Texting While Driving
Why are the Laws so Different?
A new film about the dangers of texting while driving posted on YouTube took the world by storm this week. It was produced on a tiny $20,000 budget by Gwent Police in Wales and features a 17-year-old girl getting distracted by a text message on her mobile phone while driving two friends in her car. The consequences are devastating and the horrifying scenes that follow make the viewer’s blood run cold.
International Attention
Although the footage was intended for a UK audience, or more accurately, a small community in Wales, it has received worldwide attention after being posted on YouTube. It has particularly caught the attention of the US audience, where it has appeared on television programs country-wide. This is doubtless because texting while driving is still legal in more than half of the states of America. Such a revelation seems outrageous to the wider international community. The majority of European countries, plus some African, Asian, Central and South American countries, have had a legal ban in place for some time now. Taking it one step further, Israel, Japan, Portugal and Singapore have even made it illegal to use a hand-held or hands-free mobile phone while driving.
How is Texting While Driving Legal?
When it’s widely accepted that texting while driving is ridiculously dangerous – one recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute estimates that people sending text messages while driving are 23 times more likely to be in a crash – how can it still be legal in some countries and parts of the United States? In particular, the United States of America, as one of the leading nations of the world, should be setting a precedent in terms of rules and regulations that keep its people safe. Not to mention that laws such as this are basic common sense. Drink-driving laws have made drinking under the influence of alcohol illegal for as long as we can remember, yet there are a number of credible studies which find that texting when driving could even be more dangerous than drink-driving.
International Texting and Driving Laws
Furthermore, when laws are put into place to tackle texting while driving, not all of them stipulate an outright ban. Some countries only prohibit it in their largest or capital city, including Mexico, Iran and Pakistan. The US state of Missouri recently banned text messaging while driving, but only restricts drivers aged 21 years or younger from sending, reading, or writing an electronic message while driving. The case is the same in Delaware, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon and West Virginia, whose laws only apply to underage drivers or those with learner’s permits. So pretty much anyone who’s no longer a child can still text and drive. Is it not just as dangerous to text and drive regardless of your age?
In the state of Texas, it is illegal for school bus drivers to text while transporting children under the age of 17.
The state of Florida has been talking about a proposed bill called ‘Heather’s Law’ after a Floridian woman, Heather Hurd, was killed instantly when a truck driver crashed into ten cars when he was sending a text message while driving. Sensibly, the bill would ban all cell phone use behind the wheel, but discussions continue with no legalization apparently forthcoming.
Absence of Rational Laws
Just as it’s blatantly commonsensical not to drink or take drugs while driving, nor do anything else that takes a driver's attention away from the road for even a moment, all drivers should take responsibility to protect themselves, their passengers, other motorists and pedestrians by refraining from texting while driving. In the absence of a universally, internationally sagacious law banning texting while driving outright, it seems the global citizen has only himself to rely on.
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