Hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your cell phone...

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Added on: 12/01/2010 @ 11:18:20 PM

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Hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your cell phone...

A leading law enforcement officer said Wisconsin's new ban on texting and driving will mean your phone will be seized as evidence as part of enforcing the law.

"You're going to lose your phone," Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said Tuesday.

After you lose your phone you will have to spend 10 minutes in the time out chair, then write "I will not text while driving" 100 times on the chalkboard, clean all the chalkboard erasers, lose your allowance for 2 weeks, and be grounded for 1 week. Last but not least you will be subjected to a 56 point physical inspection or full body x-ray.
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	RUFiO1984 - I put my socks on the wrong feet. 12/02/2010 @ 07:42:47 AM
Is that even legal? Isn't there a lot of personal information on your phone that a cop or anyone should not view while going through your phone trying to figure out if you were indeed sending text or not? I agree with not texting and driving, but taking their phone is ridiculous.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jeremy - 9475 Posts 12/02/2010 @ 05:16:59 PM
Well...obviously we have a law here we could debate the merits of, but it's pretty much inevitable that "seizing" the phone, even if only for a short while, would happen, given the law. The officer that says he "would never allow" the officers to demand the phone seems just as in the wrong, if not more so, since at that point you're then ticketing them on a hunch. People might volunteer to show they weren't, but at least on my phone there's no "sent" folder. You'd have to go through everything, and we don't live in a country where we're presumed guilty until we volunteer enough private conversations to show otherwise. While I might cave to get myself out of a fine, that really doesn't make it anymore "ok." There's a send folder for my email though. But that's not covered, because writing an email while driving is way different from texting. Also, my brother could text on his old phone without looking, you need to look to read, but that's allowed. Sometimes you just can't make a law, as much as it seems like there should be one. It's just really really dumb. For real.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.
Jeremy edited this 5 times, last at 12/02/2010 5:29:47 pm

	Jeremy - I hate our freedoms 12/02/2010 @ 05:27:43 PM
It's extra dumb, because I'm pretty sure you can still text in traffic and red lights, so even if he saw you texted 2 minutes ago they would have no reason to assume you were moving at the time, and even if it went through 30 seconds ago, you could have hit send a while back, it failed, then retried.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Alex - 3619 Posts 12/02/2010 @ 10:29:54 PM
The law itself is dumb, but as you've kind of pointed out the phone doesn't really prove anything. Sent folders and such are not very reliable. I think he says something in the article or I heard it elsewhere that they would be confiscating the phone so that people couldn't argue against the fine. But the cop could just as easy take the phone, send a text, fudge the time on his report by 2 minutes, and screw you that way. Bottom line is it still comes down to the cop's word against the alleged perpetrator's word, so really there is no point in confiscating the phone. Which I assumed meant they'd be taking the phone for a day or two, not just looking in your sent folder at the time and giving you the phone back right away.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jeremy - 9475 Posts 12/07/2010 @ 03:21:39 PM
I'm not sure there are many police that are going to risk their career (and possibly criminal charges?) to give you a slap on the wrist fine. I really just meant that if they're going to make this a crime of sorts, then it not only seems reasonable to make some attempt to prove it actually happened, it seems utterly bizarre, and probably good evidence this law is crap, not to. Imagine if drug laws were as such that you were fined on a hunch, and they may or may not bother to check depending on station policy. Then added "people might volunteer the contents of their pockets to prove themselves innocent"		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.