Do you have a cell phone? Do all of your friends have cell phones? Do you know anyone that doesn’t have a cell phone? With so many people owning cell phones and becoming dependent on them, using them for their every need, for safety, to get a ride home, to order a pizza, to get directions, basically to communicate with anyone at anytime. It seems like we have grown accustom to having this ability, and thus we have grown completely dependant on our cell phones for survival. But why are cell phone companies really causing safe drivers to get speeding tickets? Well, it might not be exactly why you think.

Have you ever been driving down the road, and had your cell phone go off while driving? Of course, you fumble around in your pockets, swerving around in your car, finally get the cell phone out of your pocket, take your eyes off the road to check the caller ID to see who is calling, then finally answer and direct your attention away from your driving and to the conversation. How dangerous is that scenario? Very. Not impressed? Well imagine driving down the road, trying to write a text message on a tiny keypad of only 10 buttons, or even read someone’s text message they sent you. Imagine trying to check voicemail while driving, dialing the number, punching in your “secret password”, repeating the messages several times because you couldn’t hear exactly what they said, saving, deleting, or sending new ones. Anyone can agree that it is extremely dangerous to use your cell phone while driving.

You are driving down the road, paying close attention of the road, and aware of everything going on in front of you, and you lean on the accelerator just a little bit because you driving home from class and you are missing a new episode of the OC. Nobody else is on the road; there isn’t even any signal lights or turns ahead, just straight road. Just then you see flashing lights in your rear view mirror, and before you know it, you are slapped with a $270 ticket for doing 72 in a 65. You have to go to court, pay your fine, go to traffic school, and pay higher insurance rates just because the law believes that you were endangering people’s lives by going a harmless 7 over the speed limit on 101. Obviously, you are being much more safe than the aforementioned scenarios of using your cell phone while driving, but the judge doesn’t seem to care, he says the law is the law, and there’s nothing you can do.

By comparing cell phones to cigarettes, one can instantly spot many similarities. First, it’s obvious that people come dependent on them. Next, the products that both companies make, is dangerous to not only the users, but other innocent civilians as well. Finally, both of these companies will go to great lengths to prevent any sensible legal measures taken to protect the consumer at the cost of profits from the company. One example is that cell phone companies know that their product is extremely dangerous to use while driving, but they do not warn their customers of this because they know that a vast amount of business is derived through the use of peak minutes while people are in their cars. These companies would rather let their customers die then lose profits. They know that traffic safety advocates are just waiting to pass measures and laws banning the use of cell phones in cars, so they make massive campaign donations to ensure these laws are not passed. Therefore, the police must find a scapegoat to blame traffic accidents on, so they look to us poor innocent speeders to pick on. Cell phone companies thus are the cause of speeding tickets.