Tag Archives: texting while driving

local news, State news

New state anti-texting law: no apparent deterrent

A friend posed a question on social media that needs an answer and a brief rant from yours truly. She asked whether anyone else “looks in their rear view mirror” when they are stopped to see if the person behind them is texting while driving a motor vehicle.

I answered “yes,” although I should have been a good bit more emphatic about it.

Texas legislators in 2017 finally approved a statewide ban on the use of hand held communications devices while driving motor vehicles. Amarillo already had an ordinance on the books, along with several other cities throughout the state.

To their credit, our local lawmakers backed the ban. It went to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk and he signed it, reversing the position taken by his immediate predecessor, Rick Perry, who vetoed a nearly identical bill in 2011; Gov. Perry offered one of the most idiotic reasons ever recorded for his veto, calling it a form of “government intrusion.”

So, then, are laws against speeding and drunk driving … if you follow Perry’s nonsensical “rationale.” Texting while driving is every bit as dangerous as swilling alcohol or speeding.

My rant follows this track. Since the enactment of the law, I do not sense a serious decline in the incidents of texting while driving. I see motorists constantly doing that very form of dual-tasking.

I curse them, often out loud and in a bellicose voice.

I haven’t traveled out of state in a while, so I cannot confirm this, but the last time my wife and I went beyond the state line I didn’t see any signage on the return trip advising motorists that texting while driving — or using hand held cell phones while driving — was against state law.

Not that such a warning necessarily will deter motorists from breaking the law, but … you get my drift.

There. Rant over.

I’ll now refer to a bumper sticker that once adorned a car we used to own — but which was destroyed in 2012 by a driver who rear-ended my wife while she well might have been texting while driving. The cops never revealed it to us.

Get off the phone and drive!

legal news, State news

Hoping that texting ban produces tangible result

My wife has many innate talents. One of them is her ability to detect someone who is texting while driving a motor vehicle.

Tooling along the northern edge of Des Moines, Iowa, she spotted a car in front of us; she was quite certain the driver wasn’t paying sufficient attention to the task of driving a motor vehicle. The driver was erratic; the car was weaving back and forth in the lane. Then the driver moved to the exit lane and sure enough, as we passed, we noticed a young woman looking at her texting device while hurtling along at about 60 mph.

I wanted to scream!

My wife then wondered about those electronic signs that the Texas Department of Transportation posts along our state’s highways that give us a running total of the traffic deaths during the calendar year. “I wonder if the state could put the number of fatalities caused by texting while driving,” she said.

I don’t know the answer to that. Then I mentioned that the state does keep some sort of record on the cause of traffic fatalities.

Oh, yes. The Texas Legislature this year finally approved a bill that bans texting while driving throughout the state. It’s now against state law to operate device while driving a motor vehicle. I thank Gov. Greg Abbott for signing the bill into law.

My hope now is that the new law, which takes effect in September, will have a tangible impact on the number of traffic deaths caused by that idiotic behavior, that the ban over time will reduce that number dramatically.

As for the moron we witnessed along the Des Moines freeway, I will say a prayer that she doesn’t hurt someone else — or herself — while acting so damn stupidly.

State news

No-text bill becomes law — finally!

I’ve been quick to criticize Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for this or that pronouncement or action.

I now want to praise him for signing a bill that should have become a state law long ago. Gov. Abbott has put his signature on a bill that bans texting while driving a motor vehicle; it now becomes against state law to perform a foolish and potentially deadly activity.

Well done, Gov. Abbott.

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/06/abbott-signs-texting-while-driving-ban/

One of the bill’s prime sponsors, state Rep. (and former Texas House Speaker) Tom Craddick said the governor has saved lives by signing this bill into law. Craddick, a Midland Republican, has been a champion for this cause over the course of several legislative sessions.

Indeed, Abbott’s immediate predecessor as governor, fellow Republican Rick Perry, vetoed a similar bill in 2011, claiming — ridiculously, in my view — the bill constituted a “governmental effort to micromanage the behavior of adults.” Sure thing, Gov. Perry. Then let’s not prohibit drinking while driving, or let’s allow motorists to drive without being strapped in with safety restraints. Isn’t that a form of “micromanagement,” too?

The new law, which takes effect in September, gives continuity across our vast state. It supersedes local ordinances and gives motorists ample warning when they enter the state that they’d better put their texting devices away … or else!

State news

Sign the texting-while-driving-ban bill, Gov. Abbott

OK, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

You’ve got a bill that bans texting while driving a motor vehicle on your desk, somewhere. You need to make it the law of the state.

The Texas Legislature has worked out some differences in the bill and it has approved it and sent it to you for your signature. You need to do this. You need to make texting while driving illegal throughout our vast state.

Furthermore, Gov. Abbott, you need to show the guts that your predecessor, Rick Perry, failed to show in 2011 when he vetoed a similar bill that landed on his desk. Gov. Perry said then that the bill was too “intrusive,” that it demonstrated some sort of government overreach into motorists’ lives.

Good grief, man! Is driving too fast an intrusion? How about banning open containers of alcoholic beverages in motor vehicles? We also require motorists to be insured; we demand they have valid driver’s licenses. Are those measures intrusive as well?

I know you really don’t need to hear this from me, but I will say it anyway. A statewide ban lends continuity to laws across the state. It pre-empts local ordinances that ban texting while driving. Indeed, not all communities in Texas have been as proactive as, say, Amarillo has been.

Indeed, the state can post signs at every entry point at state borders warning motorists that state law prohibits them from texting while driving. It’s a dangerous and foolish activity.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2017/05/22/texas-texting-while-driving-ban-governor/

I am particularly proud of our Texas Panhandle legislative delegation that has supported this ban. They belong to the same party as you do, governor.

Listen to them. Follow their lead. Sign the bill and make it law.

A lot of us out here want you to do the right thing.

Sports news

Act, Texas lawmakers, to make texting while driving illegal!

A tragedy in Uvalde County, Texas ought to spur the state’s Legislature to do something it needs to do with utmost urgency.

Here comes my rant.

The Legislature needs to enact a bill that’s pending to ban motorists from doing anything behind the wheel of a motor vehicle that doesn’t involve driving the damn thing.

It needs to ban texting while driving and using a handheld telephone while driving. It needs to send the bill to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk and the governor needs to sign it into law immediately.

Jody Kuchler is a hero in my book. He was driving along a highway near Garner State Park when he witnessed a vehicle swerving dramatically in front of him. He dialed 9-1-1 and pleaded with authorities to “get this guy” off the highway. He told dispatchers he was certain the driver would get himself killed or, worse, kill someone else.

He proved to be tragically prescient.

The pickup truck slammed head-on into a bus carrying members of a Baptist church in New Braunfels. Twelve passengers died at the scene. The driver of the pickup — 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young — admitted to police he was texting while driving.

Ban this activity

Would a law have prevented this person from committing this act of sheer idiocy — allegedly? Probably not.

But — dammit to hell! — there needs to be serious penalties attached to someone committing this kind of outrageous behavior.

There have been judges in Texas who have been unafraid to assess creative sentences to people who commit egregious crimes that result in death or serious injury.

My wife today came up with an idea: sentencing the perpetrator to community service — in addition to jail time — that includes speaking to high school students about the dangers of doing what he has done.

This story sickens and saddens me to my core. It also enrages me that the state of Texas hasn’t yet declared texting while driving important enough to make it illegal across our vast state.

I don’t blame the Legislature so much for this failure. The 2011 Legislature placed such a bill on Gov. Rick Perry’s desk. Perry vetoed it for the most stupid reason imaginable: He labeled it a form of government overreach.

I am hoping fervently that Gov. Abbott sees it differently.

State news

Texting-while-driving ban fails in Legislature

Tom Craddick wasn’t my favorite speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. He ran the place as though he owned it, not the people who elected its 150 members.

But when he got removed as speaker and became just another legislator from West Texas, well, something happened to him. He developed a keen eye toward what’s actually good for Texans — such as protecting motorists from idiots who simply cannot resist sending text messages while driving a motor vehicle.

To his great credit, the Midland Republican, persuaded his House colleagues to approve a statewide ban on that moronic practice. And to its great shame, the Texas Senate let Craddick’s bill die.

Texas texting & driving bill fails

House Bill 80 sailed through the House on a 102-40 vote. Then it fell a vote short of going to a vote before the full Senate. That means we’ll have to wait another two years before Texas joins the vast majority of other states in banning this practice.

Yeah, I know. I’ve heard the unenforceability argument. Big deal. Police officers are able to spot motorists doing all kinds of things they shouldn’t be doing. If we’re going to rely on a bogus notion that we cannot enforce no-texting-while-driving laws, then let’s repeal the law that bans motorists from driving with an open container of alcoholic beverage. What the hell: The cops can’t see the open can or bottle of beer unless the motorist actually lifts it to his or her mouth, correct?

I ran into state Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo, not long ago and he more or less suggested the Senate would drag its feet on this important piece of legislation. I pleaded with him to talk to his Senate colleagues to do the right thing. I have no clue if he did.

Texas stands among a shrinking field of states — I think it’s six of them, all told — that cannot muster the guts to lay down a law that makes it illegal to do what idiots cannot quit doing by themselves.

Will a law, by itself, prevent this behavior? No, but we still execute convicted capital murderers and that hasn’t stopped people from committing those heinous crimes.

One of these days, and I hope it’s soon, Texas legislators will wise up to do what’s right and make it illegal across the state to send text messages while driving.

Thanks, Rep. Craddick, for the valiant effort.

 

local news, State news

Texting ban bill needs to become law

2 Comments

Say it ain’t so, Texas Senate.

Please tell me you are going to follow the Texas House’s lead and send a bill banning texting while driving to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott. And please, governor, tell me you’re going to sign this bill into law.

Why am I asking these things?

I ran into a Texas House member Sunday and he told me he thinks there’s a chance the Senate won’t approve a bill that the House approved by overwhelming numbers about three weeks ago.

The state needs to enact a law that all but five other states already have enacted.

It would write into state law a prohibition against sending text messages while operating a motor vehicle. Is there a more stupid act than that?

Granted, motorists shouldn’t have to be told not to engage in such stupidity, but they do.

That’s where the state ought to come in, not to babysit the nimrods who cannot stop texting while driving — but to protect the rest of us traveling on our public streets and highways who are put in imminent danger by the dipsticks who cannot put their texting devices down.

Several cities across the state have enacted ordinances against this kind of (mis)behavior; Amarillo is one of them. Out-of-state motorists driving through Texas don’t know which cities have bans and which do not. A statewide ban that is promoted aggressively across the nation would make it clear that such idiocy won’t be tolerated in Texas.

The 2011 Legislature sent a texting ban bill to Gov. Rick Perry’s desk. But the governor vetoed it, issuing one of the most ridiculous veto messages imaginable, saying the bill was too intrusive, that it micromanaged Texans’ behavior on the road.

The Texas House has done its job. Now it’s the Texas Senate’s turn.

Well?

State news

Craddick leads text-ban fight

It’s hard for me to believe I am thinking so highly of state Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland.

I once exchanged testy letters with him after he engineered the ouster of Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, as speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

That was then. The now has revealed that Craddick is emerging as a good-government Republican. Evidence of that is House Bill 80, which today passed the state House, and brings the state a big step closer to banning the act of sending text messages while driving a motor vehicle.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/25/texas-house-texting-while-driving/

Craddick is on the side of the angels in this fight. Good for him. Good for the Texas House in approving the legislation.

HB 80 resembles a bill approved by the Legislature in 2011, only to be vetoed by then-Gov. Rick Perry, who called it an attempt to “micromanage” Texans’ behavior.

Gov. Greg Abbott hasn’t yet weighed in on HB 80, but my sincere hope is that he signs it.

Texas is among a handful of states, six of them, that haven’t approved a statewide texting-ban law. Several cities within the state — such as Amarillo — have enacted ordinances banning the insanely stupid idea of texting while driving.

The state needs to stand up for those who are threatened by the nimrods who cannot grasp the danger involved in operating a texting device while driving a 2-ton — or heavier — motor vehicle.

Craddick has been at the forefront of this important legislation.

I congratulate the former speaker for his guts on this issue.

Now it’s the Senate’s turn. Approve the bill, send it to Gov. Abbott’s desk, and then demand he sign it into law.

 

local news, State news

Texting ban needs to occur

So, I ran into state Rep. Four Price’s mother-in-law this week.

She told me Price, R-Amarillo, is in Austin “prefiling legislation” in advance of the next Texas Legislature, which convenes in January.

“I hope he files that ban on texting while driving,” I said, adding that the state needs to get tough with those who put others in danger on our public roadways. “I agree,” she said, chiming in with a comment supporting laws that ban smoking indoors.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/editorials/article/EDITORIAL-Texas-needs-ban-on-texting-while-5889014.php

My hunch is that we’re going to find out — quickly, I hope — what kind of governor Greg Abbott is going to be if he gets a texting ban bill on his desk.

He should sign the bill the moment it plops on his desk.

As my former newspaper, the Beaumont Enterprise, noted in an editorial, Texas wouldn’t be the first to ban texting while driving. Indeed, it would be one of the last states to do what it should have done already.  Forty-five states have such laws on the books.

Texas could have joined them, but Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a law in 2011, declaring that it “micromanaged” people’s lives.

Nuts!

The 2013 Legislature didn’t even pass a bill, knowing Perry would veto it again.

Now we get a new governor. It is my fervent hope he resists the pressure from the right wing of his Republican Party — which well could be led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — and approves a bill that Rep. Price and others throughout the Legislature say they support.

Do the right thing, ladies and gentlemen of the Texas Legislature.

 

 

Uncategorized

Statewide texting ban? Bring it!

Texas is going to consider next year whether to ban texting while driving all across the state.

I’m all for it! Do it, please.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=1033475#.U1SGTVJOWt8

Texas is one of seven states that doesn’t have a ban on the practice, which is a ridiculous exercise in multi-tasking. A motorist operating a vehicle — possibly at a high rate of speed — needs to be brain dead to try sending a text message while at the wheel of that vehicle.

No punishment, short of the Big One, seems to be too severe — to my way of thinking — for those convicted of endangering other motorists and pedestrians. My thought off the top is that anyone stupid enough to send a text message while driving is too stupid to drive a motor vehicle; thus, suspend their license indefinitely, if not forever.

Amarillo has a ban on the practice. It even bans the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, although enforcement of either ordinance appears to be spotty, according to some reports. Other cities report varying degrees of effectiveness.

Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a bill a no-texting bill in 2011. It didn’t come up in the 2013 legislative session. I haven’t asked our legislative delegation what it thinks of the idea. My guess is that Reps. John Smithee and Four Price, and Sen. Kel Seliger think it’s some form of “government intrusion” or some unenforceable law.

I see all of them on occasion. I intend to lobby them personally to support the idea.

Whoever is governor next year, Wendy Davis or Greg Abbott, might have a chance to sign such a bill into law. It is my fervent hope either of them will do what Rick Perry failed to do.