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Chapter 10

CALL OF THE RlLED

by Kenneth Terrell and Sara Hammel

from US. News and World Report

During a performance last March of the Broadway play The Lion in Winter, an audience members cell phone rang. After putting up with the annoyance for 20 seconds, actor Laurence Fishburne stopped the scene and boomed: “Will you turn off that phone, please?” He got a rousing ovation?

It has not yet risen to an organized consumer movement, but there are unmistakable signs of a backlash against the 75 million handheld communications devices now on the American scene. More affordable and easier to use than ever, cell phones keep users in touch whether they are on the road, at the grocery store, or in the middle of a national park.

And therein lies the problem. For every businessman grateful for being able to close a deal in Los Angeles while lunching at a restaurant in New York, there is another patron who wishes he would shut up.

And for every commuter efficiently chatting with the home office while rolling down the interstate/1 there is another motorist wishing he had one of those bumper stickers that says “Hang up and drive.”

Driving danger. A cell phone conversation is not the same as a face-to-face one: It’s often louder, for one thing, because people mistakenly think they have to shout to be heard on the other end, and its annoying for eavesdroppers because it goes only one way. On the road, a cell phone conversation is downright’’ dangerous. According to a University of Toronto study, car phone users are four times as likely as other drivers to have an accident. “Cell phones have merged everything into one all-purpose space,” says Paul Levinson, a communications professor at Fordham University and author of Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium. “There are no guideposts. We do what we want regardless of Where we are.”

Now, however, as the liabilities of cell phone use star: competing with the benefits, society is instituting some rules of wireless behavior, both on and off the road.

Examples of boorish cell phone conduct abound. At the Pillar House restaurant in Newton Falls, Massachusetts, in April, a cell phone owner wanted to avoid annoying the people at his own table, so he turned to diners at an adjoining table and conversed loudly toward them. In a class for MBA students in Milwaukee last month, a professor talked on his cell phone through much of a student presentation that counted for 20 percent of the students grade.

Cell phone users seem to have no clue how rude or careless they can be. In a new survey by SBC Communications (whose brands include Cellular One and Pacific Bell), 53 percent of respondents gave other wireless phone users a C, a D, or an F for manners.

Encouragingly, most found it inappropriate to use a wireless phone at a funeral (98 percent), a restaurant (86 percent), or a movie theater (96 percent). Oddly, however, 83 percent of the respondents gave themselves an A or a B for cell phone manners.

Many cell phone users are unapologetic about their habits. Kathy Posner, a public relations executive and self-described loud talker from Chicago, keeps one phone in her purse, another in her briefcase, and two in her car. She sees nothing wrong with talking in a restaurant or on the train. Soon, however, she and her cell-phoneloving cohorts” may find themselves without a choice.

Shush!“ The Hampton Jitney, a bus that shuttles thousands of power brokers and beautiful people from Manhattan to Long Island’s posh” eastern end, limits cell phone calls to three minutes each and allows them only when absolutely necessary. Offenders will be gently reminded. Tom Neely, vice president of marketing for the service, says the policy was instituted two years ago after customers said they didn’t want to listen to other people’s business or personal affairs. “Cell phone users don’t know how loud they are talking,” Neely says.

Loud talkers are an irritant to the restaurant industry as well, and many of the better restaurants are doing something about them. After numerous requests at the Pillar House, phones were banned from its dining room. The St. Louis Club in Missouri allows cell phones only in its lobby; New York’s Old Town Bar displays a picture of a cellphone with a red line through it; and several other upscale” Manhattan eateries, including trendy Union Square Cafe, prohibit phones in their dining rooms.

SBC Communications recently launched a campaign” to make proper cell phone etiquette as common as the phones themselves. In its April survey of wireless phone users, the company enlisted Peggy Post, great-granddaughter—in—law of manners maven Emily Post, to interpret the results and offer solutions. Her simple guidelines: Don’t talk during lectures, concerts, plays, and movies; use a vibrating phone instead of a ringer; and keep your conversations very short.

The penalty for cell phone use while driving can be bodily injury, not just missing a few minutes of a movie. “Everyone thinks they can handle talking on the cell phone, eating snacks, changing radio stations, and driving a stick shift without having an accident,” says Julie Rochman of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. But, she says, “Theres no doubt about it: Its going to increase your risk.” As a result, more communities are considering laws to limit the use of wireless phones behind the wheel. In March. a few weeks after a phone—using driver crashed in front of the Brooklyn, Ohio, City Hall,16 the Cleveland suburb passed a law making it illegal to use a cell phone while driving unless both hands are on the wheel.

Thirteen states are considering bills that restrict the use of phones while driving. But only three—California. Florida, and Massachusetts—have passed any laws, and none of those is outright prohibitive,18 focusing on keeping one hand on the wheel and one ear free for traffic noises. The argument against such laws. says Matt Sundeen, a policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures, is that “cell phones are part of people’s lives now. and that’s too difficult to take away.” Even those who approve of restrictions admit they are difficult to enforce: How do the cops prove you were using your cell phone when you caused that 10—car pileup’?

Critics of restrictions also point to the positive safety features of cell phones: Thousands of people each day use wireless phones to report accidents and other incidents they witness from the road.

Trying to fend off legislation, the wireless industry has mounted a driving—safety—awareness campaign. The National Highway Traflic Safety Administration, along with InsWeb.com (an insurance information Web site), also offers road—related advice: Keep your phone in easy reach so you can grab it without taking your eyes off the road.

Memorize the keypad and functions to make dialing easier.

Hang up in heavy traffic and in hazardous driving conditions.

And, when in doubt, remember the immortal words of Laurence Fishburne.