I was shocked this morning with the news that the brain trust in North Bend has decided to make distractions while driving a $300 offense.

It would seem to leave a lot of interpretation up to the officer. Was the driver distracted or was he still paying attention to the road? What about people being a distraction on the side of the road? (Charity or donation car washes come to mind. If you glance over at the pretty girl waving the sign, are you distracted?) Do you give them a ticket for being distracting? What about looking at signs in the middle of town? Those merchants are being distracting with those signs intended to be read by passing motorist.

No harm/no foul is my attitude. If you have an accident being distracted, then they have laws for that, such as failure to use due care and caution, negligent driving or even reckless driving.

It seems that the city is trying to get into peoples’ pockets on this one. Why not just pull so many people a day over and give them the ticket. Everybody at some point in time gets distracted while driving (changing the radio station, cell phones [bad, yes, but illegal?] drinking coffee in the morning, talking to someone in the car, loud children, looking for an address, sneezing, daydreaming [he had that dazed look], the list goes on).

Maybe if they didn’t spend so much money on land-use issues outside the city limits they wouldn’t have to come up with these creative ways to generate revenue. And if they decide to pull so many people a day over, maybe they should look at out-of-state plates and increase the tourism dollars brought into the city.

Allen Edgley

North Bend