It might not be Roadguy’s imagination after all: A study out of the University of Utah says subjects who talked on cell phones during a virtual driving experiment drove more slowly than when they weren’t talking on the phone, and such behavior slows down traffic for everybody else. A Reuters version of the story is here, Associated Press version here.

The story reminded Roadguy of a sign he saw last week in a school zone in a suburb of Dallas:

This rule just took effect Dec. 3 (a news story is here). But many researchers say the problem isn’t the holding of the phone — it’s the talking. (The subjects in the Utah test were using hands-free phones.)

So, what’s your take? Click below to share your thoughts on the study and on whether Minnesota should have more cell phone restrictions for drivers.

Alert reader GQ sent Roadguy this seasonally appropriate e-mail:

Okay, here is my problem, and I’ve had the same one for years.

I would like to go to downtown Minneapolis on New Year’s Eve. We have tickets for a concert that will end at 2 a.m. I think it is impossible to get home.

1. After an open-bar concert for 5 hours, I will be responsible and not drive under the influence.
2. Buses stop operating.
3. The light-rail goes in the wrong direction, and it stops operating at midnight. (I live near Lake Harriet).
4. I called every limo service and it requires a 6-hour minimum, which would be over $500!
5. All hotels within walking distance are over $200 a night (which we reserved, but would not like to have to pay.)

What can we do? Plus it’s my birthday, so I want to celebrate! (responsibly)

Roadguy can only imagine what it’s like to find a cab in the wee hours of New Year’s Day; GQ says it’s often a 2-plus hour wait. Metro Transit has a few all-night bus lines, but they don’t go everywhere.

Please share your advice for GQ — and any other holiday strategies for avoiding drunken driving (or drunken drivers) — below.

(Related links: A Roadguy post on drunken driving from last December is here, while the Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety’s “Designated Driver Gift Certificate” PDF is here.)

When Roadguy was hanging out with his family the weekend before last, there was a discussion about the best route for driving to some location or another. At one point, Roadguy’s mom interrupted the proceedings: Don’t give me this east-west north-south business, she said. “I want girl directions.”

By “girl directions,” she explained, she meant “turn right by the white house,” not “head south on Hwy. 100.” Roadguy has known his mom for a while and was a little surprised to hear this. After all, she tended not to differentiate between boys and girls when assigning chores such as washing the dishes and mowing the lawn. There weren’t boy chores and girl chores, but there are boy and girl directions?

Roadguy has of course read about studies saying that men’s and women’s brains tend to process geographical information differently, and he also knows at least one guy, an East Coast native, who can’t believe how often Minnesotans use compass directions to navigate. Roadguy — who is more likely to know east from west than his left hand from his right hand — is very curious to hear your take on all this. Are you a girl who prefers “boy directions”? Do you explain directions to women differently than you do to men? How real is this gender divide in your experience? Please share your thoughts in the comments below…. just don’t be dissin’ Roadguy’s mom.

(The photo above is of some very retro giftwrap that Roadguy’s colleague P.M. recently found at her mom’s house. Note the blonde girl signaling her turn.)

Roadguy spent yesterday afternoon writing this story about snow emergencies and about how, despite multiple efforts to get drivers to move their cars, Minneapolis still ends up ticketing as many as 10,000 vehicles and towing 1,500 to 2,000. Hotlines, phone calls, web pages, e-mails, text messages, mailed brochures, cable television, even a PDF that you can print out and post in your apartment building to notify your neighbors — the city does at least try to let people know.

The city doesn’t really make any money on towing, the snow removal chief told me — it’s break-even at best and may not even be that. He said they really, really just want the cars out of the way so they can clear the road. And yet all sorts of people (well, OK, the sorts of people who don’t have offstreet parking) end up at the impound lot and face not-insignificant fines and fees.

Might anything else be done to get vehicles out of the way and prevent this seemingly inevitable cycle? Share your thoughts (and any other snow emergency venting, of course) below.

I’ve been wanting to start a thread on this topic for a while, and this story from the Saturday paper is as good a reason as any. The headline on the story is “One big question: A fund for victims?”

It’s a question with many offshoots. Should any payments wait until the investigation is complete? Shouldn’t people have adequate insurance for whatever might happen to them? Shouldn’t the state accept responsibility for its bridge? Why give help to these victims and not to those of other accidents on the state’s roads? How much is a lost life worth?

Hard questions, made all the harder by the suffering that many people are still going through. (Videos of testimony from survivors is here, here and here.)

If it were up to you, what would you do?

Last month’s post about unloved freeway ramps prompted a spirited discussion, one in which at least 70 ramps were decried. So I got in my humble vehicle, checked out some of the ramps, made some calls, and voila — here’s a story that looks at why some ramps are the way they are, and here’s a video tour of a few noteworthy interchanges. (The video is unlike my first video, in that I don’t hit anything — if only we had filmed at rush hour instead of midday.)

If there are more ramps that you’d like to rant about (or perhaps express your deep fondness for), please make use of the comments section below.