Thanks to everyone for the encouragement, I really appreciate it. Thanks to Erosiaart for taking the time to research that article on how the UK was increasing their penalty charges for those caught talking on their cell phones. I too feel that strict enforcement of the law is necessary and applaud the measures being taken on both sides of the pond to curtail the use of cell phones while driving without hands-free remotes.

 

To Orbital I would like to express thanks for sharing the hair-raising experience his wife endured in that tragic accident. Experiences like that makes one think twice about how lucky they really are and how important it is to enforce these laws. I hope that she has managed to find some measure of relief from that traumatic experience and I happy that she was not hurt in that affair.

 

Ricky, thanks for your insight (knowing you’re a lawyer), it helps to shape a defense even if it is a different state. To be clear what I said was that they did not ask to see my cell phone, which on hindsight means that the police officer actually believed he saw me talking on the cell phone and therefore did not need to see my cell phone. I later thought: what would the court say if in fact I didn’t own a cell phone at the time of the summons? I indeed did have a cell phone on me but it was tucked well out of the way, clipped onto my belt over my back pants pocket and layered by a sweat shirt and a jacket and would have been very difficult to reach especially while seat belted into my seat.

 

Death_at_midnight, interesting, I haven’t thought about the fact that if the patrol car would even have a video camera attached, how would this effect my defense? Would the video simply show a silhouette?

 

There is one thing I would like to make clear, I become infuriated when I see other drivers being distracted by doing other things other than driving when they’re supposed to be focused on their driving and talking on their cell phone especially really gets my goat. I view cell phones as a necessity which is often abused at the expense of others, be it at restaurants while other people are trying to dine peacefully, at special and private events you often get the idiotic ring tones and of course while driving. As I mentioned, I applaud tough law enforcement to limit accidents and deaths. As Ang25 could attest to, I specifically bought a Bluetooth remote earpiece for when I go on those occasional long distance drives such as to visit with her or my sister-in-law out in New Jersey so that it would provide hands-free control cell phone chatter.

 

Anyway, thanks to all, even those that want to throw me to the dogs, and I’ll let you know what happens as it gets down to crunch time.

 

Ang, They banged you for more money? I learned that a few years ago, they let nothing sly. I think it’s time for another Tea Party (with all due respect to our friends across the pond) in this country since it seems they have forgotten why we went independent and I don’t rightly care if it’s in Boston or anywhere else for that matter. What exactly did this government do prior to collecting taxes in 1931?