Rantz: Cops should ignore E-DUI ticketing

How’s this for a post-Easter treat: Washington state law enforcement agencies will be going through another round of extra patrols to bleed you even drier, under this specious concern that you pose a risk when using your phone at a red light. You do not, but the state has a bloodlust for your money — does moneylust work?

Rantz: I won’t follow the distracted driving law

I hope law enforcement agencies choose not to enforce this law.

Per KIRO 7:

Over 150 agencies will be participating in the crackdown, which will emphasize the state’s new E-DUI law.

If drivers are caught holding a phone, watching videos, using a tablet, or holding any handheld electronic device, they will be subject to a $136 ticket for the first offense. It also includes those stopped in traffic or at a stoplight.

This is, of course, ridiculous. Using your phone at a red light, deep in standstill traffic, to tell your kids you’ll be late picking them up from soccer practice isn’t dangerous no matter how many times Governor Jay Inslee wants to pretend it is. I wonder how often other people drive him around, making it easier for him to text his family or colleagues when he’s running late.

I urge law enforcement agencies to reject this enforcement unless someone is driving recklessly. Governor Inslee doesn’t have your back. He takes cops for granted and cozies up to the forces and activists behind I-1591 because he believes they’ll help him stay in power. Don’t do his bidding in taking more of our money away; they’re already parasitically stealing money with the car tab scandal, regressive taxes, and obscenely high property taxes — all while charging us upwards of $10 to drive in an express toll Lane on a highway we already paid for, with a looming threat of an income tax as the next potential big push.

We all know that using a phone while in a car doesn’t inherently make you dangerous. Don’t play into the huge double standard here, officers. You can eat a messy breakfast burrito on your drive to Tukwila or Kent for work and you won’t be pulled over unless you do something illegal, like speed or drive recklessly. Then you’ll get hit with a secondary ticket for that burrito faux-pas.

The Sound Transit Board member that opposes ST3

So why don’t we treat phone use the exact same way? Really simple: the state knows we’re addicted to phones, know we’ll use them, and it’s an easier way to take more of our dollars to be wasted on programs inefficiently run. It’s a real easy money grab, all in the name of safety. They could have done this in a way that makes us safer and acknowledges the reality that using a phone when stopped behind a drawn bridge is perfectly safe. But then they wouldn’t be able to take money from your pockets, would they?

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