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[mouse]

Principle is worth everything.  More people should do this, but the "system" is reliant on the fact that most people do not have the time or resources to defend themselves so everyone is vulnerable to being bullied by government.  It is far from a foregone conclusion that his argument will be accepted, the judge just might say "well we are gonna prosecute you anyway because WE CAN and there's nothing you can do about it, this is part of your training in being submissive to our employees, so next time when the jackboot is on your neck, just be grateful we don't kill you".

https://i.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/110915173/man-hires-lawyer-to-prove-he-was-eating-hash-brown-not-using-phone-while-driving

A US man is doubling down on his defence after he was ticketed for distracted driving last year, recently telling local news outlets he spent US$1000 (NZ$1450) on an attorney to help contest the US$300 (NZ$435) court order.
Jason Stiber said the officer who pulled him over on April 11 mistook the McDonald's hash brown he was eating for a cellphone.
"I have never in my 21 years as a criminal defence lawyer - and that's all I do - I have never such a minor case engender such disproportionate attention," his attorney, John Thygerson, told The Washington Post. "It's a big deal to my client, but small potatoes in the grand scheme of things."

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[Who...me?]

To me the real question is...was he distracted while driving.  I do not give a rats ass if it was a hash brown or not.  When you drive a car your supposed to be DRIVING.  When I leave the local quickymart, waiting to pull out into traffic, I see an astounding number of people looking at their cell phones and not at the red light 50 feet away.  As a motorcyclist the question is,will some asshole who cant wait 5 mins to get home before updating their assorted social media, going to run me down.

[mouse]

There are many distractions when driving:  Listening to the radio (I have seen people bobbing their heads up and down to the music, sometimes quite vigorously), passengers talking to you, billboards, pets in the car.  One thing that I can't seem to avoid is children talking, fighting with each other, kicking the back of the seat (to let me know that they are bored and I am not going fast enough) or a child in the passenger seat going through the glovebox looking for sweets.

A while ago a friend of mine took her 3 year old to the dentist and was going back home over a hill when the child in her car seat in the back suddenly projectile vomited all over my friend and)  there was nowhere on the hill road to stop and clean up so she had to keep driving for 10 minutes with a screaming child in the back and vomit all over her.  Now THAT'S a distraction.

Once I was taking the kids home from school when they were fighting with each other over a pair of toy sunglasses.  I got so mad that I pulled over, grabbed the sun glasses and threw them out of the window onto the road.  It didn't do any harm at the time (except that the kids all yelled louder) but I felt so guilty (mainly about what I might have caused to happen because of my reckless action) that I made them ride their bikes to school after that and now I only take them in the car when I absolutely have to.

What should we do?  Ban all children and pets in cars unless they are behind a screen?  Make it a traffic violation for anyone to talk to a driver?  Have no radios in cars, or bells and whistles that they can play with and get distracted by?  Make it a traffic violation to eat in the car?  It could go on and on, where would it ever end?

[Bill St. Clair]

No harm, no foul. I'm sick of prior restraint.

[Who...me?]

Clearly there are many distractions while behind the wheel. Many are not really a distraction...like listening to the radio for instance. I can pay attention to more than one thing and still be aware of what is happening around me. Kids scream all the time...generally about nothing that is actually important or life threatening and so should be ignored until you can pull over to deal with it. Even talking on the phone is not an issue as you can talk with your eyes on the roadway and thus able to react to changing circumstance.

The real problem is people that have their eyes in their lap paying no attention at all to where their several thousand pounds of steel and composite are going. Texting, reading the news paper or rooting around in a bag or looking for a hashbrown are irresponsible and dangerous to everyone around you. I do not want to die because someone picked posting their new "look at me doing driving" selfie over controlling their vehicle.

[mouse]

I was saying:

https://www.cltampa.com/news-views/florida-news/article/21049247/new-bill-would-make-it-illegal-to-pet-your-dog-while-driving-in-florida

Florida lawmakers are proposing a new law that would crack down on distracted driving, including texting behind the wheel and — much to the dismay of animal-lovers — petting your dog. Currently, texting while driving is a secondary offense in Florida.
That means police can cite a driver caught texting behind the wheel, but only if the driver was originally pulled over on the grounds of another violation. The new bill introduced by state Rep. Jackie Toledo, R-Tampa, and Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, however, would change that by defining any kind of distracted driving as a citation, Tampa Bay Times reports.

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[Bill St. Clair]

Currently, texting while driving is a secondary offense in Florida.

Seatbelt requirements started as secondary offenses in many states. I was pulled over once, while wearing my seatbelt, by a city cop who was spending that whole day looking for seatbelt offenses. He got a piece of my mind ("I've been wearing a seatbelt since before you were born!"), before letting me off, saying that he would review the video.

In Vermont, it's an offense to use a handheld electronic device while stopped. To be fully law-compliant, I think you have to get out of the car. But I've never been cited.

[slidemansailor]

What most people do not get is the difference between safe 'multi-tasking' and dangerous distractions to the driving responsibility.  There is a portion of our brains that imagines threats our peripheral vision is picking up, and projects them into things we need to pay attention to. 

That same 'imagination center' is what we use to talk with people who are not onboard at the moment.  Our cell-phone calls are the ultimate example.  This is why when you come upon someone doing 25mph in a 65mph zone they are ALWAYS blabbing on their cell phone.  They cannot conceptualize esoteric parts of driving while the esoteric parts of their brains are fully engaged in conversation with an 'imaginary friend'.

I could whip around and smack the hot-dog out of my back-seat kid's hands without losing concentration. I could not, however, engage in a remote conversation without losing attention from the threats approaching my windshield.

You cannot legislate paying attention, nor can cops penalize it.  Life penalizes it, but most folks try to pass off the blame.