Yeah, where I am from it’s primarily used by businesses these days. Most people don’t answer phone calls from numbers they don’t know so if it’s important business then they leave you a voicemail. The thing is that if you don’t then check your voicemails you miss important business. It has a lot of other odd impacts as well, I was in a car accident not to long ago and the guy that hit me broke his phone and tried to use mine to call his emergency contacts. As you might have guessed no one answered because they didn’t recognize the number and he wasn’t able to call anyone for help.

It’s a double edged sword:

1.) Not all phone lines have text enabled (especially service lines).

2.) One reason you might not answer a call is because you don’t recognize it. So if the line in question doesn’t have text options then you might miss important calls if you don’t check your voicemail.

3.) If you don’t take unknown calls and you don’t check voicemails then you probably won’t answer random text messages either.

At the end of the day more people need to be grown ups and at least have a decent voicemail message and check their voicemails as they come in. It’s not an all or nothing discussion, it’s a do the minimum discussion. Screen your calls, check your voicemails, call people back who seem legit. It’s not rocket science, it’s adulthood.

Even if it weren’t a legal requirement I would hope people would have the common sense and desire for personal safety that they would have it there for a backup. I imagine our knowledge and surveillance of weather makes it a lot easier to sail if you have that information, but you could easily be stuck for a very long time if you only relied on sailing. From what I have read the Mayflower was delayed for over a month at sea due to the changing of the winds.

New phone, who dis?