Janey

It is obvious that of the 3 scenarios described by Gilda, the first two are nice to observe proper manners. The 3rd one, however is critical life and death. I have been behind drivers who are weaving around their lanes, only to find that they are on the cell phone. yesterday, on the Danforth, traffic in both directions was abruptly halted by a self-centred idiot performing a 3 point turn (in heavy traffic) while chatting on his cell. to top it off, his passenger was sitting there doing nothing. She could have taken the call. But noooo, he had to use the phone himself. He performed this monoeuvre (which was illegal in this situation even without a cell phone, because he was obstructing traffic) very slowly and clumsily, using about 5 points to complete it.

As for kids using them in class: confiscate them. There is no need that is suddenly apparant in the past 10 years that requires families to contact students directly (during class or exams) this is what the school office and secretaries with message pads are for. The phone is just a toy or status symbol in this case, and we are building rational to wrongly justify its existence.

My job also required me to be oncall, and when I was scheduled to be on-call, I did not go to movies or bars, where I could be suddenly yanked out of participation. Being on call required a certain responsibility (which i was paid for) that I needed to maintain.