Titans of texting take pledge, get Sparks tickets

Here’s a new one in the world of distracted-driving safety campaigns:

South Florida teens who proved themselves to be superstars of text messaging were awarded free tickets to a concert by “American Idol” star Jordin Sparks.

One catch: They had to pledge to never text and drive.

The idea for the unusual safety contest came from Stacy Kagan, an Allstate Insurance agent in Coral Springs. “We’re trying to encourage teens to be aware that texting kills,” Kagan told the Miami Herald. Allstate’s “Thumbs Up to X the TXT” has been working its way across the nation since November.

First-place “winner” Sydney Trinker turned in a cell phone bill that showed 38,000 texts in a single month. She and her family signed Allstate’s no-texting pledge — and is off to see Sparks in concert. (Teens could only submit previous cell phone bills.)

Sparks’ summer “Battlefield” tour hosts “X the TXT” events in 29 cities. “Choosing to not pick up the phone and keep your eyes on the road can be the difference between life and death,” the young singer said.

Teens who pledge not to text message and drive can add their thumbprints to a traveling banner displayed at concert stops.

The distracted driving dictionary

Like all social issues, distracted driving has a unique terminology that’s used by those involved in the conversation — legislators, police, activists, researchers and so on. Here, in context, are some of the key words and phrases used in the national debate over distracted driving:

Distracted driving: Covers a wide range of activities that draw away a driver’s attention from the road. Bills that seek bans on handheld cell phones and text messaging devices typically are classified as distracted driving legislation. In a broader sense, activities such as putting on makeup, operating a radio, using a GPS system, reading, wrangling kids and animals also classified as distractions to drivers.

Driving contract/pledge: An agreement between parents and teens outlining acceptable in-car behavior such as: no texting while driving, only emergency phone calls while driving (using hands-free attachment), only one passenger, no driving after 11 p.m.

DWD: Driving while distracted.

DWT: Driving while texting. See “Intexticated.”

FocusDriven: Advocacy group that seeks to end the use of cellular devices by drivers. The board is comprised of family members who lost children and other loved ones to accidents caused by drivers using cell phones.

GPS: Global positioning system. Use occasionally banned for drivers along with text messaging and chatting on cell phones. More typically, GPS use is allowed under distracted driving laws and legislation.

Handheld: Description of personal electronic devices requiring the use of one of two hands. A person holding a handheld cell phone typically takes one hand off the wheel in order to talk and drive. With text messaging, drivers often use both hands to send messages, using their forearms or knees to steer the vehicle. Laws and legislation typically use the term to differentiate from electronic devices that are built into the vehicle (such as a radio), or portable devices equipped with hands-free attachments such as Bluetooth headsets.

Hands free: Description of personal electronic device that requires no use of the hands. Most often used in connection with mobile phones that have been equipped with hands-free accessories such as a wire headset or Bluetooth headset. Some add-ons to cell phones allow drivers to dial by voice or to write text messages.

Intexticated: Slang for driving and texting behaviors such as weaving that are similar to those exhibited by drunken motorists. Some researchers say drivers perform better while intoxicated than while text messaging.

No Phone Zone: Safety campaign launched by talk show host Oprah Winfrey in January 2010. “The Oprah Winfrey Show” viewers are urged to sign a pledge not to engage in distracted driving behaviors such as texting or using handheld cell phones. In its first four months, the Oprah online sign-up page drew 325,000 pledges. Winfrey has hosted two specials on distracted driving, including one in which a governor signed a texting ban into law.

Primary enforcement: Lawmakers and police use this term to signify traffic offenses for which drivers can be stopped and cited. With “secondary enforcement,” law officers need another reason to pull over the drivers, such as speeding. Primary vs. secondary is a key dynamic in distracted driving legislation. In general, secondary enforcement is seen as a watered down approach to restricting drivers’ use of cell phones and text messaging devices. Some safety-conscious lawmakers have agreed to secondary enforcement in order to get distracted driving legislation on the books. In a few other cases, legislators have upgraded bills from secondary to primary in order to give the legislation teeth. And some states, notably Washington in 2010, have revisited their distracted driving laws in order to move from secondary to primary enforcement.

Secondary enforcement: Means police need another reason to stop and cite motorists who are in violation of a law such as a ban on texting. A ticket then can be issued for the secondary infraction. See “Primary enforcement.”

Want to add a term? Great! Use the comments feature below.

Far from distracted in Southern California

Out here in Calfornia, it’s hard to remember how it was. Back in the bad old days, before the state banned the use of handheld cell phones while driving.

Sure you see the occasional fool holding a mobile phone to his ear, but for the most part people here have accepted that phone calls can wait until the drive’s over. Too bad we can’t quantify the quite apparent but subjective truth that the freeways are better and safer with the cell phone and text messaging bans.

It was gratifying, then, to read this bit of confirmation in a letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun:

I just returned from a week’s vacation in southern California, and I was amazed that during my many trips on I-5 and I-405 that I did not see one person holding a cell phone while driving. … Also, I did not see cars wandering from one lane to another, cars going to slow on the interstate, and no accidents. Surprisingly, California drivers were attentive (even though they drive very fast) to what other cars were doing around them.

Thanks, Ron Wirsing. You’re welcome in our Golden State anytime.

Governor reaches out to drivers — by texting

Props to Gov. M. Jodi Rell for her plan to toughen Connecticut’s existing ban on driving and talking on handheld cell phones. She’s pushing for a text messaging ban, too.

No doubt Rell is one of the good guys on this issue.

But, get a load of the unfortunate wording in this invitation from the gov’s official web site:

Dear Friends:
If you are like me, there are days when you are on the road all day, away from your computer and with limited access to e-mail. However, you want to be the first to know of the important news … from my office. Now you can.

Sign up today to get text messages from my office sent to your cell phone. After all, keeping you up-to-date on what we are doing in Hartford is one of my top priorities. (Our italics)

Let’s hope no one who is “on the road all day” with a cell phone causes a wreck while reading Rell’s text message — regarding her text-messaging ban.

AMA’s Rx: No handheld devices for drivers

The American Medical Association — already on record against text messaging while driving — has endorsed laws that ban all forms of handheld devices for those behind the wheel.

Members called the use of handheld devices such as cell phones and texting devices “a very serious public health problem.”

“We’re very supportive of legislation to deal with this,” said AMA board member Dr. Edward Langston. “We want your hands on the steering wheel.

“A Harvard study estimates that about one in 20 traffic accidents involve a driver talking on a cell phone. By banning the use of handheld devices while driving, we can help prevent accidents and ensure the driver’s full attention is on the road.”

The AMA’s call for bans on drivers’ use of handheld devices includes cell phones, largely forgotten in the 2009 legislative rush to deal with texting by motorists.

The official position in favor of handheld cell phone laws was adopted the AMA’s semi-annual policy meeting on Nov. 10.

Last year the group of almost a quarter million physicians threw its weight behind various state efforts to ban text messaging while driving. “No one should have to worry that other drivers are focused on texting instead of traffic,” the medical association said at the time.

Calif. first lady caught on cell phone

The state of California’s first lady, Maria Shriver, has been photographed violating the handheld cell phone ban that her husband signed into law.

The governor promised “swift action.” Grounding perhaps?

The celebrity gossip web site TMZ posted a photo and video of Shriver yapping while driving at two different times, saying she dropped the cell phone when she realized she was being photographed.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used Twitter to say: “Thanks for bringing her violations to my attention. There’s going to be swift action.”

About the same time, TMZ said it caught Shriver yet again driving and cell-phoning in Brentwood. Here’s the evidence:

The unfriendly skies: Cell phones in flight

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio doesn’t like what he hears about the possibility of cell phones being legalized on airline flights.

He’s sponsoring the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace Act — or HANG UP — which would prohibit the FCC from allowing mobile phone use in the skies.

DeFazio, D-Oregon, is no buttinski — he’s a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

“After arriving hours early at the airport and often after waiting for a delayed, or even canceled, flight, what could make air travel worse?” he asks rhetorically in an opinion piece on cell phones on airplanes, in U.S. News & World Report. “How about being stuck next to a person droning on about his latest breakup or medical procedure for the length of your flight?”

DeFazio continues: “It is bad enough when the person sitting next to you on an overnight flight leaves the light on. Now imagine trying to sleep while he yaks on the phone. And on a plane, unlike on a bus or a train, a passenger cannot get up and move to get away from a person’s cellphone conversation. ”

His legislation recently passed the House of Representatives as part of the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2009. Support comes from the National Business Travel Association, the International Airline Passengers Association and the Association of Flight Attendants/Communications Workers of America.

For a rebuttal, arguing in favor of cell phones on planes, check out “If Europe Can Handle In-Flight Cellphone Use, So Can America.” Here’s a sample:

The proposed ban is based upon the incorrect assumption that everyone else on the planet is just more polite than we are and that American flight crews cannot maintain cabin decorum as their foreign counterparts have done and continue to do every day. … America is ready to join the rest of the world when it comes to in-flight communication connectivity.