Cheshire Cat Photo Blog(...said the Cat: 'we're all mad here....')

California State Senator, Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), has proposed higher fines for texting or talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device while driving. Simitian authored California’s hands-free and anti-texting laws to begin with!

(The California Highway Patrol [CHP] says that there was a 20% reduction in fatalities and collisions during the first six months of the texting law. Big surprise THERE! You actually have to WATCH THE ROAD to DRIVE!)

Even more good news… the new bill would go for BICYCLISTS, too! The bill announced by Simitian today would MORE THAN DOUBLE the cell phone fine and increase the texting fine FIVEFOLD!

Wooooooooo hoooooooooo!

Now, if the bill becomes law, all we need is some police activity to ENFORCE it!

I have written before about the many kinds of garden-variety “California maroons” on the road in the Golden State.

I have not written about the bicyclists, who, believing that they are enveloped in some magical force-field that shields them simultaneously from physics and sanity, ignore all manner of traffic laws. Yes, bicyclists, the laws apply to YOU too! (Both the traffic laws AND the laws of physics….)

A good friend of mine was “T-boned” on her bicycle in San Francisco by, you guessed it, another bicyclist who ran a red light!

Yes, perhaps we have EVEN MORE FANTASISTS in California than you do in your state or country! “Common sense” is a very RARE item here, indeed!

If the bill by Simitian passes, the base fine for the first cell-phone violation would be $50. In most counties, once fees and penalties are added, the fine would be $255! The base fine for texting would be $100, but the actual fine that drivers would pay would be $455!

Can you tell that California is strapped for cash, or what?

Simitian said that the new Senate Bill 1475 “will make a good law even better” by creating “a more significant deterrent.”

Assuming passage, ENFORCEMENT, and COMPLIANCE (a BIG assumption), SB 1475 should just about end “the talking and texting while driving” problem.

Now all we really need is “a more significant deterrent” to systemic extremism in the California Legislature.

-Bill at

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