A few years back, when I still commuted to and from work, I was driving home past the New Mexico State Fairgrounds when I noticed the car in front of me driving very erratically. It was braking, then speeding up, not staying in the lane and generally being a menace. I changed lanes to get around it, and, as I was passing, I noticed the driver (a young woman) was on the phone. Her hands were in her hair, she was not looking at the road, she was, in fact, bawling and screaming into her phone. A few seconds after I got past her, she stopped her car entirely. In the middle of a lane of traffic during rush hour. Apparently this was the perfect time for her to receive catastrophic news of some kind (I've always assumed it was man trouble, but it might have been deeper than that).

This is one of the most extreme cases I've seen of dangerous cell phone use in a car. But it isn't an isolated incidence. Similar scenes happen every day, and everyone has a story. Of course, they don't have a story about themselves doing anything like this. I'm sure this woman doesn't even remember she was driving a car during this call. She probably does remember whatever it was the phone conversation was about.

The city of Albuquerque passed a ban on drivers using hand held cell phones in moving vehicles last week. It takes affect next week. You must have a hands free (headset of some kind) device to drive and talk on the phone. Sales of these contraptions hit critical mass last week, as did protests to the new law. The police have said they will probably give warnings for a while before they start fining people.

When I think about the law, the scene I saw a few years ago wouldn't have been any different if she was wearing a headset instead of jamming her phone into her ear. She still wouldn't have been paying attention to the fact she was driving in traffic.

But what I've read from the newspaper columnists who are opposed is this: it is an infringement on their civil rights. These are mostly conservative columnists who lauded the government's listening into civilian phone calls, reading people's mail and generally treating everyone as if they were part of a terrorist network. You see, these actions weren't an infringement on our civil rights, they were going to save lives. And, besides, the common man isn't a terrorist, so anyone who might be mad about these spying techniques must be the enemy. But take away the "right" to have meaningless conversations as they drive somewhere, and suddenly it's a constitutional issue.

I don't have a cell phone. Most of the people I know do. This is what I know about cell phones and their use: hardly anyone answers their phone, you usually get voice mail, and the phones tend to break down, get lost or lose service on a somewhat regular basis. And yet, I see people talking on them all the time. I guess they're returning the calls they didn't answer in the first place. Don't even get me started on the absurdity of text messaging.

In this way, I am completely out of step with an overwhelming majority of this nation (and, probably, world). When I didn't laud certain "technological breakthroughs" at work, I was labeled a Luddite. There have been times when a cell phone would have been useful, but they are few and far between. Definitely not worth however much a month it would cost to have one. Obviously these times weren't life endangering, since I'm still here to write this today.

Cell phone companies are not up in arms over these laws about drivers talking on phones (Albuquerque is not even the first city in New Mexico to pass such a law. Santa Fe has had such a ban for a few years.). They get to sell more gear this way. Headsets were flying off the shelves, and, I'm sure, when new shipments come in, the prices will go up (if they haven't already).

More gadgets to make the old gadgets work in the new world. And since, apparently, you're supposed to continually get new phones to get new features, this is just another phase in the evolution of the cell phone.

Will it make us safer drivers? Maybe. Will it make us more considerate of other people? Probably not. Will it mean people will pull over when they have to get on the phone in their car? Who knows? But the bitching has started, because, after years of the government taking away our civil rights to catch phantom terrorists, they finally hit something that affects a whole bunch of people.

All I can say to the enraged talkin' n' drivin' people is this: put the phone down and step out of the vehicle.

Matt Worley was mad when the insurance companies lobbied successfully to make everyone wear their seat belts--back in the freakin' 80s.