Texting while driving
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- July
- 30
New York Gov. David Paterson is expected to sign a ban on text messaging while driving, a law that already exists in Rockland and Westchester. That comes as a new federally funded study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute shows a crash is 23 times more likely while texting than not. The study grabbed headlines because it monitored truck drivers by video camera as they covered more than 6 million miles and proved what anyone with any commonsense should know: Driving and texting don’t mix, in a big way.
Yesterday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, introduced a bill that would require states to write laws to prohibit text messaging by drivers or risk losing 25 percent of their annual federal highway money.
Now, here’s the interesting part about the New York bill — it is what’s known as a “secondary law.” That means an officer must have some other reason to stop a vehicle before citing a driver for the offense, in this case texting while driving.
So, if it’s such a danger, why isn’t worth a primary law? If it’s not the threshold of a primary law, or an offense that a cop can stop you for, why then bother with it being a secondary offense?
And will any such regulations stop people from texting and driving? Did it stop people from talking on the cellphone, non-hands-free? Or did chatty drivers just have to develop a “ditch-the-phone” move when they pass a police cruiser?
This entry was posted
on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 4:14 pm by Nancy Cutler.
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WITH ALL THAT NEEDS ATTENTION IN THIS STATE, OUR CIRCUS CLOWNS IN ALBANY PASS LAWS THAT A CHILD WOULD KNOW ARE NOT NECESSARY. TEXTING WHILE DRIVING? HOW ABOUT PASSING ONE THAT SAYS “NO SLEEPING WHILE DRIVING”. WHERE HAS COMMON SENSE GONE? IT CERTAINLY LEFT ALBANY QUITE AWHILE AGO. THEY SIT AROUND FOR A MONTH, GET PAID, DO NOTHING, THEN COME BACK AND DO THIS? IF ANY OF THESE INCUMBENTS GET RE-ELECTED IN NOVEMBER, THEN THE VOTERS FIT EINSTEINS DEFINITION OF INSANITY.