‘Toughest law’ on texting profiled

The New York Times is featuring Utah’s anti-text messaging law for motorists, in which violators face up to 15 years in prison if a fatality results from their distracted driving.

The Times calls Utah text-messaging ban “the nation’s toughest law to crack down on texting behind the wheel.”

State Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, says: “It’s a willful act. If you choose to drink and drive or if you choose to text and drive, you’re assuming the same risk.”

The Times noted:

Treating texting behind the wheel like drunken driving raises complex legal questions. Drunken drivers can be identified using a Breathalyzer. But there is no immediate test for driving while texting; such drivers could deny they were doing so, or claim to have been dialing a phone number.

The Times report ties creation of the law to a 2006 wreck caused by a text messaging student, in which two scientists died.

International distracted driving roundup

Distracted driving news from around the globe. (Does not include the EU member states or Canada.) View the European distracted driving news page and the Australia & New Zealand cell phone laws roundup.

Guam lawmakers are nearing approval of a ban on handheld cell phone use by drivers. The western Pacific island already prohibits texting & driving. Sen. Tom Ada filed the Guam distracted driving legislation Dec. 14, 2011, and it received overall support at a Dec. 30 legislative hearing. One senator said that on the way to the session, he was nearly hit by a truck driver using a cell phone. Commercial use of cell phones would be exempted (vehicles with company logos only), although several senators have objected to that clause. Fines $100 (first offense), $500 (subsequent) and $1,000/possible license loss if an accident results from the distraction. The bill could become law as early as March, Ada said.

Taking action against “a dreadful phenomenon,” Bermuda has outlawed use of handheld cell phones and other wireless communications devices while driving. Videos also are prohibited from viewing TV/DVD screens. Police said they wrote more than 100 tickets under the new law in its first month. Fines range from $500 to $1,000. MPs unanimously approved the measure Dec. 2, 2011. The government issued a detailed explanation of the new distracted driving law Jan. 12. The regulations are part of the Traffic Offences (Penalties) Amendment Act 2011. Bermuda is a British territory located about 650 miles off North Carolina. The United Kingdom banned handheld cell phone use while driving in 2003.

Cayman Islands lawmakers approved a new traffic law Nov. 20, 2011. The legislation includes a ban on handheld cell phone use while driving. The law requires hands-free devices to operate with only one button, a rule that apparently targets text messaging. Drivers are permitted to use their handheld cell phones if stopped in a traffic jam or at stop lights. The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service has been pushing for a ban on handheld cell phones, although they’d prefer a total ban. The ban was removed from the Traffic Bill earlier in 2011 but was revised for the final vote. Police currently use careless-driving laws against drivers whose cell phone use is endangering others.

The Emirate of Abu Dhabi struggles with one of the highest rates of road fatalities in the world. Police reported that a recent three-day outage of Blackberry messaging service coincided with a 40 percent drop in traffic accidents. “Absolutely nothing has happened in the past week in terms of killings on the road,” the police chief said. “People are slowly starting to realize the dangers of using their phone while driving. The roads became much safer when BlackBerry stopped working.”

The Philippines’ Department of Justice has ruled that distracted driving can be considered a violation of law, punishable for that infraction alone, or for the damages done to others. The DOJ said May 30, 2011, that distracted driving occurs while “operating a motor vehicle inattentively on account of various activities not related to driving.” Local laws against “texting or calling while driving” already are in effect in Sagada and Roxas City.

India already bans the use of handheld cell phones while driving, with penalties running INR 2,000 (about $40). Now, the government reportedly is debating a plan to prohibit drivers from using hands-free cell phones and Bluetooth gadgets such as wireless headsets.

The Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) will consider bans on text messaging and handheld cell phone use by drivers. Rep. Stanley Torres, Ind-Saipan, introduced HB 17-143, the “Commonwealth Wireless Telephone Restrictions in Vehicles Safety Act of 2011,” on Jan. 13. Fines: $50 (first violation) then $100. Penalties double for taxi and bus drivers.

Trinidad and Tobago’s ban on handheld cell phones went into effect Feb. 2, 2011. The Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill was approved by Cabinet in October 2010 and then by the Parliament. Enactment was delayed a month and fines apparently have been lowered. Fines are now set at $1,500 TTD (about $235 U.S.), according to transportation minister Jack Warner, who urged motorists to use the extra time to get used to not using handheld cell phones.

Jamaica’s road safety director expects a ban on drivers’ use of cell phones by August 2011. The law would include other devices, such as portable DVD players. The Ministry of Transport and Works proposed the new distracted driving rules at the end of 2010.

“We have no doubt that any legislation banning the use of cellphones while driving will attract a lot of resistance in Jamaica,” the Observer editorialized Jan. 27, 2011

Bermuda has a twist on the usual distracted driving issues. Shadow Transport Minister Michael Fahy explains: “The phenomenon of the use of cell phones on bikes seems to be almost unique to Bermuda, where we constantly see people texting whilst driving their bikes, or a phone shoved in a helmet. It is only a matter of time before serious injury or death results from this poor driving habit.”

Lower Chichester talks tough on texting

The blah blah blah over text messaging and driving gets pretty tiresome: How could any law possibly be enforced? What about my civil liberties? Yadda yadda. We’ve heard it all by now.

Meet a lawmaker in Pennsylvania who is mad as hell about texting and is not going to take it anymore.

The president of the township commission in Lower Chichester, Rocco Gaspari Jr., had this to say Monday after the body voted to ban text messaging for all drivers, effective immediately:

“Text messaging now supersedes drugs and alcohol for causing the most accidents in the United States. Something needs to be done and I won’t wait for someone in Harrisburg to get off their butt to tell everyone across the commonwealth that text messaging is dangerous. If anybody wants to debate this we can go out on the lawn, have a coffee or soda and have a discussion. Our police department will enforce this and if anybody doesn’t like it, don’t tell us that it can’t be enforced.”

Gaspari continued like so, according to the Delaware County Daily Times:

“Our job is to protect the health, safety and welfare of our residents. Nobody can tell us what we can and can’t do in our town. Nobody!”

Harrisburg, of course, not only wants to tell Gaspari’s Commission what to do, but also the mayor of Philadelphia. The legislature has threatened Mayor Mike Nutter and his city with millions in lost highway funding if it does not abandon its cell phone and driving law, adopted in late April.

Lower Chichester already regulates the use of handheld cell phones.

European cell phone, texting roundup

Almost half of German drivers say they use cell phones while driving. That compares with 6 percent of U.K. drivers, according to a European motor safety poll. Ford Motor Company commissioned the survey 4,300 drivers from Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Britain. n Italy, 14 percent of the respondents said they had text messaged while driving.

Almost all EU nations prohibit use of handheld electronic devices while driving. “This survey clearly demonstrates the urgent need for us all to improve our concentration levels behind the wheel,” said Stuart Southgate of Ford Europe’s Automotive Safety Office. Six in 10 motorists told the researchers that they weren’t sure they would pass their driver’s license test if taken again.

In Denmark, the Accident Investigation Board (AIB) is seeking seeks a total ban on cell phone use while driving. “We see that drivers sit with their new smartphones while driving and use them like a laptop computer and thus look away from the traffic,” AIB chairman Sven Krarup Nielsen said July 19, 2011. Danish law currently prohibits the use of handheld cell phones while driving, but permits use of mobiles with hands-free listening devices. The vehicle safety board is lobbying Parliament for the change.

In Finland, drivers who can’t stop talking on their cell phones now face suspensions of their licenses. The new Act on Driving Licenses, which took effect June 1, 2011, gives local police the authority to suspend a driver’s license if the cell phone violation is committed three times in a single year or four times over a period of two years. Suspensions range from one to six months under the new Finnish distracted driving penalties.

(View the International distracted driving news page.)

In Ireland, 8,500 drivers were prosecuted for electronic distracted driving violations in the year’s first quarter, a 10 percent hike over the same period in 2010. Almost 100,000 Irish drivers have received penalty points for texting or using handheld cell phones since 2006, and a additional 20,000 were just cited and fined. Dublin had the most scofflaws, Ireland’s national police reported.

Brits brush off cell phone law: British drivers are pretty much ignoring the 7-year-old law against handheld cell phone use while behind the wheel, a survey found. As many as 81 percent of drivers use cell phones without the required hands-free kit, according to Good Mobile Phones’ survey of 1,859 motorists aged 17 and over. 44 percent admitted to texting while driving, while 24 percent said they accessed social networking sites such as Facebook.

A British teenager has been sentenced to incarceration for 2 1/2 yearrs for killing a grandmother while reading a text message. She faced as much as 14 years in prison for “causing death by dangerous driving.” Keisha Wall killed 63-year-old Christine Lyon in early 2010, a Reading jury found. Police said she received a text message seconds before the crash. Wall denied the charges and the victim’s family said she never apologized. Read the full story about the texting U.K. teen sentenced to prison.

Total cell phone ban?: The European Transport Safety Council has proposed that all cell phone use be banned for EU drivers. The safety alliance urged “clear and strict” laws banning mobile phone use while on the road.

All EU nations except Sweden have banned handheld cell phone use while driving but allow hands-free operation. Ten of the 27 EU member states specifically prohibit texting while driving.

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) also recommended in a December 2010 report — Minimising In-Vehicle Distractions — that employers ban all cell phone use by their employees.

The ETSC is a Brussels-based umbrella group of 43 organizations dedicated to the reduction of the number and severity of transport crashes in Europe.

Scotland is cracking down on drivers who use smart phones. Roadway law enforcement Chief Superintendent Charlie Common said in November: “The use of any distraction device, including smart phones, is illegal and carries the same penalties associated with making a call whilst driving. … We are committed to stopping those motorists who continue to ignore the safety warnings and risk their life and the lives of others.”

In Sweden, nearly 10,000 people lost their licenses for distracted driving in 2010, an increase of 12 percent. Most of those penalized were distracted by cell phones and GPS systems.

Looks like Sweden has nabbed its first text-messaging driver. A Falkenberg man crashed into a pole and ran over a ditch before coming to rest on the sidewalk. The cops closed, being in the area on an unrelated case. He apparently will be the first person in Sweden to be charged as a result of texting while driving. (Sweden is one of the few areas in Europe where cell phone use is allowed while operating a motor vehicle.)

English road safety group Brake is pushing for an expansion of the country’s ban on drivers’ use of handheld cell phones, with hands-free mobiles outlawed as well. “It’s time that our politicians took note and put an end to the ridiculous situation where using a hand-held mobile is banned, but using hands-free isn’t,” said Ellen Booth, campaigns officer.

The U.K. Home Office reports that in 2009, about 116,000 tickets were handed out for mobile phone use while driving. The number is off 30% from two years ago, the Telegraph reported May 5, 2010. Meanwhile, cell phone use by motorists was up 27%. A spokesman for Brake, the road safety group, said: “This is clearly a law which is being flouted and isn’t being enforced to a degree that actually makes people think that they are going to get caught.”

In 2009 there were 454 deaths and serious injuries linked to distracted driving in the United Kingdom, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. About 2,500 less-important accidents occurred as a result of distracted behaviors as well.

Police in Scotland wrote 180 tickets for driving and using wireless devices on Feb. 25, 2010, as a one-day national crackdown on distracted driving. Among those ticketed: A bus driver reading text messages while crossing through a city center.

Great Britain’s Labour party deputy leader was fined £350 after pleading guilty to backing her car into a parked vehicle while talking on a handheld cell phone. She also had 3 points charged against her license with the Jan. 9, 2010, sentence. The Crown Prosecution Service said Harriet Harman initially was charged with driving without “due care and attention” and using a handheld mobile telephone. The cell phone charge was dropped, which drew criticism from the road safety group Brake. She faced fines of over 5,000 pounds and nine points on her license for the South London crash.

Serbia: The Law on Safety in Traffic went into effect Dec. 10, 2009. The Serbian ban on cell phone use while driving brings fines of €60. Punishments of up to €250 and some jail time (five to 10 days) may be imposed if an accident is in the equation, according to the web site Balkan Insight. As many as 20 percent of accidents in the country involve cell phone use, police say.

Text messaging road rage strikes

Like to text message while behind the wheel? Beware the wrath of vigilante justice.

A woman in North Providence, R.I., allegedly was texting away on her cell phone as she cut off another motorist.

Anthony Rapone, 60, allegedly forced her to stop in the middle of the road, threw her cell phone to the ground and punched the woman in the face. He then kicked the woman’s car repeatedly for good measure, police said.

Rapone said his father had been killed in a wreck caused by a driver who was driving and texting. He was charged with assault, vandalism and disorderly conduct, according to the Providence Journal.

Not all that surprisingly, some readers of the Journal’s web site said the lady had it coming:

“I think most of us wished he had stomped the phone to death and walked away.”

“Does this mean that the police did not file any charges against the woman who pulled out in front of someone while she was text messaging?”

“Good for him!!!! … I’m sure this particular girl won’t have a phone in her hand while driving anymore!!”

“This might be a tad over the line, but I’m willing to bet that you’ll see alot more of this.”

“Good for him!! … I commend him for taking the cell phone. I would have stomped on it. … She should also be charged.”

Cell phones are the new cigarettes, the saying goes. Here’s one way to clear the smoke … not that we approve, cough cough.

Distracted driving fines need punch

A swarm of newspaper editorials resulted from recent developments about distracted driving. Most of the editorials called for action at the state level to cut down on the use of text messaging devices and handheld cell phones.

The editorial board of the Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.) had something new to say, however. After making the usual points about the perils of distracted driving, the newspaper took aim at the puny fines most of these laws hand out:

“Silly, selfish behavior that puts people’s lives at risk should carry stinging penalties. … It’s time for a major crackdown on talkers and texters, and time for New Jersey to make cell-phone offenses really hurt. … These infractions should carry points, and those points should be non-negotiable. Drivers, when they appear in court, should not be allowed to plead to a lesser offense and fewer points. Repeat offenders should have their licenses suspended.

This is the only way to stop dangerous habits. And it’s the only way to break the addictive grip of technology so drivers can get both hands back on the wheel and their eyes on the road.”

The newspaper apparently didn’t get the word that California’s text messaging law went into effect eight months ago, but pointed to its fines as further evidence:

“California is mulling a law that would fine texters $20 the first time they are caught and $50 the next. Twenty bucks? That’s less than the cost of a fill-up.”

That’s a solid and seldom-heard take. States that feel their work is done in this area should examine just how much of a deterrent their cell phone and text messaging laws are for drivers who just can’t wait to communicate.

States yet to enact distracted driving laws should ensure that the sanctions have teeth — meaning fines that hurt and driver’s license points that register with insurance companies.

(Read the Star-Ledger editorial on distracted driving fines.)

DOT calls texting, cell phone summit

A national summit on the issue of drivers’ use of cell phones and text messaging devices has been set by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The gathering of senior transportation officials, safety advocates, law enforcement representatives, members of Congress and academics who study distracted driving will be “in late September,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Tuesday.

“I’m against texting but I’m not going to pre-judge the summit,” LaHood later said in a Twitter entry.

The DOT will announce a series of actions to deal with the distracted driving crisis after the summit.

“The public is sick and tired of people being distracted and causing accidents,” LaHood said at a press conference announcing the federal summit. “We all know texting while driving is dangerous and we are going to do something about it so that responsible drivers don’t have to worry about it when they or a loved one get on the road.”

Update: View the agenda for the DOT summit on distracted driving.

The DOT move follows a month of revelations regarding text messaging and cell phone use by drivers. The New York Times detailed how the dangers of cell phone use were covered up earlier in the decade by federal researchers. Then, a Virginia Tech study reported that truckers who were text messaging were 23 times more likely to get into wrecks than those who were not.

A wave of newspaper editorials followed these reports, calling for state legislators to take action.

A group of Democratic senators have proposed a federal cutoff of highway funding for states that fail to address text messaging and driving within the next two years.

The federal government cannot outright ban texting while driving because highway issues are in the states’ jurisdiction.

“If it were up to me, I would ban drivers from texting, but unfortunately, laws aren’t always enough,” LaHood (pictured, above) said in a statement. “We’ve learned from past safety awareness campaigns that it takes a coordinated strategy combining education and enforcement to get results. That’s why this meeting with experienced officials, experts and law enforcement will be such a crucial first step in our efforts to put an end to distracted driving.”

Details of the still-in-development summit will be available on a DOT web page and on Twitter ().