State to Crack Down on Distracted Drivers

By Keith Laing
The News Service of Florida

A House panel took on cell phones Wednesday – sifting through a half-dozen bills aimed at cracking down on distracted driving.

The push to regulate texting or general cell phone use has become one of the most popular issues advanced by lawmakers heading into the spring session. But central to the debate: whether police should be able to issue citations solely for behind-the-wheel cell phone use, or whether tickets could be issued only if drivers are stopped for other traffic offenses.

There also seemed to be little consensus about how far to go in limiting phone use, said members of the House Roads, Bridges and Ports Policy Committee.

“What I’ve found is an overwhelming consensus that people understand and believe that texting while driving is wrong,” said Rep. Gary Aubuchon, R-Cape Coral. “Where the consensus begins to break down is when talk about other distracted driving issues. The consensus breaks down rather quickly as people then begin to debate whether a particular activity other than 10 to 2 on the steering wheel, eyes straight forward should be come law.”

Aubuchon, the committee chairman, said he hopes the panel can produce a bill combining the best parts of the measures it heard Wednesday. More than a dozen bills have been filed in the House and Senate aimed at prohibiting motorists from writing on their Blackberrys, talking on their cell phones, or texting.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have banned texting while driving. Six states and the District of Columbia have banned using hand-held phones while driving.

Two of the bills reviewed Wednesday (HB 41 and HB 323), by Rep. Doug Holder, R-Sarasota and Rep. Janet Long, D-Seminole, respectively, would ban reading or writing text messages altogether. Another (HB 221) focuses on school bus drivers, while HB 333 by Rep. Luis Garcia, D-Miami Beach and HB 893 by Rep. Perry Thurston, D- Plantation, would require hand-free devices for cell phones in cars.

HB 687, by Rep. Charles Chestnut, D-Gainesville, would outlaw the use of cell phones while in a school zone.

Even some frequent critics of regulation of personal behavior appeared Wednesday to be open to banning some form of texting-while-driving, although skepticism remained about the broader proposals to outlaw cell phone use.

“I think it’s becoming time that we do this,” Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando,” who told the panel “I’ve been known to be fairly resistant to this type of intrusion into our lives.”

But Precourt conceded that he was struggling to gauge what kind of limits should be imposed. “It seems to me that it might be just as distracting to be reading texts, or E-mails or your Sayfie Review or whatever it is on your iPhone as you’re driving down the highway,” Precourt said.

“There’s lot of different things that we could lump into the same category of significant distractions,” he said. “If we’re going to deal with this particular issue, then I suggest that we also look at the laundry list of other issues and make a conscious decision on where to draw the line with a group of things as opposed to just picking out one specific issue.”

But Rep. Mike Horner, R- Kissimmee, said that defining the ban too broadly would make it tough to support.

“I’m for a bill that addresses texting in general, but I share some of Rep. Precourt’s concerns about how far do we do take it,” he said. “Clearly it is less safe to be driving if you’re on a cell phone than off, but it is probably safer to drive without drinking coffee at the same time, so where is the line?”

Horner said “texting is a bright line in my mind, as a secondary thing, but when the bill starts getting into any kind of cell phone use, it become a little less bright.”

The panel seemed most comfortable advancing modest limits on phone use.

“It’s important we pass something this year and maybe tread lightly,” Horner said. “Texting as a secondary offense may be a good first step.”

Rep. Richard Steinberg, D-Miami Beach, countered by comparing texting to drunk driving, saying that both present possible harm to more than just the driver of a car.

“Basically you’re telling people if you believe you can do it safely, go ahead and do it if you make it secondary,” Steinberg said. “We don’t take that position with drinking. There are probably people would tell you when I drink, I can drive. You shouldn’t tell me that I shouldn’t drink and drive because I feel ok.'”

AAA Auto Club South, which traditionally pushes the Legislature to enact tougher driving laws, agreed.

“Primary enforcement is the only way to go,” AAA South senior vice-president Kevin Bakewell told the lawmakers. “It should be that way for all driving laws. Let’s not tie the hands of law enforcement Law enforcement has the opportunity to issue a warning, verbal or otherwise, if they feel like somebody should be ‘let off the hook.’ Let’s not send a message that sometimes texting while driving is safe, and therefore it should just be a secondary.”

But Rep. Holder, who sponsored one of the bills that solely banned text messaging, said the debate about how the ban would be enforced could blur its purpose. He said that research shows a driver is six times more likely to have accident while texting, even higher than the increase from talking on the phone.

“I have the utmost confidence in Florida law enforcement to enforce this,” he said. “The point is to influence behavior of people who are inclined to follow the law, kind of on the same vein is why do you stop at a red light at a vacant intersection in the middle of the night? If there’s a law against it, I think that a majority of Floridians will abide by that law.”

Holder added that Florida could miss out on millions of federal dollars if the state does not ban texting while driving, a strikingly similar argument to the case made last year by supporters of moving the state’s seat belt law to primary enforcement.