Cellphones are mixed blessing

Why such a hullabaloo over the use of cellphones? One would think the contraptions are society’s worst evil and that their use is as dangerous to motorists as driving blindfolded up the twisted road to the summit of Cadillac Mountain.

Even the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hasn’t been able to assess the hazards of cellphones except to say that some form of driver distraction (duh) – including talking, eating, reading or even changing radio stations – is involved in 20 to 30 percent of all crashes. Not to mention roadmaps, which are major culprits, especially during the summertime in Maine when travelers are constantly shifting their gaze from a waterfront vista to a DeLorme atlas, all the while wondering how long before they’ll reach Cobscook Bay State Park.

Cellphones are taking a bad rap. New York has banned their use while driving, and at least a dozen localities and two dozen foreign countries have prohibited motorists from talking on them. News reports have stated at least 39 states are considering similar laws.

Maine has no cause for alarm if you believe the traffic safety surveys. After all, there aren’t that many white women driving SUVs along Route 1 while chatting on hand-held cellphones.

That’s because they don’t work – the cellphones, not the women – in these rural Down East areas where tower signals are weaker than sun-tea.

We’ve tried four different cell- phones over the past several years, finally settling on a portable one smaller than the TV remote control gadget and even easier to misplace.

The first was a bag phone, which took up a third of the dashboard, was plugged into the cigarette lighter and whose cord was forever getting coiled around the gearshift. The second month’s bill for that phone was $748.23 after a signal thief tapped into it somehow as we were driving through Boston. The pirates weren’t caught; we weren’t forced to pay but had to start over with a new phone and number, this time a battery-fed one that wasn’t as strong but not as vulnerable to thievery. We never took it to Boston.

The second and third phones proved equally unsuccessful. They didn’t work if the truck was parked, which was most of the time, and had to be powered up with each ignition. No one could figure out the roaming code, much less the recorded voice that repeated the lie, “Your party is away from the phone at this time” after only two rings.

But the fourth has proved the point that Maine faces no peril from overuse of cellphones along the back roads lined with ferns and shaded by spruce. There’s not a signal strong enough to penetrate these dense forests or thick fog along the coast.

“Can you hear me?” Static. Buzz. “I’m losing you.”

“You never had me.” Static. “Can’t hear anything.”

“Where are you anyway?” Static. Squelch. Silence. Static.

“In…” Fade away. Static “… the driveway.”