Senators to introduce legislation banning texting while driving
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 29th 2009 11:51AM
posted July 29th 2009 11:51AM
It's already been banned by a number of states and the District of Columbia, but a group of Democratic senators led by New York's Charles Schumer are now set to introduce legislation that would ban texting while driving throughout the United States. That, as you may be aware if you've been watching the news this past week, follows a study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, which found that truck drivers that texted while driving were 23 times more likely to get into an accident than non-texters -- to say nothing of several calls for a ban from major safety groups over the years. While complete details on the proposed bill are still a bit light, it would apparently withhold 25% of the annual federal highway funding from states that did not comply with the ban, and would reportedly be modeled on the way the national drunken driving ban was introduced.[Via Phone Scoop]
+100
Yeah,damn cops can't even do thir jobs right. Nevermind the fact that it's the citizen's duty to drive responsibly.
Driving while distracted is quickly becoming a problem on the roads and the studies all seem to point to just how dangerous it is. That said, how do we reconcile the need for safety on the road with the increased need to be connected to our phones 24/7 and available to work remotely at any time?
We've been discussing this topic on our blog, please check us out: http://uimagicinc.com/blog/ I'm sure you would all have lots of good comments to share!
So does this count for the cops too, that i see everyday talking and texting on their cell phones while driving. what if my cell phone has google maps? am i not allowed to look at it? what about my music player on my phone? am i not allowed to change tracks now?
I am all for it. I can't wait to get arrested.
I wish this law wasn't so necessary.
With all the other major issues this country has, is banning texting a real priority? Give me a freakin' break.
Why not add a ban on cellphone use--hands-free or not--to the bill. We all know that it increases accidents, as so many studies show, and yet no one will dare speak and act on this truth.
This shouldn't even be a law, its such common sense. However, humans are just that dumb, so we do need the law to help curb it.
Example: in my state, talking on a phone w/o a hands-free set is now illegal, but I still see tons of people doing it. Hopefully this will go down over the years as more people are ticketed for it.
meanwhile in the sane world, this shit is already banned... seriously your only getting round to this now?
Oh praytell, oh great one, in which part of the world is it "sane"? This insane, crazy, stupid, backwards American would love to know!
i live in Baghdad, we've had mobiles banned for ages encase we accidentally ring up an I.E.D.
Why don't the phones prevent people from texting when traveling over 5 or 10 mph using GPS? Or can't the cell phone company calculate your speed if you are within range of two or three towers.
I guess they don't want to impact passengers in these cars.
Maybe we shouldn't allow people to hold conversations with ANYBODY, even if they're in the vehicle with them.
Hands-frees are fine. It wasn't the conversation that was distracting the test subjects, it was fiddling with hands-free devices that they weren't familiar with. Get used to using your device properly, and no more problem.
Dont text while driving.. but this is absolute crap. It does not increase the probability of an accident. Increases 23x above what? Its like once an AA guy told me that since the drinking limit was reduced to .08 that accidents decreased by 400%. How ever the ratio of accidents to population is incredibly small.
As long as they don't ban brushing your teeth i'm cool
Over here the law simply says you can't hold a phone while driving, whatever you do with it is irrelevant.
I'd just like to know how they're going to tell the difference between people texting, people changing a song on their ipods, and how they deal with those differences.
lol, I still dont get this -.- there must be a lot of idiots driving while trying to say I'm on my way to friends.... then comes the BAM!!! screeetch and BOOOOOM. :P
What about texting on a hard qwerty keyboard? I bet thats safer than a T9 system, right? :)
I see problems with this...
For instance if a cop sees you eyeballing your phone how does he know if you are actually texting or just simply scrolling through your address book etc.
Good! i'm very dangerous when I text and drive :-/
How do you enforce a law like this? How do you conclude that a person was texting? What if I was using the GPS functionality or something like that? Wouldn't you have to ban all use of digital devices?
What about email?
Is that okay?
Most phones have a GPS in them nowadays. How about manufacturers put in a rule in the software that if the GPS indicates the phone is travelling more than say 10mph, disable the texting feature? That way we don't need any more laws, and no one has to try to arrest someone for texting while driving since it would be impossible to do so.
And what happens to a passenger's cell phone?
This needs to be a federal law because otherwise no one will follow it. Isn't everybody sick of the old Strict vs. Loose Constitutionalism argument by now? We silly Americans have been having this same discussion for more than 200 years. This is not an issue for which it makes any sense to leave for the states; otherwise, texting-while-driving will end up being illegal in Nebraska but not in Iowa, and we wouldn't want that, would we?
Yes its dangerous. Yes someone could be killed by a driver who is texting while driving.
But that doesn't give the federal government the right to blackmail the states into passing laws the way they did with drunk driving, raising the drinking age to 21, changing the speed limits etc.
THIS ISN'T ALREADY ILLEGAL?!?!?!?!?!?! Personally I don't think you should even be allowed to touch your cell phone while the car is in motion. People should have to use headsets and voice dialing if they really wanna call someone that bad. They shouldn't be texting AT ALL!!!!!!!!
Cell phone companies should be required to add "texting delays" such that a phone would need to be on a particular tower for n seconds at a certain signal strength to receive or send messages. The delay should make it so inconvenient to text that it would correct itself. I'm sure there are a bunch of people that would cry "what about passengers?" Too bad. There's a reason drinking alcohol as a passenger is illegal.
That is an AWESOME IDEA!
Drinking alcohol as a passenger isnt illegal in all states and that is a shitty idea.
Texting while driving is like driving blindfolded, or better yet, driving drunk. My older sister recently got in an accident because of looking at her phone while driving. She got lucky because nobody got hurt. Having a device in hand that could distract a person effects every driver around them. Just a glance at a phone or iPod could effect so many lives.
Driving and texting cannot be combined. It is better to use drivesafe.ly mobile application to listen to incoming text messages and prevent accidents.