Do laws banning cell phone use while driving constitute a violation of liberty?
I'm presenting this as a question for general discussion, as I haven't fully formed an opinion on it yet, and I'd like to hear some other viewpoints. My initial proclivity is to view cell phone bans as a violation of liberty, as it's a restriction on individual activity that in itself does not directly endanger the lives of others.
What do the rest of you think?
All statutes are a violation of liberty.
This problem arises from the Tragedy of the Commons created by socialized government roads. Compulsary monopolies lead to unsolvable problems. Look at government schools, for example, there is no proper solution to the question of prayer in government schools. Only freedom in education, and voluntary segration, can provide a desireable outcome to all parties.
Peace
In principle, yes. As is drunk driving, speeding, and most regulations. People who want to talk on their phone and drive are still paying taxes to fund the roads, and have no choice in this matter.
However, supposing the government were the _owner_ of the roads, it'd make sense (as banning drunk driving, speeding, and most regulations), as that makes the roads safer - so in a free road market most roads would probably still have these restrictions (now perfectly legitimate) anyway. Which leaves me way less passionate about the matter, than if the ban was unreasonable (or something that wouldn't likely happen on free roads).
Yes, it is a violation of liberty - driving while using a mobile phone does not per se violate the (negative) liberties of anyone else.
But to drive while using a mobile phone implies that you have a vehicle, a mobile phone, and somewhere to drive. In a genuine free market it is possible that manufacturers of cars and mobile phones, road networks and insurance companies would offer incentives to people not to do that. It might turn out that driving while using a phone would be very risky (no insurance) and very rare (few phone companies, cars, or road networks would permit it). It might be impossible in most instances without breaking agreements with, for example, the road network you were using, and leaving yourself open to sanction. In that case the road network would be incentivised to ensure there were adequate policing services on their roads to enforce compliance with their regulations. Maybe such a regulation would not be enforceable. There would be a discovery process as producers and consumers coordinated their interactions with each other.
So while a governmental ban is a violation of liberty, the lack of such a ban does not imply that anyone will be able to carry out the action, since there would be no right to do it either.
http://irishliberty.wordpress.com/
JonBostwick:This problem arises from the Tragedy of the Commons created by socialized government roads. Compulsary monopolies lead to unsolvable problems.
This problem arises from the Tragedy of the Commons created by socialized government roads. Compulsary monopolies lead to unsolvable problems.
I agree with this. Governments by their nature impose uniformity - they pass laws and provide public services which cannot possibly take into account the complexity of human desires, and we are left with futile unnecesary debates about what kind of uniformity is going to be imposed on us. Spontaneous individual action would solve these problems in ways the government cannot come close to replicating.
qvantamon: However, supposing the government were the _owner_ of the roads, it'd make sense (as banning drunk driving, speeding, and most regulations), as that makes the roads safer - so in a free road market most roads would probably still have these restrictions (now perfectly legitimate) anyway. Which leaves me way less passionate about the matter, than if the ban was unreasonable (or something that wouldn't likely happen on free roads).
Of course, speed limits do not make roads safer. Government owners of roads do not think like a market owner would. They can not economically calculate, so they do not act in ways similar to an individual. There is no system in place to measure the effectiveness of regulations on road safety. These regulations are not in place for economic, or safety, reasons but solely for political reason.
Drunk driving laws constantly get more severe, not because of a change in dangers, but because of a change in political climate, a growing acceptance of marginalizing undesirables.
The speed limit was dropped to 55 during the oil crisis. The government can not calculate what speed limit maximizes utility for drivers, so the change was purely political.
Then we get into enforcement. The main concern that determines the enforcement of these rules is revenue generation.
To say that governments administer their roads in way resembling a market entity displays a great cynicism towards the mutual consent and spontaneous order of the market.
Hm. You're right. Speeding slipped in there. I was thinking more in terms of reckless driving/endangerment (driving much faster than the flow, cutting, etc) than going over arbitrarily-set speed limits. You only need to drive in a German Autobahn, and then in an interstate behind people who slam on the break at the mere sight of a police car, to see which one is safer.
But I didn't say that governments administer their roads in a way resembling a market entity. I said that in the case of a lot of regulations, including this, I believe something similar would happen on free roads. I know I included "most regulations" in the text, but please scrap that - I sometimes forget how many of them exist... I was thinking more on the line of the obvious ones like traffic lights, signaling lane changes, etc, and forgot the myriads of "no smoking in the car", "compulsory seat belt usage", and similar crap.
Ronorama: Do laws banning cell phone use while driving constitute a violation of liberty?
You've already got some good answers, so I'll go off in a different direction instead of repeating other people's statements.
What we're looking at is risk, and the assumption of risk. Driving while using a cell phone, as well as many other things, such as driving while drunk, or driving too fast in a snowstorm, driving while putting on make-up, or while eating, or while the kids in the backseat are fighting, all impose a certain amount of risk on other people on the road. The question, then, is what level of risk people can be assumed to accept by driving on the road, and what constitutes an unacceptable risk imposed on other drivers?
Private road-owners would obviously have an incentive to minimize these risks, but like many other activities in life, it's impossible to prevent all risk. Government micro-regulations, the banning of specific things while driving, can easily get out-of-hand and ridiculous, and certainly brings up the question of enforcement and effectiveness. A more pragmatic approach for existing governments is to come up with a more, general purpose law that says engaging in activities while driving that impair one's driving ability, or that incur reckless driving, or some such phraseology, would make more sense than creating a new law every time a new technology or new trend while driving is created.
In short, driving while using a cell phone depends greatly on the skill of the driver involved, as does the risk involved. Simply banning the behavior doesn't address the problem properly, and is, IMO, a violation of liberty.
A cellphone jammer will mitigate your risk. Create a bit of a dead zone around your car. About 15 meters will do. I find it quite handy for dealing with morons who talk while driving.
And no, the government should not regulate.
In a private highway system, the private owners of the system would have that final say. Drivers could gain permission to use cell phones on the private highways, in return for paying higher premiums to the owner of the private highways, such higher premiums compensating for the increased risk that the use of cell phones while driving incurs.
qvantamon:But I didn't say that governments administer their roads in a way resembling a market entity.
I know. I was using your post as jumping off point to go further into the issue of government roads, sorry.
qvantamon:I was thinking more on the line of the obvious ones like traffic lights, signaling lane changes, etc
Actually, several cities are removing their traffic signals in order to improve safety! We are told that many things exist to make us safe but without the market to promote good ideas and weed out bad ideas how do we know?
I've gotten some good answers here, folks. This is why I find mises.com to be so valuable. People are actually thinking about these things rationally.
If anyone's interested, the reason I posed this question here is because I became involved in this discussion on another, non-economics/politics forum. If you want to watch the traffic, that thread is here. I'm "Yenko" over there.
There are a couple of interesting (frightening?) responses that I think epitomize the attitudes of most sheeple these days:
Bottom line, if people cannot be responsible for their own actions, and the effect that may have on others, then legislation is needed to force people, I think it is that simple...
Scary! 'Nuff said.
I still dont understand what "liberty / freedom" are we talking about here?
What's disturbing about this statement is that it suggests that we don't have liberty, but rather liberties, somehow defined individually. It's a seemingly simple distinction, but one with grave implications. Enumerating rights or "freedoms" in this way opens them to incremental destruction, as many don't see a problem with giving up a small "freedom" if it's ostensibly for the greater good. It's easy to see how this would eventually lead to the abolition of liberty.
I haven't brought up the concept of publicly- vs. privately-owned roads on that forum, as I don't think most of those people are ready for that discussion (wow, how elitist do I sound? lol), and I think it would muddy the waters over there too much to have any impact. I'd probably just be labeled a "crank" even by those who are currently supportive of my position. If any of you have suggestions for things to bring up over there, send them on. It will be interesting to watch and see what happens. Little do all those folks know they're in my own little petri dish! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!
I've noticed that most people are Hobbesians who see no alternatives to problems other than what government 'should do' to control us. Also annoying is this naive thinking that since something is currently done a certain way, that means it must be the only way it can be done--never mind that it is government management, as a previous poster pointed out, that makes the problem irresolveable. I don't know whether avoiding privatization is the best strategy but I think it's admirable to stay at the edges for now and try to work your way in. If I understood the issue better, I would have no problem being the one to suggest the 'cranky' idea of privatization since that's ultimately the solution.