Yes there should be a law. That way at least the victims should be able to get compensation easier.
I would suggest that anyone who would do so, lacks the basic judgment skills to be allowed to ever drive. One offense should put an end to their driving.
BTW I suggest that anyone one driving with out a valid license should loose the car they are driving. If it is a borrowed car, it still should be lost, that why no one is going to loan their car to someone they know might not have a valid licensee.
I watched an 18 year old girl burn to death, trapped in the flaming wreckage of her car, pinned underneath an 18 wheeler. She had been texting on her phone, and crossed the center line. Her death was totally unnecessary, and avoidable.
Federal laws are unconstitutional (read the tenth amendment).
State laws against inattentive driving are adequate. However, massive public education is obviously necessary, because ao many people just don’t think.
Airplane pilots get specific training in division of attention. One thing they learn is to fly the plane first, and do everything else as time allows. Driving a car requires no less attention, and in fact usually requires MORE attention.
You’ve made an excellent point about education. Driver training programs that I’m familiar with are dreadfully underfunded and seriously lacking. They teach only very basic “rules of the road” and minimal skills. The NH programs require much of the hands-on training (40 hours if I recall correctly) to be done by the parents. I took the job seriously, but many parents simply sign the sheet because they “haven’t got time”. Many parents probably have no idea how to teach safe driving anyway.
Perhaps driver training should include in it things like having the students try driving a closed course while texting. Perhaps even include some “surprizes”, like a machanical child that suppenly appears crossing the street.
While these laws and programs are and should remain under the state unbrella, perhaps the National Institute for Highway Safety could design a good recommended program from which states could base their programs.
By the way, I’ve lost faith in our federal juditial system enforcing our constitution. When the U.S. Supreme Court found that it was not a violation of the constitution for a state to take by “eminent domain” peoples’ homes for the development of a big-box store I realized how badly our constitutional rights had eroded. The argument was that it would increase the tax base and was thus for the public good. Sorry about the rant.
“Federal laws are unconstitutional (read the tenth amendment).”
If you said that CERTAIN federal laws were in violation of the 10th Amendment to The Constitution, I might agree with you. However, to say that, “Federal laws are unconstitutional” because of the 10th Amendment is not accurate.
If this was the case, then why would we have a Congress?
Hmmm…On second thought, based on how they function, why do we have a Congress?
(Just kidding, guys!)
The list of things we should not be doing while driving is seemingly endless. If we passed a law for everything that should be dictated by common sense, the book would be 10ft thick.
People are not going to change their habits based on a law being passed. If that worked, we wouldn’t have speeding or tailgating or people who think rolling through stop signs is safe and defensible in court.
A co-worker was involved in a serious accident not long ago and the first thing the cops did was confiscate the phone and check for recent activity…
Anything that distracts a driver should be illegal really - face it, you’re basically piloting a 1-ton kamakazi bomb down the road, no time to be thinking of anything except getting your bomb to its destination unexploded. But of course, thats not gonna happen, Americans love their freedom too much.
How’s this for an idea: get rid of the bomb. Convert all roads to electric street car lines and put a computer in charge of driving the street cars! uh, maybe not. OK, plan B:
Do what seems reasonable and right, and above all, act as if you think of every other person on the road as more important than yourself.
That should do the trick, then when you get home, you can be yourself again - gripe to your spouse/significant other what a bunch of jerks you had to put up with on the road that day
I love the commercial for a hands free device (through the radio) and if you order right now …
The driver shown takes his eyes off the road three times, one to click it on, once to click it off and when it is talking to the person on the phone, he looks at the phone. Natural way of doing it. Clearly the people making the commercial did not think it was odd.
Please people, it can wait. We got along fine for many many years with out phones in our cars. How long did you drive without one?
Maybe it is time to try to refocus the question on the issue; and the issue should not be texting and driving. The issue is “distracted driving.” Texting is certainly one facet but with the emphasis that is being placed on it, one begins to think that texting is the only cause of accidents. Eating is a distraction; smoking; drinking coffee; another person; what else? You name it and it can be a distraction. Good grief, there are enough drivers on the road for which the steering wheel is too much of a distraction. Why is it proposed to single out cell phones while ignoring all the other distractions (and people licensed to drive who haven’t enough sense or maturity to handle the responsibility of a car) that have been around for much longer; have caused accidents; and for which nothing is being done. Passing another law is not the answer. Passing another law will not solve the problem.
Yes, it should be illegal, although enforcement is difficult. In Ontario, a ban on the use of handheld devices (incl. texting) while driving was recently introduced and yet every day drivers visibly use such devices. Interestingly, it always seems to be the drivers using the devices (phones, ipods, etc) rather than the passengers. Busy drivers.
Every day, we see people walking - while talking on cell phones and texting - bumping into other people on sidewalks, office buildings, etc. So if, if they’re distracted and bumping into people simply while walking, it seems quite easy to understand and very convincing that talking and texting while driving is extremely distracting and can easily lead to accidents.
I have a few problems with making this illegal. First, I accept the evidence that talking on the phone while driving makes you a less safe driver. However, enforcement of the hands free talking would be difficult to impossible. Also, where do you draw the line? The White Paper really didn’t delve into iPods, music, other passengers and specially little “BooBoo” in the car seat in the back seat of the car. I would guess from the research that even looking at the scenery and thinking or day dreaming would cause some problems. Where do we draw the line? I’m not trying to be cynical but it’s just a difficult situation. It’s stupidly fashionable at present to try to control when and where people talk [on the phone] but I can see a valid argument for trying to exert some control over people in cars.
