States Move to Ban Makeup Application While Driving

LEOMINSTER, Mass.  Cheryl Lynne Pettrucelli is running late for work, and so she has shifted into high gear in her efforts to make herself look presentable by the time she reaches her employer, Micro-Precision Tools.  "It's ten to nine, so it's gonna be close," she says, as she swerves to avoid an angry driver who passes her on the left.

"Put down the lipstick and drive!" the man yells at her.  "Blow it out your boxer shorts, dingle-berry!" she shouts back at him, and continues to apply the extensive facial makeup she feels is essential to her job as a receptionist.  "You don't want to have some big buyer in from out of town and there I am greetin' him without any blusher on my cheekbones," she says.

Cheryl Lynne's routine of last-minute makeup application on the road may come to an end next year, however, as a proposed law to ban the practice--the "Anti-Mascara Driving Safety Reform Act of 2008"--will be introduced when the Massachusetts state legislature re-convenes in January. 

"Lipstick is the number one killer by volume, and eye-liner is second," says Sgt. Leonard Fagasta of the Massachusetts State Police.  "Mascara is actually third, with rouge and blusher tied for fourth, but we went with 'Anti-Mascara' because it's similar to 'antimacasar', which is big word in crossword puzzles that I have trouble remembering."

Legislation is needed, say safety advocates, because prior attempts to reach first-time offenders through mandatory education in safe driving habits have failed.  "We would try to teach these girls, who are overwhelmingly restaurant hostesses and receptionists," says Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles Make-Up Enforcement Specialist Mary Pat O'Hearn.  "They'd just sit there in class and do their nails."

Massachusetts is unique among the states in that any citizen can file a bill which, if passed by the legislature, becomes law.  The proposed anti-makeup statute was in fact filed by one of Cheryl Lynne's co-workers, Alison Freedman, who has her eyes on Joe Stefani, a high-producing salesman who often stops by the receptionist's desk when he has time to kill.  "I'm just trying to make the world a better place," says Alison when asked whether personal animus rather than public safety is her motivation.  "Anybody who needs as much makeup as Cheryl Lynne would have ugly babies, and we don't want that to happen, do we?"

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman