It is now illegal for CMV drivers to use hand held phones. Still waiting to see what my company is going to do about the Nextel beep beeps they use to talk to us on. Going to be interesting. They have a couple of differernt phones in the trucks, and seem to think giving each driver a hands free device will wokr. Won't for me, because I change to diffferent trucks, while most are assigned a truck. I will soon quit answering my cell when they call, as I am not going to absorb the extra minutes to allow them to use my hands free, if I get one. Currently they call me on my cell, and I use theirs to call them (they never know which truck I am in)Still haven't figured out what makes "hands free" safer than having one hand on the phone and the other on the steering wheel. Heck, I drive a computer shifted truck, so I only need one hand and for the most part, one foot. I do have to use the clutch when I come to a stop, but that could be fixed easier than a hands free, lol.
Most of the people I see with "phone problems" are paying more attention to the phone than the road, and the fact that a hand is holding the phone really has nothing to do with it, but I guess it is making somebody feel good thinking "they have done something" as far as passing a law to make our roads safer.
Most of the times I see truck drivers having "phone troubles" is when they are either dialing a number (looking at the keys instead of the road) or trying to answer a text somebody sent them. Most of the older style phones had a raised bump on the 5 so you could figure out which keys your fingers were on, but with the glass screen phones it is harder to do. However, the newer glass screen phones usually have voice activated or voice recognition to dial with out looking at the screen.
From what i understand, this currently only applies to CMV drivers, but look out, cause it will probably be expanded to "everybody" next.
Yesterday a Ford p/u was heading west on I-10 with tinted windows. Because the sun was ahead of them, and i was behind, I could see the passenger thru the rear window with her face in the drivers lap, bobing up and down. After I passed them, I noticed him running onto the paved shoulder a couple of times, then the scenery changed. She was sitting at the wheel in his lap and well, anyway, a lot more visible in my mirror than I need to bring up on this forum. Apparently changing drivers while going down the road is acceptable also????(and whatever else)
David from jax
