Driving While Texting – Gadget Impairments to be Criminalized

Nine states are already considering legislation to ban driving while texting or DWT. Washington was the first state to actually pass a law that goes into effect in January. Senate in Washington had no problems passing the ban on DWT after a multi-vehicle accident in that state was caused by a man checking his email.

 

States that aren't ready to pass legislation feel DWT already falls under existing legislation for reckless driving, or they feel there just isn't enough hard evidence. You should expect gadget-related impairments, particularly texting, to get more legislative attention in the very near future. Many states, including New York, already have laws banning talking on the cell phone while driving except where a hands free device is used. But texting has no hands free component at this time – look for it to become the drunk driving for a modern age.

 

Studies have already been conducted on the topic. A recent study shows distracted drivers are three times more likely to be involved in a crash. According to this driver study, the number one distraction was the cell phone and younger drivers are much more likely to have these distractions. This study was conducted by the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. They tracked 241 drivers in 100 vehicles for more than one year. They racked up a massive 82 crashes and 761 near collisions.

 

Complete information on the 100 Car Naturalistic Study can be found here on NHTSA's own website. 

 

Texting requires complete focus. There is no way anyone should even attempt this while driving, and even receiving a text message can require a complex key combination on your handset. Cell phone manufacturers don't design operating systems to be driver friendly. Please be safe and keep texting where it belongs – at the dinner table or during meetings.

2 comments
Posted by Jarrod on July 26,2007 at 4:23 PM

This is an understandable arguement. However, texting does not require both hands. People hold any cell with one hand and one only. Texting with two hands is more difficult over a smaller area and rarily done. Beside all that an interesting fact: The typical dumb blonde driver is safer texting than anyone else. Most air-head like blonde women are attached to their cell phones and do not require vision to text. Using T9 makes this easier as it spells half the words for you. But without looking at a phone, even I know it goes 2) abc 3) def 4) ghi 5) jkl 6) mno 7) pqrs 8) tuv 9) wxyz    if you know that, you can spell any word without looking, and when someone becomes really good, they know when T9 will spell another word with the same letters on the number pad and they can correct that without looking

Posted by Alissa on July 17,2007 at 10:11 AM

I wonder whatever happened to logic. Texting requires the use of both hands and eyes - and obviously so does driving.  What would make someone think the two could occur simultaneously?  It's easy to think it could never happen, or that you can just do it once and get away with it, but raising the stakes on anyone's life for the sake of a text message is incomprehensible.

PS Wayde: texting at the dinner table is equally as dangerous as texting on the road - i checked the stats ; )