From january 2nd it will be nationwide as opposed to individual state law to use only hands free phones whilst driving in the lower 48 and Alaska (I don’t know about the islands ?)
It will be ilegal to use any phone which requires more than one finger to press one button to talk hands free. It will be ilegal to pick up your phone when moving or sitting in standing traffic, even to press the one button allowed, the phone must be placed within easy reach so you can pres the required button. Push to talk as with Nextel etc will be ilegal also… Yet holding a CB mike will be allowed ■■?
I fail to see how using a CB mike is any different to holding a phone ?
Bloody right too, no excuse to use handheld phones anymore, the bluetooth headsets may be ungainly and do nothing for fashion sense, but they’re a million times safer than holding a phone to your ear 
problem i have Mark is no sod here can understand my English accent and my bluetooth set makes it worse 
Pat Hasler:
Yet holding a CB mike will be allowed ■■?
I fail to see how using a CB mike is any different to holding a phone ?
Perhaps because a CB mike takes far less concentration and does not have to be kept next to your head to speak in to or listen to it, thus diverting attention from the road. I use my 10/4 phone while driving for hours on end each and every day which is effectively like a CB mike in that you key the mike to talk etc and not once in three years has it ever contributed so much as even a near miss, unlike talking on an actual phone which is far more diverting.
Trucks using CB’s and 10/4 phones while going in straight lines, limited to 65mph on an interstate are in no way the same as an idiot in a car paying no attention to the road as he joins I95 in Newhaven, CT, while talking on his phone, eating his bagel, reaching for his starbucks and then crashing into the rear axle cluster of the 53’ trailer he didn’t see next to him.
Point taken to a certain extent but … ‘Push to talk’ is n different to a CB mike is it ?
Pat Hasler:
Point taken to a certain extent but … ‘Push to talk’ is n different to a CB mike is it ?
Push to talk, or 10/4 phones as they’re called in Canada is a two way radio feature built into a mobile phone. When using the 10/4 feature it is basically the same as using the CB in that you use the phone as a mike infront of your face and listen to it on a loud speaker. You are not compelled to weld the phone to your ear and put in the amount of concentation that that takes. Just as with a CB where you are not required to have hold of the mike at all times to your mouth or ear, neither are you with a 10/4 phone. When I’m not actually speaking in to it, I can lay it on my leg or put it on the dashboard/drink holder etc and hear what the other person is saying and then pick it up to key the mike as and when required and is convenient to do so. Its a much more relaxed and slower way of communicating than a mobile phone call. It may sound the same to you as talking on a mobile while driving but it really is a completelly different experience. Personally I cant talk on a mobile and drive at the same time, yet I talk on my 10/4 phone, like most truckers talk on their CB’s for probably 6 to 8 hours of the day as all the other British and Irish drivers here have them too and its how we stay in touch and pass the time.
Yes but … those are being banned also and I can’t see why ?
Pat Hasler:
Yes but … those are being banned also and I can’t see why ?
As with most new laws, I think its purely another measure to crack down on people for the sake of doing so. Trucks and the people that drive them for example are already by far the safest vehicles and drivers on the road but that can never be allowed to be the case officially because tens of thousands of government quango jobs depend on enforcing these rules and the only way to justify their own existence is to exhagerate or invent threats and dangers and then come riding to the rescue in the name of safety and other such like meaningless slogans.