I guess if thats how ya feel.
Shouldn't need the new law. Just tell officers to enforce the distracted driving law. If someone is texting or staring at their lap or talking on the phone and driving poorly then ticket them. No need to prove what they were doing on their phone or even if it was a phone, just that they were observed driving distracted. Why do we need a new law to spell out something that is already illegal anyway? And to get the point across to the public, put up signs showing the fines you could get for texting while driving.
We could spend tens of millions of dollars on signs, education and enforcement.
We can call it the war on texting and since it affects the children and because it's scary when someone wobbles back and forth between lanes we will
turn enforcement over to homeland security and imprison the offenders for committing terroristic acts.
Better yet, once we declare war on it, we won't have to worry about violating their rights because they'll be illegal combatants and we can hold them without charging them.
Drones can hover above intersections and open fire on anyone who is using a cell phone illegally.
All kidding aside, I tend to suspect anything legislation that imposes large fines on people.
There will always be a tremendous pressure from budget crunched municipalities to use them as fund raisers.
Around my neighborhood people are getting 100 dollar fines for parking on their yards even when they have laid gravel to park their trucks on.
It's better for everyone when people do not park on the streets, it makes it safer and easier to navigate.
The city hired inspectors to drive around in teams and give 100 dollar tickets, it's like manna from heaven they can easily generate 100+ tickets a day generating 10,000 a day per team without any trouble.
We do not need more laws, we need smarter ones.
Do not try to make texting while driving illegal, you'd probably get more teens to give up alcohol than texting. Just make it illegal for cellphones to allow texting while moving fast.
I guarantee you the phone companies will fix it in a heartbeat rather than pay fines. The teens will all change out their phones within a year and new ones will render texting and driving
a thing of the past within a few years.
It will not stop them from texting at red lights or green ones, but at least they aren't likely to kill your family when they aren't moving.
If you really want to impose fines on people, allow the phone companies to charge them $10 a text from a moving cellphone.
The phone companies already have the technology in place to know where you are and how fast you are moving from the network side, regardless of your phone.
Give them a way to make money off it and they'll jump on it with both feet.
This will never pass because the cell companies will get rich, instead of the local governments getting all the money.
We can call it the war on texting and since it affects the children and because it's scary when someone wobbles back and forth between lanes we will
turn enforcement over to homeland security and imprison the offenders for committing terroristic acts.
Better yet, once we declare war on it, we won't have to worry about violating their rights because they'll be illegal combatants and we can hold them without charging them.
Drones can hover above intersections and open fire on anyone who is using a cell phone illegally.
All kidding aside, I tend to suspect anything legislation that imposes large fines on people.
There will always be a tremendous pressure from budget crunched municipalities to use them as fund raisers.
Around my neighborhood people are getting 100 dollar fines for parking on their yards even when they have laid gravel to park their trucks on.
It's better for everyone when people do not park on the streets, it makes it safer and easier to navigate.
The city hired inspectors to drive around in teams and give 100 dollar tickets, it's like manna from heaven they can easily generate 100+ tickets a day generating 10,000 a day per team without any trouble.
We do not need more laws, we need smarter ones.
Do not try to make texting while driving illegal, you'd probably get more teens to give up alcohol than texting. Just make it illegal for cellphones to allow texting while moving fast.
I guarantee you the phone companies will fix it in a heartbeat rather than pay fines. The teens will all change out their phones within a year and new ones will render texting and driving
a thing of the past within a few years.
It will not stop them from texting at red lights or green ones, but at least they aren't likely to kill your family when they aren't moving.
If you really want to impose fines on people, allow the phone companies to charge them $10 a text from a moving cellphone.
The phone companies already have the technology in place to know where you are and how fast you are moving from the network side, regardless of your phone.
Give them a way to make money off it and they'll jump on it with both feet.
This will never pass because the cell companies will get rich, instead of the local governments getting all the money.
The problem with that is not everyone in a car is driving. We don't need new technology, we don't need new laws, we simply need to enforce the laws on the books. There are times people might need to text. It might be an emergency text or call. Simply get the word out that officers will be enforcing the laws on the books and let people know what texting and driving might cost them.
This afternoon I was exiting I-40 onto Sooner Rd. A car stopped at the stop sign as I was in the off ramp. Then she started forward. As I was hitting my brakes and honking, she looked up from her phone that she was holding at her steering wheel.
There is no dissentive for people to stop their distracted driving...
There is no dissentive for people to stop their distracted driving...
That wouldn't hold up unless it was an idiot being charged. The fine is too high for any half-intelligent offender to plea out. There's no reasonable assumption that can be made by the officer that can't be easily refuted. If you're passing out tickets just for having a phone in the driver's hand, drivers will just hold the phone lower where they have zero view of the road. The fine is too low for the authorities to effectively prosecute.
First, a subpoena that is for detailed phone records won't be honored by the majority of data service providers out there. Yeah, on TV, they subpoena a stack of phone records all the time, but that's not the way it works in the real world. A subpoena is not sufficient for private data such as text messages and voicemail or transaction detail - you need a warrant. But even then, first you have to notify the service provider with a request to preserve data to ensure the data will still be available when the warrant is served. By the time the state gets the records, they're already out more than the $500 fine.
Additionally, text messages aren't the only way people communicate with phones. Some use IRC, VoIP, email, communication over VPNs, etc. How likely is it that you're going to get the data that you would need to prosecute and prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?
Adding charges just to make a defendant plea out to a lesser charge is nothing more than a shakedown with the endorsement of the morally corrupt.
but, but but, but, if we put some words on a bookshelf at 23rd and Lincoln, we can solve this problem!
Simple fix, if you see someone texting while driving you are allowed to shot them because they are to stupid to live.
Ok you say not everyone is driving, so be it.
Make it illegal to text from a moving vehicle, driver, passenger, whatever.
They say driving isn't a right, therefore there is no reason to assume being a passenger is a right.
I cannot believe you are worried about the rights of passengers when this could clearly save the life of a child.
Some child, some where.
Obviously they are allowed to ban passengers in airplanes from using electronic communications devices.
I don't agree with it but they do.
So the legal foundation is already laid to ban passengers in cars from texting.
If it was an inalienable right, then they couldn't punish airline passengers.
Furthermore they should ban playing words with friends while being a passenger in car
Make it illegal to text from a moving vehicle, driver, passenger, whatever.
They say driving isn't a right, therefore there is no reason to assume being a passenger is a right.
I cannot believe you are worried about the rights of passengers when this could clearly save the life of a child.
Some child, some where.
Obviously they are allowed to ban passengers in airplanes from using electronic communications devices.
I don't agree with it but they do.
So the legal foundation is already laid to ban passengers in cars from texting.
If it was an inalienable right, then they couldn't punish airline passengers.
Furthermore they should ban playing words with friends while being a passenger in car
That's the choice of the aircraft operator. The only regulation is that they cannot prohibit the use of voice recorders, hearing aids, pacemakers, and electric shavers.
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