by REBECCA SPARROW
Stop your whinging. That’s what I want to say. Stop your whinging and bitching about the new tougher laws that were introduced last week in NSW (and will likely soon extend to other states) regarding the use of mobile phones whilst driving.
What are the new laws? You can read them here. Or I can give them to you in a nutshell: TOUCH YOUR MOBILE PHONE IN THE CAR AND YOU’LL GET A $300 FINE AND LOSE 3 POINTS FROM YOUR LICENCE. THE END.
Doesn’t matter if you’re at a stop light. Doesn’t matter if you’re in a traffic jam. Doesn’t matter if your phone is on your lap and on speaker (because, gosh, that’s waaaay safer).
If you make a call, listen to a message, read or send a text while your car’s ignition is on, and you get caught, you’ll pay for it. You either have a legitimate hands-free system set up or you don’t use your phone.
And I’m fine with that. Is it harsh? Sure. But if you looked at a list of “The 10 Worst Combos Of All Time” — somewhere between ‘Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney’ and ‘blue cheese ice-cream’ would be ‘mobile phones and driving’.
But many, many other people are not fine with these new laws including one of my favourite journalists, Sarrah Le Marquand. Sarrah, speaking for many others, fears Australia is turning into a nanny-state and that this new legislation is over-the-top, simplistic and pure revenue raising. She writes…