Momentum builds for texting ban
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By Peter Hirschfeld Vermont Press Bureau - Published: January 29, 2010
MONTPELIER – Senate lawmakers will fast-track a bill that would ban texting while driving, but legislators are still debating whether the new law should apply to all motorists or only younger drivers.
On Wednesday, in the well of the Vermont Senate, members of the transportation committee hosted a public forum on the proposed texting-while-driving law. A Colchester High School student, who said she logged 6,000 texts on her cell phone last month alone, testified to the ubiquity of the practice among her classmates.
Texting pervades every aspect of teenagers' lives, Elise Crowley said, including driving.
"It's very scary," she said.
Highway-safety experts have previously testified that texting – typing messages onto cell-phone keypads – has become one of the leading causes of distracted driving for younger drivers. Lawrence McLiverly, who heads up the Department of Liquor Control's Vermont Teen Leadership and Safety Program, said the advent of texting has intensified the dangers of an activity that already represents the number-one health risk to teens.
"I think, generationally, it is a little difficult to understand the depth of usage of texting," McLiverly told lawmakers. "Having been involved with my program for two years, it staggers me at times."
Anti-texting statutes with substantial fines and license suspensions for those who violate them, McLiverly said, will mitigate a practice that law-enforcement officials have likened to driving under the influence.
Sen. Phil Scott, a Washington County Republican and candidate for lieutenant governor, said his transportation committee will consider the recommendations offered up at Wednesday's forum. The question isn't whether the Senate will pass an anti-texting law, he said, but rather to whom the language will apply and how severe the penalties will be.
Omitted from the bill, he said, will be a broader ban requested during the most emotional testimony of the day. Eva Greene, a Dummerston woman, recounted the horrifying injuries her husband suffered while cycling along Route 5 in southern Vermont.
Bradford Greene, according to police documents, was struck from behind after a woman driving the vehicle became distracted by her handheld electronic device. Greene urged lawmakers to push for more expansive legislation that would ban the use of any handheld electronic device by a driver.
"What you're doing takes a lot courage, but I'm going to ask you to go step further," Greene said. "It's going to be difficult, but I ask you to be courageous and go further than just a ban on texting while driving."
Scott said it's a conversation the Legislature needs to have, but not one he wants to get "bogged down" in this year. Widespread support for the texting ban, he said, means the chamber can move a narrowly focused bill without sacrificing the time needed to concentrate on pressing fiscal issues.
Introducing cell phone bans or other provisions into the bill, he said, would turn the legislation into a political hot potato with little chance of passage.
"This texting issue is the one issue that is epidemic, and I think we need to move ahead and address it specifically," Scott said. "I think there will be opportunities to address some of the other issues brought up today, but I don't think we want to include them in this particular bill."
Tom Williams, regional manager of AAA Northern New England, said his organization estimates that 6,000 people died last year in crashes caused by distracted driving. Another half million, he said, were injured.
"Although there are some benefits to drivers' ability to call for assistance in cases of emergencies, these new technologies have also proven to be a challenge to motorists keeping their focus on driving," Williams said.
Williams said an AAA study conducted last year found that 25 percent of drivers admit to texting while driving even though 94 percent consider it dangerous. Those results might explain an AAA survey of Vermont drivers, which found that 96 percent support a ban on texting while driving.
Williams said the penalties should be severe enough to provide an adequate deterrent. Only stiff fines and minimum 30-day suspensions for teen drivers, many said Wednesday, will provide that kind of deterrent.
Glen Button, director of Enforcement and Safety for the Department of Motor Vehicles, said the Douglas Administration strongly supports a texting ban. Data compiled by state and federal agencies, he said, indicate the proliferation of a texting problem described by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood as an "epidemic."
Lahood on Tuesday instituted a nationwide ban on texting while driving for drivers of heavy trucks and buses.
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