Law Proposed to Ban Texting While Driving

[airvents]

wow...gotta love the US....lets make everything illegal! Goddamn we have more laws telling us what we cant do when this should be a free country. Yea we need basic laws but shit, to make rules and regs for everything we do c'mon im a grown ass man I will do as I please. and like the other guy said im not gonna thank my government for letting me drive my own vehicle that i paid for.

 

[matt87_50]

in Australia it is illegal to talk on a phone while driving (hands free is fine). i think this is an obviously good idea. if they think driving 5mph over the speed limit amounts to dangerous driving and is illegal, OF COURSE using a phone should be too!!

using them on public transport should be frowned upon too. maybe not outlawed, but it should give you a moderate electric shock every 5 secs, so you only use it if necessary.

 

[airvents]

why would using a phone while someone else is driving bad? That makes absolutely no sense at all. Its not like its creating a distraction for bus driver idiot.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]stategovoverfederal[/nom]@WheelsOfConfusion:It's that kind of thinking that has led to the federal government now being quite bloated and almost socialist in nature. [/citaiton]
There's no "almost" about it, we DO have some socialist policies. Things like public school, public libraries, medicare/medicaid, social security, etc. Pure capitalism doesn't tend to work very well IRL because people are incentivized to abuse the system for profit.
But I don't think a federal measure encouraging states to adopt an anti-DrivingWhileTexting policy counts as "socialist." This isn't even a "federal ban," this bill proposes cutting funding for states that don't play along just like they did with speed limits. And as I said before, if the 30-odd states that haven't implemented "No Texting While Driving" laws by now, they are not on the ball when it comes to protecting their own citizens and need a fire put under them. That's called "promoting the general welfare" as far as I'm concerned.

[citation][nom]stategovoverfederal[/nom]The US governmental system was originally designed so that each state was as independent as possible...[/citation]
And when the Articles of Confederation failed they drafted our current constitution. Spare me the history lesson.

 

[deltatux]

at least this proves that politicians finally have some intelligence? I wish the Canadian gov't does the same.

 

[anamaniac]

This law may save my cousins life... assuming it's enforced (I'm Canadian, but she's in the states).

I ride a bicycle, to and from work, and in Canada, people on bikes must follow all road laws... so would I be fined for texting and driving?

 

[sleepflower]

[citation][nom]stuart72[/nom]I'm montezuma on this in the UK it is called "driving with undue care and attention". This legislation was unnecessary - just enforce the existing laws[/citation]
The reason I think they brought in an extra law was mainly so police could stop people who text and call BEFORE they cause an accident.

 

[hillarymakesmecry]

Good idea, but it ought to be a states rights issue. The feds don't need to be involved. This cutting funding stuff is ridiculous. Washington needs to let the rest of the country decide what's best for their own people.

 

[Regulas]

OK but this is another Federal power grab over States rights. This Bill says States have to pass the law or loose 25% Federal road money. I don't know where these hacks in DC come from but in my book that is black mail.

 

[Marcus52]

It's a shame some people don't have enough sense to put down their cell and NOT text while driving. Idiots will continue to cause lawmakers to have legit reasons for limiting the rights of the rest of us.

I'd like to see legal penalties in the range of those for drinking while driving as well.

It was interesting to see Mythbuster's take on this with just talking on a cell, not even texting. Their conclusion was that talking on a cell was indeed as dangerous as being well over the legal limit for alcohol consumption! lol.

 

[r0x0r]

Most new phones have GPS and accelerometers in them now right? Perhaps a law could be passed making the phone inoperable above a certain speed unless an emergency number has been dialled.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]hillarymakesmecry[/nom]Good idea, but it ought to be a states rights issue. The feds don't need to be involved.[/citation]
Why not? The lack of policy on this issue is killing Americans, isn't it? You're not JUST a citizen of your state, you're also a citizen of your country. All this shit about "states should be doing this not the feds" is missing the point that states AREN'T doing this and it's costing us lives and money. Perhaps if more than one quarter of states had such measures in place this wouldn't be necessary, but that's not the world we live in.

[citation][nom]Regulas[/nom]OK but this is another Federal power grab over States rights. This Bill says States have to pass the law or loose 25% Federal road money. I don't know where these hacks in DC come from but in my book that is black mail.[/citation]
[citation][nom]Wikipedia[/nom]Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal substantially true information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand made upon the victim is met. [/citation]
Buy a new book, dumbass.

 

[bfstev]

i do it even though i know i shouldn't. talking on the phone I think is possible, but texting is dangerous to the extreme

 

[omnimodis78]

Until someone you know gets killed by an impaired driver, or you almost get killed by one yourself (or you almost kill someone as a result of you not focusing while driving), such conversations are just passive, theoretical comments - but once you are affected by it, then you understand it and you are glad that people start to get punished for being bad drivers.

 

[antilycus]

Useless law, because you cant enforce it. Whats the point of a law if you never get in trouble for it. When people start going to jail for ripping off the american worker, i'll start thinking our legal system has a chance

 

[SEALBoy]

[citation][nom]matchboxmatt[/nom]I think they should forget about making the ban and let natural selection take its course, because you have to have some kind of mental stigma if you think texting is a better idea than making an actual call when you're driving in a massive metal box at 40mph.[/citation]

It's not about protecting the moron who is texting while driving, it's about protecting whoever he hits.

 

[davisorle]

Took them THIS long to ban texting while driving.. lmao . Did it need a whole research to know you pay more attention to a cellphone by writing and reading from it than just talking through it?

Thumbs up.. lol ffs

 

[wayneepalmer]

It never fails to amaze me how blazingly stupid people can be (yes, I've been that way myself a time or two - mostly when I was younger and I was very lucky to have lived this long and not have killed or hurt someone else while doing it!!).

Consequences.

I like Captain Charisma's idea. We don't need any new laws. We have enough good ones and if they'd only get enforced properly many problems would have long ago been solved. Why do we have to wait until some drunk loser with a 3 -year license revocation and 5 previous offenses kills a family of 4? Would someone tell me the real difference between a drive by shooting and a drunk driver?

You hit some ditsy a^^clown who survives hurting someone with 3700 counts of reckless endangerment and make it stick. They spend 15 - 25 years doing hard time and make sure the whole country hears about it. Do this 15 or 20 times and people will start to pay attention. even if they don't they'll be locked up.

Maybe instead of closing Gitmo we should send the "reckless endangerment" crowd down there to join the Al Qaeda guys - they kill more than Al Qaeda ever has!

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]wayneepalmer[/nom]Would someone tell me the real difference between a drive by shooting and a drunk driver?[/citation]
One is stupidity and the other is malice.
It seems that stiffer penalties aren't necessarily a deterrent, though. Murder is still a capital offense in much of the US and the kinder, gentler alternative is to spend the rest of your life in prison. That hasn't driven our murder rate down.

 

[wayneepalmer]

The effects are roughly the same so why shouldn't the penalties be?