A Tougher Ban on Texting While Driving

Virginia’s ban on texting behind the wheel, enacted last year, was a good first step. But, highway safety advocates argue, it is basically a toothless law that needs some muscle. That’s because its status as a secondary offense can’t in itself prompt a traffic stop.

Supporters of a tougher law on texting while driving also believe that the $20 fine for a first violation is a joke.

Del. David Bulova, D-Fairfax, wants to change that. He has offered legislation this year to make texting while driving a primary offense.

Referring to the current law, Bulova said, “It really does send mixed signals about whether we’re serious about enforcing this if you make it a secondary offense.” The existing law, he added, “does hamstring our police officers.”

It hamstrings them in the same way that the state’s seat belt law is only a secondary offense, which can’t be enforced unless the driver is being stopped for some other traffic offense. That’s the General Assembly’s way of saying it can’t protect the people from stupidity. It could at least try.

Bulova offered his measure on the same day last week that the National Safety Council released a study showing that 28 percent of traffic accidents occur when people talk on cell phones or send text messages. The vast majority of those crashes — 1.4 million annually — are caused by cell phone conversations, and 200,000 are blamed on text messaging, according to the study.

Enforcement of a texting ban requires officers to observe an act that usually is conducted in a driver’s lap. And hands free devices make it possible to talk on cell phones without being observed.

So laws against texting and talking on handheld cell phones are difficult to enforce, but that doesn’t mean the state should give up the effort.

New technology in the fight against cell phone use among drivers is becoming available. “The main reason people talk on their cell phones is because they can,” said Chuck Hurley, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who attended the safety council’s news conference. “Eventually, (signal blocking) technology will block that,” he said.

Another rarely used tool available to police who investigate crashes is a subpoena to get cell phone records. That “has got to be a standard procedure,” said Jennifer Smith, president of a new group known as FocusDriven that has formed to combat driver cell phone use.

Secondary enforcement of bans on text messaging came in for some harsh criticism at the safety council’s presentation. Illinois state Sen. John J. Cullerton, a Democrat and leading traffic safety advocate, said secondary enforcement is “a convenient way to compromise and get bills passed in state legislatures.”

Hurley was a little more blunt, as The Washington Post reported. “Secondary enforcement is a huge problem,” he said, “It is a sign of weak politicians. It saves very few lives.”

Nor will education alone make most drivers change habits, he said. “Edu-cation and enforcement are a success.”

Jacqueline Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Auto Safety, told a news conference last week that Virginia roads could be made much safer if the state raised the secondary enforcement provision to primary enforcement in several instances, including seat belt use and the ban on texting.

“Secondary enforcement laws are weak,” she said. “They are impossible to enforce and we’re sending the wrong message when we adopt them.”

That’s the message Del. Bulova will try to get across to his colleagues in the Assembly. His success would undoubtedly save lives on Virginia highways.