Shocker: Distracted Driver Laws Fail

Sorry about the sarcasm, but to no real surprise, all of these laws that ban hand-held use of mobile phones do not have the intended legal effect. An insurance group, the Highway Loss Data Institute, examined data from states like Connecticut, California and New York to examine accident frequency before and after these states enacted laws banning hand-held use of mobile phones while operating a vehicle.

Why do these statutes fail? Because mobile phones are one of many ways drivers are distracted, with such ancient distractions such as the radio, the instruments and passengers outside of the imagination of legislators in deciding what to ban while driving an automobile. The states that have passed these laws find that people start using hands-free devices to talk, leaving them just as distracted before, but apparently with one more crucial free hand.

The study authors are apparently perplexed by this, saying the study "raises as many questions as it answers." However, it is not perplexing at all. While everyone has driven along a road next to someone texting/typing and erratically driving as a result. However, this is not a new occurrence with the mobile phone. Before mobile phones, there were women applying makeup, people in heated arguments, attempting to adjust the analog dial on an AM radio... the list goes on and on. When I was 16, I was rear-ended by a distracted woman who was rifling through her purse at 45 mph. Should they ban purses and other bags from the passenger compartment of autos because women were distracted? Obviously, that argument would be viewed as absurd.

Why then ban mobile phones when 99.9% of drivers are able to maturely use a phone while driving? Is there a mighty Jupiter Jack lobby, or is Motorola secretly conspiring with the government to enact these laws to pump up sales of Bluetooth headsets?

Distracted driver laws are simply the only way governments know how to handle things: in a reactionary and misguided way.

Even Progressives Hope Coakley Loses - And They Should

Martha Coakley, the mediocre Attorney General turned US Senate candidate, has caused quite an impression on the political world. She has made gaffe after gaffe after gaffe, claiming Curt Schilling is a Yankee fan and that shaking hands of voters at Fenway Park for the Winter Classic is pointless.

Progressives are now starting to make the argument that even the most ardent left wing Democrats should not be voting for her, in an attempt to purify the party and force them to nominate candidates that appeal to the left wing.

For liberals and Democrats, abstaining or voting against Coakley is an interesting option. If Martha Coakley wins on Tuesday, she will likely never face a primary challenger again for as long as she chooses to serve in the Senate. This conceivably means that Coakley could be scot-free for 30 or 40 years (See Kennedy, E. and Byrd, R.), never facing a challenge from another Democrat and potentially never seeing a strong Republican challenger.

But Coakley is a disaster of a candidate. By all standards of measurement, Coakley has been an absolute disaster, so much so that even if Coakley wins, she will be seen as a failure of a politician. If Democrats abstain or vote for Scott Brown, they can think to themselves that the Democratic Party can nominate a stronger challenger to then Senator Brown in 2012. In other words, the Democrats would be able to trade 2+ years of Scott Brown in the Senate for the ability to nominate a non-disaster of a Senate candidate.

The Democrats could have solved all of this by not just voting for the token woman in the December primary. However, they are Democrats, and are more than happy to vote for labels above other things, such as ideas and qualifications. The best way for Democrats to fix their mistake is to vote for Scott Brown on Tuesday and hope they do not nominate another loser in 2012.

By then, Coakley will safely be sent off to be the dog catcher in North Adams, or another similarly useless position fitting of the worst Democratic candidate for US Senate in quite a long time.

Scott Brown Gets It

The "Teddy Kennedy" seat in the Senate is wrong, as wrong as most voters in Massachusetts are, the seat still belongs to the people of Massachusetts, not Coakley or Kennedy.

This is not the Deep South in the early 20th Century, where the real election was the Democratic primary.

Scott Brown can conceivably win this race. Massachusetts can stand for America.

Scott Brown Day

Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, has had quite a day today.

First off, he raised over a million dollars today. As of 11:30PM, he has raised $1,117,747 today. Outside of Mitt Romney, can you imagine a Republican from Massachusetts raising anywhere near that much money in a week, nevermind a day? The money may be mainly coming from outside of Massachusetts, but it will pay for numerous commercials until the election next Tuesday.

Secondly, he took Martha Coakley to the cleaners tonight. Not just my opinion as well. Commentators like Andy Hiller from Channel 7 and Joe Battenfeld of Channel 25 say he ran away from the debate. Coakley is a horrible debater, lacking when she needs to move off the script her handlers give her. Scott Brown showed enthusiasm, knowledge and spark, and also showed that he was not a typical GOP guy, which clearly helps in Massachusetts.

There might be a real race in the next week or so. Ignoring the predictable Globe poll on Sunday that showed Coakley up 15% (despite the fact that the day it went to press it was 4 days old, and the sample size was too small collected over a too long period of time.... but polling issues are for another day), there is another poll that shows Brown ahead, within the margin of error, 48%-47%. Coakley has turned out to be a horrible candidate for the Dems, and even if she wins, she is damaged goods.

Go Scott Brown!

Could Massachusetts Elect a Republican Senator?

A recent poll for the special U.S. Senate election on January 19 has Scott Brown down 50-41 among "likely voters" and Brown only down 2 percent among respondents who stated they would definitely vote.

Considering that in Massachusetts the Democrats have always won every statewide position (except Governor until 2006), usually by large margins, this poll must be a gut punch to the Democrats. For Senate races, the Democrat usually wins by approximately 65-70% to 30-35% (even a well-funded Mitt Romney only got 41% as a Senate candidate).

Why is Scott Brown doing so well? Well, a sinister idea is furthered by Ben Smith of Politico, that the Democrats nationally are rooting and hoping for a close race so that the Democrats can win and state that the Republican momentum is a myth. It is an idea with some supporting evidence behind it. The Boston Globe, normally the mouthpiece of the Democratic party in Massachusetts, has published articles critical of Coakley, stating that she went easy on a defendant in a 2005 case and was a poor performer before the US Supreme Court in a case Coakley lost that has made prosecution crime labs overburdened. Could the Globe be purposely trying to put the race closer on the idea that there is no way Massachusetts will elect a GOP man?

Here's hoping, if the Democrats are purposely trying to make the race closer, they overdo it and cause Coakley to lose. Coakley is a horrible candidate, and only won the primary because she was the only female. She is an awful speaker, unable to expand on anything beyond force-fed talking points, and clearly will be nothing more than an empty Democratic vote. Massachusetts could make Scott Brown a very dependable independent Senator, toning down his more right-wing views for the purpose of reelection.

Win or lose, at least the campaign commercials have gone way down since the primary ended.