Texting and Driving Are a Bad Mix

Texting while driving is already a secondary offense in Virginia. A bill approved by the state Senate last week and sent over to the House of Delegates would make it the primary offense that it ought to be — the primary offense that 32 other states and the District of Columbia have said it is.

A traffic law that’s made a primary offense means that a law enforcement officer can ticket the driver for the offense without any other traffic violation occurring. A secondary offense means an officer can only issue a ticket if a driver has been pulled over for another violation, such as speeding or some other infraction.

The legislative step to make it tougher for those suspected of texting has now been assigned to the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety, traditionally the graveyard for measures that would make Virginia’s highways safer for everyone. Let’s hope the committee has finally seen the light that a flood of evidence has shown on the dangers of texting while driving.

State Sen. George Barker, D-Fairfax, said last week that his bill to make texting a primary offense is a response to the 50 percent surge from 2006 to 2009 in traffic accidents attributed to drivers distracted by text messages on their cell phones.

AAA Mid-Atlantic and other automobile safety groups have endorsed the legislation that a majority of Virginia lawmakers has scorned for years. Texting behind the wheel is a dangerous practice that has been blamed for 5,500 deaths across the United States in 2009, along with half a million injuries. Unfortunately, those numbers continue to grow.

Many underestimate how greatly a driver’s ability is impaired when texting behind the wheel. According to a column in the Northern Virginia Daily of Strasburg, a recent University of Utah study found that a texting driver delays his or her reactions so much that it is equivalent to a blood-alcohol level content of 0.08 percent or the limit where a person is considered legally intoxicated in Virginia and many other states.

Yet, the column continued, “texting and driving is shrugged off as an acceptable part of living a busy lifestyle whereas drunken driving is considered to be immoral — as it should be — in today’s society.”

Other statistics the House committee should consider during its deliberations on Barker’s bill is that texting drivers are 23 times more likely to have an accident than non-texting drivers. And this: The average texter takes his eyes off the road for at least five seconds. At 55 miles per hour, that’s enough time to cover the length of a football field — or easily enough time to cross into the path of an on-coming vehicle.

Research has also shown that drivers are more likely to obey a law that has stricter legal consequences. Making texting while driving a primary offense would increase enforcement of the law against texting. And that would make the highways safer not only for those who don’t text or use their cell phones while driving, but it would make them safer for those who would be persuaded to put the cell phone on the seat next to them and not use it until they found a safe place to stop and talk — or text.

Make texting a primary offense and give police a tool to enforce the law on the books that could make the highways safer.