A legislator in New Jersey has proposed a law that would ban smoking while driving.  The state already has a law banning drivers' use of handheld cell phones – though not hands-free phones – but it is rarely enforced.  There's a good case for prohibiting drivers from using any phone while operating a vehicle because studies show the distraction to be not the phone itself but the phone conversation.  Anyway, if studies were conducted to determine how many drivers actually stopped using handheld phones while driving because it's against the law, I doubt that many would report that they have.  They know that it is hardly ever enforced.  A law that prohibits smoking while driving would add to the already dizzying array of unenforced, and probably unenforceable, restrictions.  It's just plain silly and should be ridiculed off the agenda.

One reason that many people scoff at traffic laws is that many of these laws are rarely enforced or that enforcement appears to be capricious and random.  Motorists tend to consider getting a ticket to be more bad luck than rightful punishment for violating the law.  Although state law mandates that drivers turn on headlights when visibility is poor enough to require the use of windshield wipers, I know nobody who has been ticketed for this offense and have seen police cars that are in violation.  One needs to drive only a few miles on an interstate highway to observe that the typical motorist exceeds the posted speed limit by at least an average of 10 mph.  If one drives at the limit, virtually every other vehicle will whiz past, and the passing motorist will probably give one a dirty look or the extended-finger motorists' salute.

So let's add another unenforceable law to the books.  While we're at it, let's ban the following activities while driving – applying make-up; shaving; eating of any kind; drinking, not only alcoholic beverages but also coffee, tea, milk, soda, and water; disciplining the kids;  conducting heated arguments; diddling with the radio or CD player; swaying to and fro in time with the music on the stereo; fixing one's hair; reading maps or other printed materials; reaching over to the passenger's seat or the back seat for something; blowing one's nose.  Since any kind of "multitasking" is some sort of distraction, the possibilities for prohibited activities are enormous.

If such laws were rigorously enforced, we might even put a dent in the state's enormous budget deficit.  Of course, the income from all the tickets might be used up to pay the salaries of the personnel needed to enforce the law.  People probably could not get from one place to another without being pulled over for driving while arguing or driving while nose-blowing.  Because motorists, including truckers, would do anything to avoid the New York - Philaphelphia - Washington corridor that cuts through New Jersey, the economy might crash.  But we'd have Big Brother looking after us, protecting us from our own folly.

The proposed legislation is so ludicrous that it's mind-boggling that the state legislature is even considering it.  Yet I think I know why they are.  They're stumped about how to balance the budget, to stop real-estate taxes from rising, to control overdevelopment, to eliminate graft and fraud, to improve education, and so on.  Debating an unenforceable law that bans smoking while driving gives them something they can handle.