The Chapel Hill Town Council should hang up on its intention to pursue a ban on cellphone use while driving on within town limits. By a vote of 6-2, the council voted Monday to continue discussing with such a ban, never minding that Ralph Karpinos, the town’s attorney, said it remains unclear whether Chapel Hill may enforce such a ban on the town’s state-maintained roads.
Rather than run the risk of putting drivers in the more distracting position of considering where the ban applies, the council should halt this discussion and devote its time to more pressing issues. Any ban on cellphone calls behind the wheel should be carried out like the texting ban and be implemented statewide rather than town by town.
The council has good intentions in keeping Chapel Hill drivers as safe as possible, but the current proposal is too shoddy to protect drivers from distraction or the town from a legal challenge. With the potential loopholes in the ban, drivers will literally find a route not to get caught.
Aside from the possibility of confusion, the council must realize that enforcing this ban could be tough. Drivers will talk on their phones, ban or not, and it will be challenging to enforce the ban without looking through someone’s personal phone records.
At the very least, the town should have consulted the N.C. Attorney General before moving the proposal forward. Only after voting to proceed with the ban did Karpinos indicate the initiative to contact the state’s top-ranking attorney.
The council would be better off with the proposal it didn’t pass Monday: an educational campaign on the dangers of cellphone use behind the wheel. Such a campaign is clearly within the town’s limits, but it’s too soon for the Town Council to tell that a cellphone ban is also within those limits.
