the official blog of the evergreen freedom foundation

Senator Tracey Eide, sponsor of the police state

The one common element of all torts is that someone has sustained a loss or harm as the result of some act or failure to act by another....

 

Tort law has three main functions or goals: (1) compensating persons sustaining a loss or harm as the result of another's conduct; (2) placing the cost of that compensation on those who, injustice, ought to bear it, but only on such persons; and (3) preventing future losses and harms.

Tort law creates incentives that force us all to internalize the risks that we might create for other people. It's a great, even beautiful, way to regulate private behaviors like, say, people talking on their cell phones while driving.

The beauty of tort law is that it works on the individual level to make people think about potential consequences of their choices, not just about whether the cop saw you or not. If you harm someone while negligently talking on your cell phone--on the road, on the sidewalk, on an escalator--you're not just morally responsible, you're financially liable. In fact, in tort law moral responsibility and legal liability go hand in hand in a way that makes sense to regular people. When government regulates behavior that doesn't cause harm, the law is amoral at best, immoral at worst, and unintuitable.

Thoughts?   Add Comment -

Jeremy M. said on Mar 12 2010 at 3:34pm
I have proven through testing that holding a cell phone to my ear is far safer than holding my wife's hand while traveling.

Will Sen. Eide ban holding our sweetheart's hand next? I'd like to see her try!

I don't "drive" anyway. I "travel in my private property."

Doug said on Mar 12 2010 at 5:45pm
I don't know, as a victim of someone driving while using a cellphone, I have mixed feelings. I imagine in a couple years I might get some money due to tort law, but it won't come within a penny on the dollar to how much I lost because of the initial use.

When someone who has nothing is protected by an insurance company that has a $100,000 limit and that someone destroys the rest of your life, no tort law is going to offset it.

Amber Gunn said on Mar 12 2010 at 6:46pm
Car accidents happen with or without cell phone use, with or without radio use, with or without talking to a passenger or screaming at your kids in the back seat, with or without eating while driving. Some things are within your control, some things aren't. Anything that distracts a person's full attention from the road is probably a bad idea. I fail to see why handheld cell phones are being picked on as a preventive measure.

Those who cause harm should be held liable for their actions...and that includes all kinds of distracted actions while driving, not just cell phone use. I do think it is a legitimate point to punish people extra for certain known behaviors that increase the odds of an accident. But the reality is, in 99.9% of ALL accidents, somebody wasn't paying attention. One party or the other...for one reason or another.

I personally find small screaming children in the backseat to be one of the most distracting and disturbing things a driver could subject himself/herself to. If we're going to start restricting certain scenarios/behaviors that lead to accidents (rather than settling the case after the fact) then I move to ban children under 12 from riding in moving vehicles of any kind. Teenagers could be permitted on a case by case basis, after going through an individual assessment by DOT to decide if they're mature enough to ride in a car.

Bonus: think of all the new government jobs this ban would create.

The Capt. said on Mar 12 2010 at 6:49pm
While I'm not for gov't interference, the cell phone law as it stands is a joke. If a law is passed stating that talking on your cell phone is illegal, then police should be able to pull you over and fine you for that. My understanding of this business of secondary violations, in general, does nothing but put handcuffs on our law enforcement officers to enforce the law. An act is either illegal or it isn't and should be enforceable, if an individual is caught in the act.

Trent said on Mar 13 2010 at 4:22pm
So Pat O'Callahan at the TNT thinks having a policy debate about this brand new law is "goofy." I responded to his blog post (link below), but I've got to add a couple things here.

We have some other traffic laws. Does anyone drive over the posted speed? Do people still drive drunk? Proponents of banning things always talk as if the law is self-enforcing. It's stunning ignorance and arrogance, if we stop to think about it.

And consider this: what we really rely on for civil society is individuals choosing to follow the law. Law largely only matters to the extent that people value it and choose to uphold it.

What that means is that if we push the law too far from what corresponds with most people's sense of right and wrong, we may reap the whirlwind. When laws punish people for behavior that most people do not consider culpable, we make it less likely that people will value and abide by not just that law, but all other laws springing from the same fount.

Eide and her supporters may honestly believe that suddenly no one will talk on their cell phones while driving and the roads will be safe for democracy, peace in our time, something like that. We'll see.

Trent said on Mar 13 2010 at 4:22pm
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/opinion/2010/03/12/the-libertarian-cell-phone-car-wreck-lawsuit-theory/comment-page-1/#comment-6748

Brett said on Mar 15 2010 at 12:40pm
It's the same type of do-good thinking that leads to "gun-free" zones that, in essence, make certain buildings and such target-rich environments for gun-toting criminals, who, by definition, do not obey the law.