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Driver distraction bans catching on

Texting, talking on cell while driving could cost you

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By William Hershey, Staff Writer 12:14 AM Monday, August 10, 2009

COLUMBUS — With the use of cellphones and text messaging exploding across the country, states are scrambling to combat these potentially dangerous distractions to drivers trying to navigate crowded highways and streets.

So far, 17 states and the District of Columbia have banned text messaging while driving, and six of those states along with Washington, D.C., also have outlawed using hand-held cellphones while behind the wheel, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

When the legislature returns in September, lawmakers are expected to consider at least three proposals that would add Ohio to the list.

House Bill 261, sponsored by Rep. Michael DeBose, D-Cleveland, would ban text-messaging while driving but make it a secondary offense, meaning a motorist couldn’t be pulled over for texting but could be cited if stopped for a primary offense like speeding.

DeBose also sponsored House Bill 262, banning both texting and hand-held cellphone use and making them secondary offenses.

The third bill, House Bill 266, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Koziura, D-Lorain, with 11 cosponsors, including one Republican, bans texting and the use of any “mobile communication device,” including cellphones, and makes the violation a primary offense, giving police the right to pull you over for using your phone.

Pam Fischer, director of the division of highway traffic safety, which has a reputation for aggressively going after texting and cellphoning drivers, said secondary enforcement won’t do the job. The number of citations issued in New Jersey nearly tripled in little more than a year compared to the previous 44 months after primary enforcement began on March 1, 2008, Fisher said.

A two-week crackdown in 18 New Jersey towns earlier this year indicated tough enforcement reduces cell phone use and texting. The state used federal money to give grants of $4,000 to each town to identify, stop and ticket motorists who were talking or texting.

The percentage of motorists violating the state’s cell phone law in the 18 towns dropped from 12 percent to 6 percent. Also, the number of motorists texting while driving dipped from 2 percent to 1 percent, records from the two-week crackdown show.

Fischer said laws aren’t enough. There must be public education campaigns. She also said that hands-free cellphone use while driving is not a good idea.

“It’s not about holding the device,” she said. “It’s about the fact that your mind and your eyes are being taken away from the act of driving.”

Studies are emerging about potential consequences of driving and cellphone use and texting.

In July, a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study reported that for truck drivers who were text messaging, the risk of a crash or near crash was 23.2 times as high as for a nondistracted driver.

The National Institute for Highway Safety also cited a 2005 study in western Australia that found cell phone users four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves.

A separate recent study cited by the institute found that among drivers 30 and younger who own cell phones, nearly 40 percent said they send or read text messages while driving.

The cellphone industry’s trade group, CTIA-The Wireless Association, has taken note of the growing concern about safety.

“CTIA and our member companies continue to believe text-messaging while driving is incompatible with safe driving,” Steve Largent, CTIA president and CEO, said in a prepared statement. Education, not just legislation, is needed, Largent said.

CTIA is “neutral” on outright cellphone bans and legislation to regulate hands-free use, Largent said in a separate statement.

State Rep. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, who uses hands-free technology while driving, said regulating cellphone use is “probably one of those issues that encroaches on personal freedom.”

However, when she looks at the number of drivers with one hand on the wheel and the other on the phone she’s concerned.

“Cars were not made to be portable telephones,” said Lehner, who is considering co-sponsoring one of the House bills. “We’ve got to recognize that fact.”

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.