
If I round a corner going the speed limit up the mountain and there's a bike in the road inching up in first gear, the only choice is to panic-brake, put the car in a ditch or cross the center line to create legal clearance. If there is oncoming traffic, this can endanger everyone in the scenario - including any children in my car.
Meanwhile, consider this: It is illegal to drive down the W Road in an SUV without a seat belt buckled (and rightly so), but legal to pedal a road bike down the mountain at 30 mph - in places - on inch-wide tires. Go figure.
A suggestion: What if there was a designated time in the week - say, Sunday afternoons 3-5 p.m. - when the W Road was closed to automotive traffic and open to bikes only? Anyone? Anyone?
* Raise the legal driving age to 17. As the father of a 17-year-old son, this will get me in trouble at home, but let me make my case. Statistically, 16-year-olds crash at a higher rate than any other age, and one in five 16-year-old drivers have an accident within their first year of driving.
Delaying the licensing process by a year might help. Plus, you can buy a lot of Uber rides for the cost of insuring a 16-year-old boy - believe me.
* Outlaw buttocks buzzers. Unless you have a GM car or truck, you may not have encountered this feature. Someone sold GM on installing seat buzzers as part of its suite of safety-tech features. So, if you start to drift across lanes (without signaling) or get too close to a vehicle in front of you, you get a friendly buzz in the buttocks.
GM calls the system Safety Alert Seats, and it first started showing up on Buicks and Cadillacs. The company says it developed the system, in part, because one in five Americans suffer some degree of hearing loss.
I'm not sure how this is more effective than an audio or dash warning. It feels a bit like aversion therapy and always startles (more than alerts) me.
Ban the buzzers, I say!
OK, I'm taking my pill now.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.