The days of texting and driving might be approaching an end.
The Indiana House Public Policy Committee this week unanimously approved a bill that would make it illegal to send text messages or e-mails while driving. The bill would make such uses of electronic devices while driving a class C infraction with a possible fine of $500.
It might also save lives.
According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, 19 states already have outlawed texting and driving. The U.S. Transportation Department announced this week that it had adopted new rules prohibiting truck and bus drivers from sending text messages on hand-held devices while operating commercial vehicles.
All of this should be welcome news to the traveling public.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission, using a cell phone while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of 0.08 percent. Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent.
NHTSA says nearly 1 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of near crashes involve some type of distraction. It says nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving distracted or inattentive drivers.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says drivers using hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves, and NHTSA points out that the worst offenders are the youngest and least-experienced drivers: men and women under the age of 20.
The evidence is clear. Texting while driving is dangerous.
Indiana lawmakers and federal transportation officials should be applauded for addressing this important issue.
It’s time to put the brakes on this dangerous practice.
Parents of teenagers would do well to tell them to put their cell phones away when they get behind the wheel of a vehicle. The job of propelling a two-ton vehicle down the road is difficult enough without the distraction of typing letters into a phone.
And if you’re one of the many adults who also have joined the technology craze, please follow the same advice.
No message is so important it can’t wait a few minutes until your vehicle is safely stopped.
