PA Texting While Driving Ban Will Not Work
Texting laws do not reduce crash rates. Instead, bans on texting while driving can make roads more dangerous as drivers hold their phones lower to avoid detection.
Catchy ‘feel good’ headlines of texting bans fill the front pages of many papers. But the reality of it – texting bans are unenforceable. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey cited that the law is very difficult to enforce. In reality, the law is not only difficult, but rather impossible to enforce. Why?
Reality. The texting ban does not include dialing and making phone calls. Holding a phone does not constitute an offense. This is nothing new – everyone knows this. Imagine the tough position for law enforcement to pull someone over for “texting” while the driver explains he/she was scrolling through the address book or looking for a phone number. Now think of the painful legalities of this. Will a court seek a warrant to search your phone history for a $20 fine? Of course not. The texting while driving ban is pointless and I’d question if police would even want to challenge a driver who was holding a phone.
People between the age of 18 to 24 average about 110 text messages per day. They will continue to text regardless of what laws are on the table as they have in other states where the same types of legislation was rolled out. California and Washington were two of the first states to implement such a bill and it is not surprising that the legislation provided no decrease in crashes. On March 8th, 2012, Pennsylvania jumped on board with the bill.
In 2010, 11 Pennsylvania deaths were blamed on handheld phones. Compare that to over 200 deaths from collisions with deer – the largest distraction for drivers in PA.
Distracted drivers are the reason for Harrisburg to push the texting ban. If this is really the reason, will Harrisburg ban other distractions? How about children in the vehicle? Spouses? What about road signs, food and drink, makeup, and the radio?
A ban on texting while driving ban is unenforceable, police hate it, and it will do nothing to make roads safer. We will see this fact in the annual data once it is published.
Erik Wood
3:28 pm on Wednesday, June 13, 2012
I read that 94% of drivers think Text and Drive is lethal but over one third still do it. What to do? I think legislation has value in raising public awareness in forums like this one but it will be difficult to solely legislate our way out of this issue. I just read that over 3/4 of teens text daily - many text more than 4000 times a month. New college students no longer have email addresses! They use texting and Facebook - even with their professors. Tweens (ages 9 -12) send texts to each other from their bikes. This text and drive issue is in its infancy and its not going away.
I decided to do something about distracted driving after my three year old daughter was nearly run down right in front of me by a texting driver. Instead of a shackle that locks down phones and alienates the user (especially teens) I built a tool called OTTER that is a simple GPS based, texting auto reply app for smartphones. It also silences those irresistible call ringtones while driving unless you have a bluetooth enabled. I think if we can empower the individual then change will come to our highways now and not just our laws.
Erik Wood, owner
OTTER app
do one thing well... be great.
Tom Bartman
3:56 pm on Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Erik - send me info on that app to news@threatcore.com Do you write android apps? I have an amazing idea that needs explored.
Tom Bartman
4:08 pm on Wednesday, June 13, 2012
...and if we can get the app working, I'd like to announce it here on Patch. It is one that could save lives. Contact me.