After years of study, the FCC has come to a conclusion regarding cell phones and airplanes that pretty much the rest of humanity had come to already: cell phone use poses no significant risk. As such, the the Commission voted 3-2 to consider removing the ban on cell phone use on flights.
Alas the potential of having passengers yacking into their phones during flights has spooked others in Washington. The Department of Transportation and some members of Congress have started to take action to ban cell phone use on airplanes. Is it because they have some greater understanding of the true safety risks involved with cell phone usage on airplanes? Of course not. No, you see, cell phone use on airplanes might annoy people. Representative Pete DeFazio (D-Ore.) represents a line of thinking typical for those leading the charge.
Rep. Pete DeFazio, D-Ore., the ranking Democrat on the Aviation Subcommittee, cheered Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx’s statement last week that his agency would consider regulations to ban cell phone chats on planes. “As I’ve been saying for years, allowing passengers to make in-flight phone calls would not only show a complete disregard for an American public that overwhelmingly opposes them, but would also pose serious safety issues for everyone in the cabin,” DeFazio said.
Safety issues, sure. Expect those who insist on a cell phone ban to cling to the safety talking point in much the same way that politicians who vote to install speed cameras do. In both cases, safety has nothing to do with why politicians back a proposed policy.
Look, I really don’t want to sit next to someone who chats away on their phone for the entire duration of a flight. I also don’t want to sit next to a crying baby, but my wife insists. And the people who sit behind my little hellions probably don’t appreciate it – I know, I see their looks of abject scorn and fear when we board – but should Congress ban us from flying? And a shrieking kid is a lot more annoying than someone carrying on a conversation.
As much as we hate cell phones, part of the reason is a weird psychological aversion to hearing one-sided conversations. Would we dream of banning conversations between two or more people on a plane? I recognize that people do tend to talk louder on phones, and there is that one-sided conversation factor, but the fact remains that it’s a tad irrational to pinpoint a behavior that has no safety concerns and yet say that it is perfectly acceptable for the federal government to ban the behavior simply because people find it annoying.
I have mixed feelings about cell phone bans on the road. At last in those cases there is a legitimate safety issue with people talking on phones while driving (though there are other dangerous driving behaviors that are as bad or even worse that we wouldn’t dream of prohibiting). Yet we’ve pretty conclusively determined that there are no safety concerns with people talking on their phones while flying – well, unless they happen to be the pilot, in which case we might want to insist that they put the phone down. Otherwise, those who support the ban are signalling that they are okay with government prohibiting something simply because they find it irritating.
As I commented on facebook, I am annoyed or irritated by other people roughly every five minutes. If I got Congress to ban behavior that I found irritating, there wouldn’t be a person in America not behind bars. That perfectly healthy person who gets on the elevator to go up one flight? One month in the slammer. Standing on the left on the subway escalator? In the slammer. Didn’t clear off all the snow on your car . . . wait, that actually is illegal, police just don’t enforce it. Maybe we just need to install snow-cameras that automatically give people tickets for that.
Even though this is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, it is these petty tyrannies that are the most troublesome, mainly because large segments of the population support them almost uncritically. But do we really want a federal government so big that it gets to outlaw being annoying?
Paul, what you’re not realizing is that government must order and control people to the extent that they lack self-government. We do not govern ourselves the way we used to. As law and order breaks down, it becomes necessary to increase security and surveillance. Francis Schaeffer, in “How Shall We Then Live?” pointed this out. (He also worked to end abortion with the late C. Everett Coop). It’s nice when a people self-govern. Then, government doesn’t have to work overtime to police people. But when the streets aren’t safe and people act in ways that interfere with the rights of others, more order has to be imposed. Schaeffer got to thinking about this as he saw what he thought was the beginning of anarchy with the riots and protests of the late sixties and thereafter. How much truer is it, then, several decades later?
I’m afraid I have to disagree.
In the olden days (up to when in high school) children were considered a blessing rather than a burden, smoking was acceptable and all sorts of behavior considered “socially unacceptable” were controlled by people governing themselves as Jon puts it.
Things have changed, mostly for the worse. I don’t fly but riding the bus I’ve been treated to the detailed (and often obscene) details of other passengers’ personal lives as well as teenagers viewing porn on smartphones. Any attempt by crew to impose some control will be doomed.
The only bright spot is that texting seems to have overtaken actual conversation as the default use for cellphones.
“But when the streets aren’t safe and people act in ways that interfere with the rights of others, more order has to be imposed. Schaeffer got to thinking about this as he saw what he thought was the beginning of anarchy with the riots and protests of the late sixties and thereafter. ”
Schaeffer clearly was wrong about that as crime was about to enter into steep decline and the riots of the sixties were a passing phenomenon. A little historical perspective is always nice before jumping to conclusions over current problems. Boorish behavior, and I view people who talk about non-emergency matters in public on cell phones as being very boorish indeed, will not be cured by a further expansion of the nanny state. I am completely against the Federal government mandating etiquette, since it appears grossly incompetent to fulfill its constitutionally assigned tasks competently, and because I value freedom much more than I do good manners.
Well, I do have to disagree a bit. The issues went much deeper than our over-regulating Representatives.
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When cell phones were first introduced people really had no idea of how they would interfere with other electronic devices. I personally have seen how the phones interfere with Wi-Fi, but that is really not much of a problem. Aircraft and hospital equipment are a different story; since lives depend on such equipment prudence demanded limiting cell phone use near such equipment until they were proved safe.
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In addition, I remember very clearly from the late 1970’s that the ban on use aboard aircraft was initially requested by the phone companies. It seems that they had reason to believe that the cell system, which was designed to “hand off” a user as she travelled from cell to cell, would get confused if the user was at an extreme altitude.
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Well, time marches on, and technology improves, and the experience base of users grows. It became obvious that 8-10 years ago that hospitals had become sure that they could relax their anti-cell phone policies (I’m sure that their doctors’ use of cell phones had something to do with it too). Perhaps the FAA could have moved earlier to liberalize use aboard aircraft, but that is a bureaucracy, so of course it moved more slowly. BTW, I’m not excusing such slowness because it also kills: it became obvious in the late 1990’s (with the hijacked airliner plot to crash into the Eiffel Tower and the mass airliner bomb plot in Manila) that a mass hijacking of aircraft for the purpose of crashing into landmarks was feasible, and so aircrew resistance protocols in the event of hijacking should have been changed then.
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Perhaps the real lesson of this post is how careful policy decisions can be hijacked by our thoughtless utopian politicians.
Donald, I don’t think crime dropped overall after the late sixties. I think it grew worse. If you compare the seventies and eighties to the fifties and early sixties, my hunch is that it was worse after the cultural shift. Of course it was brought under control in cities like New York, but bizarre crimes grew overall. Did the same proportion of weird crimes occur in the fifties and early sixties, like people taunting and killing others for sheer sport? Serial killers? Home invasions? The impact and reach of gangs and organized crime?
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one that gets irritated by other people every 5 minutes. When that strange, rare question comes up, “if you were stranded on a deserted island, who would you want to be with you?” I usually have trouble answering!
I agree that there is no reason for the federal government to regulate boorish behavior. That said, as a consumer I’m going to favor any airline that chooses to prohibit cell phone usage (not texting of course) while in flight for the reasons noted by Thomas.
“Donald, I don’t think crime dropped overall after the late sixties.”
You are quite wrong Jon:
http://www.wanttoknow.info/g/violent_crime_rates_reduction
That said, as a consumer I’m going to favor any airline that chooses to prohibit cell phone usage (not texting of course) while in flight for the reasons noted by Thomas.
Yes, and I failed to make that point in the post – I have no issue with the airlines individually prohibiting cell phone use.
Paul, I think it is the FAA that regulated electronic devices on airplanes; not the FCC. No?
exNOAAman:
Nope. Since we’re dealing with communications, this is under the FCC’s jurisdiction, although it is the FAA that lifted the ban on the use of portable electronic devices at under 10,000 feet.
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[…] The CWR Blg NYT & Secular Apotheosis: Another Lesson in Our “Culture War” – Fr. Z Being Annoyed by Something Doesn’t Justify Banning It – Paul Zummo Guide to having a Funeral in the Old Rite – Joseph Shaw, LMS Chairman […]