Texting Behind The Wheel Should Be Same As DUI

I'm not talking about having a tele-conference while driving, I mean I use my phone while driving for stuff like "Hey I'll meet you there in 10 minutes" or "I'm on my way" etc. And again, I'll send or read a text when I'm stopped at a light, to me that's all just common sense. I don't think it's fair for someone to get the same penalty as a DUI for sending a text when they are stopped at a light. In fact that's pretty ludicrous. Now if you are on the interstate doing 75 looking at your cell phone, yeah, but it should be up to police to spot that and make a judgement call for reckless endangerment or somesuch, we don't need a law for it.
 
I only text at lights, or if I'm parked. Anyone who says texting at lights is causing danger is an idiot. You can't tell people, "You cant do xx because some people are incapable of doing it effectively and safely" Some people can't have 1 beer and drive safely, so why isn't alcohol banned completely?

Some people can't retain lower level brain function while talking, some can. Again another issue. I've never remotely had an issue talking hands free while driving. If anything I'll kind of zone out on the conversation or be a little slower to respond on the phone. I can prioritize how my brain works, if you can't then you should make the decision not to drive while talking on hands-free.

There are a lot of laws that could be made to restrict peoples rights, that would make the world a safer place. They would also make us live in an environment not to dissimilar to a ray bradbury novel.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
you can make it as harsh as you want and people wont stop doing it.. what you dont think the DUI laws are harsh enough? especially in california.. yet people still do it every day..

the laws dont need to change.. the people do.. you could threaten them with 10 years in prison and people will still do it.. the problem could also be solved by the cell phone companies and makers of the cell phones to.. by disabling the ability to text when traveling at a certain speed since almost all modern cell phones have GPS's in them.. once it detects movement and a certain speed of travel you can set it to automatically disable the texting.. but will they do this? hell no because it cuts into their profits..
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Yeah and anyone riding a bus, or a train, or a passenger in a car could not use the service they pay for..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
you can make it as harsh as you want and people wont stop doing it.. what you dont think the DUI laws are harsh enough? especially in california.. yet people still do it every day..

the laws dont need to change.. the people do.. you could threaten them with 10 years in prison and people will still do it.. the problem could also be solved by the cell phone companies and makers of the cell phones to.. by disabling the ability to text when traveling at a certain speed since almost all modern cell phones have GPS's in them.. once it detects movement and a certain speed of travel you can set it to automatically disable the texting.. but will they do this? hell no because it cuts into their profits..
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problem with this is:

what about the passengers?
 
I tell all my friends that if I go silent, it's probably because I'm driving. I don't text on the road, but if I have to, I'll wait until I stop at a light to respond to it.

While I am generally against texting while driving, I am NOT for punishing the habit to an extreme, especially the same levels of, say, a DUI. That's ludicrous to even think punishing texting on the road to the same degree as driving drunk. This entire argument reminds me of our parents and grandparents who are always saying, "You know what's wrong with society these days?" First it was comic books. Then rock music. Then the internet.

You know what. Let's face it. People are just bad drivers, period.

And here's what separates a good driver from a bad one. You can ban texting all you want, but that doesn't solve the problem. A good driver doesn't allow themselves to become distracted on the road. They'll focus on driving, keep conversations to a minimum, and not stare at the passing trees. A bad driver will put on their lipstick, or change the CD player constantly, or stare at signs as they're driving by. Ssssoooo, where does texting fit into all of this? If you take away texting, then the bad drivers will simply find some other object of distraction to take its place.

And for those who want American autobahns, there's a reason why we don't have them in America. For one, American is a much, MUCH larger country than Germany in terms of landmass and population. Secondly, the amount of fuel your car consumes at 120mph is exponentially higher than what it consumes going 70. The 70mph speed limits on highways aren't there to keep you safe. You're dead whether you slam into a tree going 70, 100, or 150mph. The interstate speed limits are imposed to keep overall nationwide fuel consumption levels down, and America is *THE HIGHEST* fuel consuming nation in the world, and in a time where we're trying to curb our consumption levels, you want to open the flood gates? Ya, great idea guys....

Back to the original point though, I used to think we were creating a generation of individuals with terrible communication skills because of texting. Then I realized that people always have, and always will be, bad writers.

(myself included)
 
Well, I think texting while driving is even WORSE than a DUI mostly because when texting you're not even trying to pay attention to the road.

That said, the poll is BS. Nobody asked me what I thought. Pick an area, a demographic that matches your desired outcome and you could get 97% of people to agree that it's ok to drive your car naked while strapped to the roof..

What I'm concerned about is this trend in the past decade toward the slippery slope.

Everything is dangerous, every thought is potentially evil and everyone needs to be protected from themselves. I'm really concerned about all these laws that prosecute "thought crime". In other words you get busted for what you might do not what you did do.

For example in AZ there's a road rage law and it's completely up to the cop to decide if you're breaking it. A quick lane change in front of a pissed off cop whose 'roids are acting up and he can get get a few points of your license and a few hundred bucks out of you. Virtually no defense, your word versus the cop.

BTW to the post about light consequences for first DUI, In AZ your first DUI gets a one year suspension, a weekend in jail (in a tent) at least 2K in fines and when you get your license back you have to pay for an ignition interlock for at least a year at a monthly rental cost of $75/mo. I know because it happened to a friend of mine and AZ recently strengthened the DUI laws even more.

I'm just a bit sick of all this "protection" If I really do something wrong, bust my a$$ otherwise leave me the heck alone!
:cool:
 
verteron said:
For all of you that "multitask," the fact that you CAN txt on your phone without looking at it is moot. The problem is that you are "visualizing" the keypad and the words, not the road. You may see the road in front of you, but miss that fool in the next lane coming over on your ass, or realize that the car in front of you is slowing down. I've seen plenty of times where people can't stay in their lane even though their eyes are on the road. Driving isn't just about seeing a picture of what is in front of you, it is about interpreting it. You need to have a 3D visual in your mind of the traffic all around you. Once you start visualizing that keypad, situational awareness is brain-dumped.
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^This

I was the cause of a potentially deadly accident because I was wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing, lost my situational awareness and went smack into the front of a SUV. thankfully the only injuries were the huge seatbelt bruises across me and my brother but it was only a split second from being deadly for my brother. For me that is a lesson that you only have to learn once. there is voice mail on a phone for a reason.

Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do on a regular basis and it's not something to be taken lightly.
 
Just heard tonight over the police scanner a fire truck was following a guy who was texting while driving. Fire truck reported the car was crossing over the center line of the road and police were dispatched to where the guy turned off. Then there was the crash that happened right in front of me a couple years ago. Guy rear ended a car making a left turn. He told me he was checking his cell phone and "only looked down for a second".
 
Every one thinks they are the "one" that can do it safely. Multitasking while driving is not a new thing. I have seen people apply makeup, shave, hold 2 conversations on 2 cell phones at the same time while driving with their knees, do their nails, read the paper, text, beat their kids, have sex, receive a bj, and even use a typewriter, (yes, a %!*@$!! old school typewriter), all while swerving around, blowing lights without even noticing, and braking abruptly because they saw the stop sign/light at the last possible second. The whole time thinking they are driving just fine or even better than the "moron" in the car that just honked at them for driving like an idiot. Until they run some little kid over cause they were too busy texting to see him. Excuses for their careless stupidity already on their lips, "he just came out of nowhere, it is not my fault". Disgusting...........

Not saying it should be illegal. I never have been a proponent of further government involvement in our day to day lives. However, in this day and age, in our "it's always somebody elses fault" society, where the personal responsibility and common sense that should go along with our freedoms does not seem to exist in the vast majority of our population, it may be an idea not without at least some merit. At a minimum, it would be a good revenue generator for the various governments. :)
 
quixotic said:
Ahh, good old shock tactics.

This is what can happen while driving small cars.

That is reality, and don't think it cannot happen to you. There are too many irresponsible people on the road, always drive SUVs.
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I wonder if the red dump truck driver was texting?

I'm not sure an SUV would have saved them in that situation. But I suppose it could not hurt to drive an SUV or a 70's Lincoln or Cadillac. They have a bit more crumple room. ;)

The roads are plenty dangerous as it is, no need to increase the risks, save texting for when your car is not moving.
 
Steve said:
A new statistic says that almost all people want texting while driving banned. Half of those people want the punishment to be the same as drinking and driving. Not to be a jerk but, every time I read statistics like these can’t help but wonder, if this “97% of the all people” figure is accurate…who the hell is left texting while they are driving? :confused:
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This is as good a reason as any for DARPA to run the challenges needed to make full time auto-drive a requirement for anyone with a live phone in the car!

That said, I wonder how long before the Bluetooth helmet I have had my eye on will be offered with a HUD for motrocyclists to text while in motion? Via speech-rec and text-to-speech for the meat of the work of course!

I could just see it. Motorcyclist killed when distracted by a text message from a private dick reporting the current status of his wife/girlfriend!
 
Steve said:
A new statistic says that almost all people want texting while driving banned. Half of those people want the punishment to be the same as drinking and driving. Not to be a jerk but, every time I read statistics like these can’t help but wonder, if this “97% of the all people” figure is accurate…who the hell is left texting while they are driving? :confused:
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WOW

About the only thing this tells me is that about 3% of their participants are teenage girls and soccer moms. Would have thought it would be larger.
 
jwalk6 said:
Well, I think texting while driving is even WORSE than a DUI mostly because when texting you're not even trying to pay attention to the road.
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100% with you on this.

jwalk6 said:
What I'm concerned about is this trend in the past decade toward the slippery slope.

Everything is dangerous, every thought is potentially evil and everyone needs to be protected from themselves. I'm really concerned about all these laws that prosecute "thought crime". In other words you get busted for what you might do not what you did do.
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This isn't one of those cases in my opinion. This would be a clearly defined behavior being punished, it's not a thought crime, no more than drinking and driving is. If your plastered, and you get behind the wheel of a car, and you manage to make it home without killing someone, is that somehow ok? No, you put many people severely at risk.

Texting while driving is the same thing. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and there are certain rules and procedures that should be complied with to maintain said privilege.
 
Menelmarar said:
100% with you on this.

This isn't one of those cases in my opinion. This would be a clearly defined behavior being punished, it's not a thought crime, no more than drinking and driving is. If your plastered, and you get behind the wheel of a car, and you manage to make it home without killing someone, is that somehow ok? No, you put many people severely at risk.

Texting while driving is the same thing. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and there are certain rules and procedures that should be complied with to maintain said privilege.
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The problem with DUI enforcement is that it's not meant to curb anything. It's a revenue generator. You get busted for DUI three times in AZ you lose your license. That's fine but it doesn't stop people from driving drunk and/or without a license.

All they do is lock you up, fine you, make your life miserable for a few years and kick you out the door. Maybe an AA meeting or two but there's no treatment; nothing that addresses the behavior. I have to wonder how our parents ever survived long enough to bring us into the world without all of these laws.

Talk to anyone over 50 and they'll likely have a story or two from their youth of the cop that pulled them over when they'd been drinking and sent them home with a warning. The admonition being, "If I see you again tonight I'm taking your car and throwing you in the tank!" For most youths the embarassment of having their parents bail them out curbed the behavior for an alcoholic it won't. So should the kid who made the mistake one time be treated the same as the lifetime alcoholic? We're talking a felony conviction that never goes away.

I'm not saying it's ok to drive while blitzed and I've personally called the cops on someone in a car that was weaving all over the place in front of me. But I'd hazard a guess that those of drinking age (and maybe a few below it) on this forum have probably driven home not even realizing that they were .078 (which is close enough to .08 for probable cause)

For some that can be one beer and they don't even know it. You get into this weird administrative area that says you've done evil even if you didn't intend to. It's an absolute and the problem with absolutes is that they paint with too wide a brush.

When they dropped the limit from .10 to .08 it had less to do with public safety and more to do with revenue. This is where the enforcement for what you "might" do kicks in. Sure if you cause an accident and alcohol is proven as a contributing cause then throw the freakin' book. Not so if the rum ball you ate at the Xmas party sent you over the limit for the 2 seconds that you were sitting in the DUI checkpoint.

This may sound contrary to my argument but I think the abdication of personal responsibility is causing more and more of these laws of the absolute to get passed.
Apparently we're no longer capable of controlling ourselves so we need a bunch of new laws to do it for us Each with it's own revenue stream. I throw photo radar in with those laws of absolutes too. A picture of me doing 120 doesn't stop me from doing 120. The threat of a DUI isn't going to keep an alcoholic from driving drunk. Alcoholism doesn't work that way but no matter what there's an absolute standard that paints with a wide brush.

Like I said, I do something wrong, bust me. But bust me because of what I did, not what I might do...
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
you can make it as harsh as you want and people wont stop doing it.. what you dont think the DUI laws are harsh enough? especially in california.. yet people still do it every day...
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No I do not think DUI laws are harsh enough. A DUI should result in a car being seized, and sold at auction, and the offenders license being revoked for a number of years.
 
It's not something you can run a questionaire on, you know. That 97% of americans asked thought texting behind the wheel should be banned means only 3% of americans asked were kind enough to put their phone down to answer the question in the first place, the rest just sped off.
 
Ranari said:
While I am generally against texting while driving, I am NOT for punishing the habit to an extreme, especially the same levels of, say, a DUI.
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Compared to the best driving countries in the world, America's punishment for DUIs is a wrist slap.

Try getting 3 DUIs in Germany and see how far that gets you (lifetime ban from driving).
 
Arcygenical said:
Driving under IMPAIRMENT. IMPAIRMENT

I agree.
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It is actually Druving Under the Influence of drugs or alcohol.




My personal view is we should punish them harsher than DUIs. Why? Because DUIs are not punished much worse than a parking ticket.
 
Draax said:
No I do not think DUI laws are harsh enough. A DUI should result in a car being seized, and sold at auction, and the offenders license being revoked for a number of years.
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I say we execute them for attempted murder.

It is not an accident that one drinks until drunk and then gets behind the wheel. It is done on purpose.
 
I drive with my knees, text in one hand, one eye on the road, and go through the AM/FM stations. I haven't been in an accident, I haven't' been close to have been in an accident, talking on the phone is the same as talking to the person in the car, texting is the same as turning the dial on the radio station, making other adjustments, etc. etc. etc.

Texting while jaywalking should be automatic jail time.
 
What I find the epitome of arrogance and hypocrisy are people that have the political belief that guns should be banned, because they are "dangerous", will nonchalantly drive an even greater deadly weapon daily and treat it as routine and THINK they can do two or three things at once and still steer their deadly projectile in a safe manner. Frankly, anyone with a phone to their ear or even in their hand while their car is active and on the road, at a stop or not, is not qualified nor competent to drive that deadly vehicle. Even while at a stop light you need to be aware of what is happening on the road, especially if conditions change rapidly.

If I find I am speaking to someone, on the phone, that is driving, I tell them to call me when they are no longer behind the wheel. I find the cavalier attitude toward your fellow drivers to be much ruder than me saying to call me back.

I turn off my phone when I drive. It's a simple rule and easy to follow.

Until cars drive themselves, humans must accept they cannot be distracted from driving ever. The simple act of glancing down at a phone's display is enough time for the situation outside to change to completely deadly. Ask anyone that merely adjusted their radio only to find they have failed to see the road turn.
 
Gott said:
I drive with my knees, text in one hand, one eye on the road, and go through the AM/FM stations. I haven't been in an accident, I haven't' been close to have been in an accident, talking on the phone is the same as talking to the person in the car, texting is the same as turning the dial on the radio station, making other adjustments, etc. etc. etc.

Texting while jaywalking should be automatic jail time.
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then when you crash you can sue the auto maker for not having a warning on the steering wheel that reminds you that you should drive with your hands.
 
My dad's car has been rearended 4 times this year alone, one of them was because of a teenager texting and didn't see him stopped at a light. I definitely feel that texting while driving should be banned. In fact, I think there should be harsher penalties on road stupidity in general, especially drunk driving. I don't care how good you are; when you're in control of a moving two ton hunk of metal, your attention needs to be on driving it, not updating your facebook status or whatever you feel is important enough to endanger the lives of yourself and those around you.

People definitely take driving for granted here in America.
 
Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that we're ignoring the simple fact that there are more vehicles on the road per lane mile. This means we're more crowded together with more potential for accidents. Look it up here:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_33.html

The part you'll want to look at is Urban Vehicle Miles Traveled for both All and for collectors

For example, from 1980 to 2007 the total urban VMT went from 855,265 to 1,994,519, an increase of 133%.

We have more than twice as much vehicular traffic using our roadways; however, in terms of usage per lane mile, which accounts for additional roadway construction, we've gone from 613 to 851- an increase of 39%. Still, we have more people on the roads (and back then the top speed limit was 55, period) and thus more points of conflict.

We can't afford to have an percentage of our populace driving distracted, the risk of damage to themselves or especially an innocent third party is too great.

For folks like myself who are sick of the government sticking its collective nose up our cracks I must respectfully say:

"Get over yourself, you're not 14, you don't own the world, your car is not your living room and your couch, you're on a public roadway and everyone on it deserves , no, let's use RIGHT, has the RIGHT to get where they're going without having the additional risk of an accident caused by an immature driver with a superman complex".

If that upsets you, tough. Go live in Montana or Wyoming, build a compound with concertina wire and declare yourselves and independent state.
;)
 
$250 fine for texting while driving seems completely reasonable.

However, the people making the laws should be careful about how they allow the police to tag these people. We wouldn't want to accidentally ban GPS. >.>
 
textmessage.jpg
 
I can text while driving 100mph... and I do so regularly. You olden folk are just jealous.
 
Gott said:
I drive with my knees, text in one hand, one eye on the road, and go through the AM/FM stations. I haven't been in an accident, I haven't' been close to have been in an accident, talking on the phone is the same as talking to the person in the car, texting is the same as turning the dial on the radio station, making other adjustments, etc. etc. etc.

Texting while jaywalking should be automatic jail time.
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You played right into the hands of the guy who said earlier, "All these people think of is, *I* can do it just fine, *I* am not at fault if something does happen, *I* already have an excuse ready the moment something does happen - it's somebody else's fault. *They* were the ones that 'came out of nowhere'."

It's the same logic DUI drivers use - "*I* can drive just fine while drunk. *I* have never been in an accident before so that proves it. *I* may have a high blood alcohol content but *I* know that *I* am not too impaired to drive right now."
 
Ualdayan said:
You played right into the hands of the guy who said earlier, "All these people think of is, *I* can do it just fine, *I* am not at fault if something does happen, *I* already have an excuse ready the moment something does happen - it's somebody else's fault. *They* were the ones that 'came out of nowhere'."

It's the same logic DUI drivers use - "*I* can drive just fine while drunk. *I* have never been in an accident before so that proves it. *I* may have a high blood alcohol content but *I* know that *I* am not too impaired to drive right now."
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I guess you're not familiar with sarcasm.
 
People basically need to understand that not everyone is equal. This whole equality trip is a load of crap that is destroying freedom and rights for the American people. Some people can easily and safely text while driving where as others can't. It doesn't stop at texting however - If I can safely talk on the phone and drive and safely text on the phone and drive, and safely use a shotgun or a handgun at a shooting range etc etc doesn't mean that the next person can safely do that. Just because the next person can't safely do it shouldn't mean an outbreak of banning or government legislation to screw over those who are actually more able.

Just something for you hippies to think about.
 
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