Monday, January 24, 2011

Headphone Ban in Arkansas?




UPDATE: 1/25 - The bill's sponsor has dropped this bill. Apparently he received a lot of emails against this legislation. Yesterday this story was run on all the local networks and even this morning saw this law mentioned on Fox and Friends (National). It's amazing how news gets around today.

On Friday, I saw a post on a message board about a bill that had been brought up in the Arkansas State Legislature. The bill is SB80. The bill would ban the use of headphones while engaging in a sport activity whether you are on the road and/or sidewalk. The bill can be found at this link.

Now do I think this bill will pass? I wouldn't think so, but it is always good to bring things to people's attention. Especially a bill like this. I can just imagine someone that is starting to get in shape decides to go for a walk and then gets a ticket because he/she was wearing headphones while walking on the sidewalk. To think, Arkansas is one of the most obese states in the nation and now you want to take away headphones while engaging in a sport activity.

Is using headphones dangerous? It can be if you are listening to really loud music. You may not hear a car coming up from behind you, but would you hear it anyways if you didn't have headphones on while running on the sidewalk? Now if you are running in the road, you should be running against traffic anyways that way you can see traffic coming at you. If you are running with traffic and with headphones, you are not being very safe.

Since we all know headphones are so dangerous, here are a couple of things that Arkansas still allows. You can still use you cell phone while driving. While you can't text, you can still have it up to your ear and chat away. Also, in Arkansas, if you are driving a motorcycle, you don't have to wear a helmet. So, I guess lets take away headphones.

Rant over. Let me know your opinion.

No comments:

Post a Comment