Revenue from Distraction

Attention Deficit in Americans is driving the state revenue coffers. State of California senator someday passed a law banning the use of cellular telephone while performing the act of driving. Banning leads to fines. Thence the revenue. People being people continued to ignore or evade the new law and do their part to contribute revenue to cover the budgetary shortcomings. After all we want our kids to go to school so they can learn that distracted driving is not good for health and wallet. These schools need money. But the fallacy of such a law is that it tends to single out only one form of distraction and that too allowing the enforcement police to be subjective of what constitutes the use of cell phone. I tend to use mine to scratch my back when driving on occassion and so am not convinced if I should be cited. What about the ones that eat and drink and do other activities while driving? I have never driven in Germany but anecdotal evidence suggests that the Germans are very serious about their driving and do not have accouterments in their automobiles that would encourage distraction of any sort. No cup holders as an example. So no Big Gulp slurping and then getting distracted when the cold liquid tends to drip on your pants and making you look down while you go crashing into the wall. On the contrary the next generation of American automobiles are arriving with more gadgets to make IBM proud. It is a mobile computer on wheels. You can now check weather, trade stocks, eat your breakfast, shave, catch up on other trivia while updating your facebook wall while crashing into a real wall. No worries there are 89 air bags to take the impact and also a soothing attendant to dial out for help while you update your status about how a deflated air bag smells.