I travel with a crapload of stuff (even just to the store), so I have a bag of some sort to carry it all. When I drive, the bad goes in the back seat. I plug the phone into the charger in centre console and I drive.
I can hear that phone beep when messages etc come through. When I get where I'm going, I know to check my phone for messages.
I haven't hit a cyclist yet.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

No worries...the guy who rear ended you because he was texting...well his phone will be on to call 911 LOL!

I think part of challenging people to put it in the trunk was simply to put it where it cannot be accessed from the driver's seat. If it's in a bag that you can't access and you can't fiddle with the phone then I would say the mission is accomplished. Don't you think so?

Mission accomplished. I'm pretty anal about rules. I follow them as much as possible. I think a lot of other people aren't quite as good (ie speeding, we all manage to justify speeding don't we? but I virtually never speed).
I'm also old enough to remember pre-mobile phone life. I got through OK, so going without the phone for a few minutes is no biggie.

I still remember the first mobile phone call I ever received. I had my phone in my cycle jersey. I was riding along an expressway. Just as I came to a very narrow and dangerous bridge at the base of a hill, my phone rang. I thought "crap, I better answer it, mobile phone calls are expensive and important" (can you tell I'm really old? LOL) I squeezed up against the guardrail with cars whizzing by at a million miles an hour.

"Hi honey, do you have any money" my wife queried.
"Yeah, I have change from the café".
"Can you pick up some lemons?" she asked.
"lemons? It sounded like you said lemons?" I queried over the noise of traffic.
"Yes, I need lemons, to make a lemon meringue pie".
"Yeah, no worries, I love lemon meringue pie".
"Oh, no, the lemon meringue pie is for Bruce's birthday at work tomorrow".
"Get your own f*cking lemons" I said and hung up.

I'd risked my life to answer the call, and I wasn't even going to get any pie! I don't answer my mobile when I'm riding anymore. I wait till I get home :-)

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

One of the first mobile calls on a semi portable phone that you did not plug into the car battery I took was riding up on Skyline drive above Palo Alto CA. I thought, "oh shit, i am goofing off and riding, I really should be at work by now, so I took the call". Then I realized that I was close to my turn down Page Mill road. Well, I had never been on this road, I just knew it was downhill....but I did not really know how twisty it was....downhill on Page Mill with switchbacks with a phone....wtf was I thinking? Well I quickly realized (like in the first 50m) it was all switchbacks and stuffed the operating phone in my pocket and grabbed my handlebars. Meanwhile my colleage is on the phone and hears all these noises as I whipped down the mountain. Less than 45 minutes later, I met up with him near Palo Alto and he was like, "what happened, I was on the phone with you and it sounded like you were beside an aircraft at Moffet Air Field then you cut out and all I could hear was the airplane roaring! Well, I just left it at that. Honestly though, I no longer take calls riding (I don't recall taking any calls since that day some time in the 90's). I have taken a lot of pictures with my phone while riding in the mountains though as recently as this year. Probably not the brightest idea either....but the only one I will kill is myself while on the bike.

Nice one Paul!

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

I do not have a cell phone. Nor my wife or kids.

So, done and done.

I still hand-draw maps or use AAA maps for out of town trips.

(When students on campus ride the wrong way down one way streets on the way to class, even an attentive driver can run into problems, though.)

OK, how is everyone doing? Anyone break down and join a conference call in the car?

By the way, I failed on 'part 2' which is driving the speed limit for 1 week. The only place where I have succeeded in this is on the Autobahn in Germany, but then I crossed over the border to Austria and still thought I was in Germany and was driving at 185 kph not realizing that I was in a 130 kph Austrian photo-radar zone and got the ticket sent to me by Hertz rental car!

How are you all doing after 6 weeks. So far, so good at this end.