To the Editor:
If health care reform must be a compromise between public and private interests, one concession to insurers would benefit both: Let them deny all claims for injuries incurred by people using cell phones or wearing earphones while moving—i.e. driving, cycling, skating, jogging, walking—in public.
Furthermore, absolve drivers and their insurers from all liability for any accident with any of the above. Since insurance companies go to great expense and much fine print to deny claims (the industry euphemism is "rescission"), private interest would be immediately served.
In time, public interest would be served as more people wake up to three common sense concepts:
1 — A motor vehicle is not a phone booth on wheels, and drivers have an obligation to each other no matter how much anyone's sense of "freedom" would decry that idea as "Nanny State intrusion" or "Socialized transportation."
2 — It can be as costly as dangerous to walk, trot, or roll about in public as an oblivious, self-absorbed, hi-tech but low-wit target for motor vehicles that usually do, after all, have the right of way.
3 — As far as potholes, trees, street signs and curbs are concerned, the idea that "American" means we can do anything we want, anywhere we are, anytime at all, is null and void.
Jack Garvey
Plum Island
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