Winnetka Considers New Law for Residents to Ignore

By Matt Wood in Miscellaneous on Sep 19, 2006 12:03PM

Winnetka becomes the latest community to consider a law requiring hands-free cell phone use, much like Chicago's law in both content and likelihood to be enforced. The village had briefly considered a ban on all forms of "distracted driving," like eating, grooming, fiddling with the radio, and whaling on the kids in the backseat, but settled on one that is more easily ignored.

Chicagoist has seen some of the stats about the number of tickets issued to those caught cell-handed -- it really does happen. But we've also seen about 800 times as many people cruising around yammering away as if they'd never heard of the law. Most troubling, about every other policeman we see is doing it too. We suppose it's best to think of the law as something that gets tacked on after you've been collared for speeding or running a red light. We can't really expect police to put down their phones to pull over everyone else.