As of today, it is illegal in California to drive while talking on your cell phone — unless you are talking on your phone via a hands-free device. This, when every study in the universe shows that people who are simultaneously driving and talking on their cell phones — hands-free or not — are exactly as dangerous as people who are driving drunk.

People can drive just fine with one hand. What they can’t do just fine is drive and talk on the phone at the same time. Everyone thinks they’re great at simultaneously driving and talking on the phone, but they’re wrong. Everyone’s terrible  at it. Our brains aren’t (yet?) wired to be any good at all at simultaneously driving, talking, listening, and responding.

Hence the difficult conclusion to avoid, which is that the only  thing this new California law does is dramatically boost the sales of Bluetooth-enabled hands-free cellphone devices.

This is just a wild guess, but I’m scoring it like this: Cell Phone Lobbyists: 1.  Sanity: 0.

Related post: I’m Green Like Kermit.