Shut off teen texting in cars
Here is a Springfield News-Leader Editorial that makes a lot of sense. Call your Missouri state senator or representative. Especially if you ride a bicycle or motorcycle on Missouri roads.
Missouri lawmakers should support a proposal banning new drivers from using cell phones.
DECEMBER 16, 2008
SFETE! TISC!! I PAST!!!
In cell-phone text that means: "Smiling from ear to ear. This is so cool. I passed."
Currently, there's no prohibition in Missouri against a new, 16-year-old driver text-messaging his friends -- just as soon as he drives away from the license center -- that he's now a legal driver.
Evidence mounts that distraction caused by such messaging is more dangerous than driving after drinking.
But texting while driving remains perfectly legal, no matter your age or driving experience.
During a rainstorm, through a school zone, while taking little sister to day care -- all legal, even if the driver hasn't yet learned how to check for a blind spot on his left.
Wisely, some Missouri legislators plan to again debate cell phone restrictions during the next session. Several lawmakers have said they want to try to limit the use of cell phones for everyone. Some want to require hands-free listening devices.
Attempts to enact cell-phone laws last year failed. We hope that this year the lawmakers will focus on new drivers, as Rep. Charlie Norr, D-Springfield, is suggesting. We think they should be forced to spend at least their first year as drivers phone-free.
Norr, a former firefighter in Maryland, said the dangers of trying to drive while distracted are widely known, and have caused much carnage. He is realistic enough to know that lawmakers cannot do anything about many of those distractions -- like eating or trying to handle business matters by phone while on the road -- but he is hoping to push legislation this session focusing on the young drivers.
Of course, some will call such a restriction "ageism," or presumptuous or an overreaction. Those arguments should be ignored. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and studies routinely show that teenagers take too many chances on the road.
It's bad enough to have the loud friends in the back seat, or windy, hilly roads, or bad weather. Leave the cell phone out of the equation, at least long enough for a teenager to have some sense of the responsibility -- and the danger -- that comes when you get behind the wheel.
I would also suggest reading Andy Clines post on the subject
Also see my previous post and watch the video.
