Increasingly, cell phone legislation is being enacted to curb the distracting use of cell phones while driving. Now this has been widely regarded as a “bad move” by the slippery slope crowd and I couldn’t be more on their side!

Far be it for me to shout at the wind, but, once again, governments are attempting to justify departmental existances by enacting legislation that costs consumers more money and will not save lives. If saving lives was truly at stake here, then Mr. Policy Maker, you’d be pushing Microsoft and Ford Motorcars to stop the roll-out of Sync (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2080527,00.asp ) this fall. Forget about just talking on your phone while driving, how about checking your email and IMing people. Audio or not, some drivers have trouble just talking to their passengers without being distracted. How about we make it illegal to eat in our cars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwlZP3LbuqM ), apply make-up in our cars and heaven forbid, make it illegal to have sex in our cars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bU04oCir4 ) … ok that may be illegal in some states.

British studies have shown that talking on the phone while driving makes drivers 3.8 times more likely to get into a car accident while using handheld phones only makes you 4.9 times more likely to hit the neighbors cat. All this commerce for 1.1%? I wonder how much more likely I am to wrap my BMW around a telephone pole while trying to change the AC settings using IDrive?

The crux of the issue is that there is an economic burden being forced down people’s throats. Why should I be forced to shell out $50+ dollars for an earpiece that’ll break the first time it falls off my big ears. Furthermore, it’ll contribute to global smugness and that will eventually kill us all. Ok I stole that one from Southpark but it’s as true about pretentious earpiece wearers as it is about hybrid cars. That air of self-importance that says I have to be reachable immediately and at all times sends we wanting to go drive off a cliff (http://www.ifilm.com/video/2703814). Now clearly there are many people out there that shouldn’t be driving and talking at the same time. Coincidentally, these are the same people that shouldn’t be driving at all. Driving is about analyzing situations around you and making the right choices amidst the chaos. Good and courteous drivers can factor one more element into that equation. We are again legislating to the bottom 25% that can’t. After all, you don’t actually have to be in your car, for talking on a cell phone while driving, to be dangerous (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2816300574685733913&q=cellphone+car+accident&hl=en).

For the uninitiated, gray water is the tech term for water that we use in our sinks, showers and for irrigation.  Black water is the term used for sewage from toilets.  If you haven’t noticed yet, next time you wash your hands or dishes, pay attention to all the relatively clean water that goes down the drain even before you add soap or other cleaning chemicals (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-2ydmk8UXU).  Ever wonder how many gallons of clean water go down the shower drain while you wait for hot water?

Now far be it for me to shout at the wind, but why haven’t we heard more about this technology in the media or from the government?  If you haven’t heard about this, then you should take a break and  learn more about it.  You can find a research video at ( http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8wu7s_greywater-recycling-history-and-dev_people ).  In short, it could save all of us up to 30-40% of our annual water use without making any cuts in water consumption.  That’s like super sizing our water footprint without needing to buy the larger fries.   There are regulatory issues in some states and technology options vary.  However, there is a solution and we should be running towards it, not walking.

Gray water systems attach to your house’s existing plumbing and provides a scrubbing mechanism to clean the returned gray water for immediate reuse.  Some systems divert the scrubbed water back into your sewage system for use within toilets while others simply tie into your irrigation system.  That way, instead of using government treated water to simply flush a toilet or water your plants, you could use filtered water from your gray water system to do it.  The systems filter out most of the harmful chemicals in the water so its not like you are feeding your plants laundry detergent or flushing your toilet with garberated pasta.

I’ve done some research and residential systems cost between $1,000 and $3,000 and can be installed by most plumbing professionals.  A great resource I’ve found for more information is http://www.graywater.net/.  There are many more out there.  If this is of interest, press your local and state governments to push for tax breaks and incentives for homeowners and new construction professionals to retrofit and implement these green technologies.

If its good for the planet, its good for us!

Now far be it for me to shout at the wind, but $4 Billion dollars clearly doesn’t buy what it once did.  After all, Cingular has now decided to shelf this whole Cingular Wireless brand,  having purchased AT&T, and re-brand everything to AT&T.  Hell they’ll need to spend another couple of billion letting everyone with a cell phone know that they are now AT&T.  Who’s to blame? …

Mass Market Media!

That’s right; I said it, Mass Market Media.  $1 Million per spot for a commercial on American Idol.  $90K per page per day in the local newspaper.  $50 per 15 second spot on for each of 5,000 radio stations in Los Angeles alone.  How about a few million dollars for advertising and fines on a billboard campaign  that’ll stop traffic and get you arrested for terrorism?

You see, it costs so much nowadays to let people know that you made a huge mistake (ask Coke about New Coke and Coke Classic) that you don’t have money left over to make your products better.  The cell providers still have a long way to go.  Where is my video on demand, e-commerce, nude wallpapers (ok they got those ready) or mobile micropayments allowing me to buy a diet cherry vanilla decaffeinated zero calorie Coke. Heck, I’ll settle for a continuous 3 minute conversation on Sepulveda Blvd.

The answer is to forget Mass Market Media and just hand out the money.  US census figures show there are roughly 200 million people in the US over 13 years of age.  With a $4 billion dollar budget that would be $20 per person in the US.  Give me twenty bucks and not only will I remember your new name … but I may also forget that you just dropped my call.