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Friday, July 31, 2009

Say 'no' to driving and texting
Say 'no' to driving and texting.

The explosion of drivers using cell phones and BlackBerry-style message devices behind the wheel is ratcheting up the pressure for government regulation to keep the nation's highways safe.

With a growing mountain of data outlining the clear safety risks, policy makers at both the federal and state levels cannot ignore the need to act. They do so at the peril of everyone who travels the roads.

It was a hopeful development on Wednesday, then, that four U.S. senators called for legislation banning texting. By federal law, states would be denied federal highway grants unless they enacted a texting-and-driving ban.

Lawmakers hardly needed a study to demonstrate that texting while driving poses such a grave danger, inasmuch as texting often requires drivers to look away from the road. But a study released this week provides shocking evidence of the risk, finding that truckers who sent text messages have a risk of crashing that's 23 times greater than when not texting.

The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study released 7/28Tuesday also found that dialing a cell phone or merely reaching for an electronic device boosted the risk of an accident about six times in cars and trucks.

Those data follow other studies showing that the distraction from a phone conversation also puts motorists at risk.

Drivers yakking on a phone were found to be just as dangerous as drunken drivers, with the accompanying fourfold risk of having a serious accident. Those findings make the case - not just for a ban on drivers using handheld phones - but for a total ban on calls by drivers.

The same legislative tactic proposed by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) and three other Democrats this week was put to good use in pressuring states to tighten their drunken driving rules. Under Schumer's plan, any state without a texting ban would face the loss of 25 percent of its federal highway funds.

In this region, only New Jersey has banned texting. The state also requires the use of hands-free cell-phone devices when drivers make a call.

Pennsylvania and Delaware should follow Jersey's progressive lead.

A proposal in the Pennsylvania Senate would be a ban in name only, since it wouldn't authorize police to stop motorists seen texting.

In addition, the state Senate measure would make Philadelphia's roads less safe by upending the city's ban on handheld phones and texting. The law is set to take effect in November, but its author, City Councilman Bill Green, contends that "lobbyists for the cell-phone industry are pushing Pennsylvania's General Assembly to undo these protections."

Any motorist who dials a cell phone or sends a text message from behind the wheel risks breaking the basic credo of highway safety - to keep your eyes on the road. In the same way, Harrisburg lawmakers need to keep in their sights the goal of making highways safer from gadget-wielding drivers.
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