{"id":626,"date":"2013-02-03T19:53:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-03T19:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/03\/cellphone-ban-an-act-of-courage"},"modified":"2013-02-03T19:53:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-03T19:53:00","slug":"cellphone-ban-an-act-of-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=626","title":{"rendered":"Cellphone ban an act of courage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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http:\/\/amarillo.com\/news\/2013-02-02\/beilue-cellphone-ban-castor-oil-drivers<\/a><\/p>\n

My pal Jon Mark Beilue once again has done a great job explaining what occasionally is the unexplainable.<\/p>\n

In this case the issue the city\u2019s ban on handheld cellphones while driving a motor vehicle. Some naysayers are circulating petitions around the city seeking to put the measure to a vote. They have until the middle of the month to get slightly fewer than 4,000 valid signatures.<\/p>\n

My hope is that they fail and that the Amarillo City Commission\u2019s decision stands on its own. <\/p>\n

I was proud of commissioners for actually leading and deciding that, yes, driving while operating a motor vehicle inside the city limits is too risky an endeavor to tolerate. The best quote came from Ellen Robertson Green, who I\u2019ve declared publicly to be my favorite city commissioner. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs Americans, we love our cars so much that we forget driving is a privilege, not a right,\u201d Green said. \u201cBut you have to get a license, insurance, an inspection and registration. You can\u2019t drive drunk or have an open container and (must) wear a seat belt and follow traffic laws. We\u2019re driving a missile, and that comes with responsibility. So often we think, \u2018my car, my road, my right.\u2019 It might be your car, but not really the other two.\u201d <\/p>\n

Green\u2019s point, I think, is that when we take that \u201cmissile\u201d onto our public streets, the drivers\u2019 business becomes every other motorists\u2019 and pedestrians\u2019 business. They need to follow the laws set down to seek to ensure a safer driving environment. <\/p>\n

The cellphone ban will take some time to embed itself in motorists\u2019 minds. I\u2019m still waiting for some visual evidence that the activity has subsided since the ordinance went into effect. I hope it comes, and I applaud city commissioners for forcing the issue on drivers.<\/p>\n\n

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http:\/\/amarillo.com\/news\/2013-02-02\/beilue-cellphone-ban-castor-oil-drivers My pal Jon Mark Beilue once again has done a great job explaining what occasionally is the unexplainable. In this case the issue the city\u2019s ban on handheld cellphones while driving a motor vehicle. Some naysayers are circulating petitions around the city seeking to put the measure to a vote. They have until the … Continue reading Cellphone ban an act of courage<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}