DWT dangerous at any speed

By Terry Plumb - Special to The Herald

A Rock Hill attorney once represented a mutual friend, now deceased, who while driving one evening fell asleep, hit another vehicle and demolished his car. Fortunately, he wasn't seriously injured. Nevertheless, he was incensed that the trooper had charged him with “driving too fast for conditions.”

Despite his best legal reasoning, the lawyer couldn't convince his client that the trooper had done him a favor by charging him with the least offense possible. Finally, in frustration, the lawyer snapped: “When you're asleep, any speed is too fast for conditions.”

Whether Driving While Texting, or DWT, is riskier than Driving While Snoozing is debatable, but experts say that texting drivers pose a greater danger than drunken ones. In any case, evidence mounts that DWT is a growing cause of auto accidents in this country.

Last week, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., reported that nearly 100 teenagers died in the New York City area over the past five years because they or another driver was texting.

The U.S. Department of Transportation says that about 20 percent of accidents occur because the driver was texting or talking on a cell phone, and that most of those accidents involve drivers younger than 20.

A study by the University of Utah shows that teenagers are eight times more likely to be involved in a crash if they text while driving. When drivers text, the study showed, they take their eyes off the road for about 5 seconds — long enough for the car to travel more than 100 yards.

Some critics are calling for a law to punish states that don't ban texting while driving. Individual states are responsible for highway safety, but Congress has been known to bully states into adopting stricter road rules. Lower blood-alcohol levels and mandatory seatbelt laws are examples of such top-down reforms.

Eighteen states already prohibit driving while texting. South Carolina isn't among them, of course.It took years for Palmetto State legislators to pass a mandatory seatbelt law, and when our libertarian governor, Mark Sanford, vetoed a law prohibiting children from operating all-terrain vehicles, they couldn't muster enough votes to overturn it.

Sanford's argument? That it's parents' responsibility to keep children safe. As for the kids who die because they were unlucky enough to have been born to numbskulls, well, that's the price for living free in the Tough Love State.

The case against Driving While Texting is so obvious, however, that even our lawmakers will figure it out sooner or later. It will be interesting to see which candidate for governor next year calls a press conference to propose outlawing DWT.

Texting is so ingrained in our culture, any ban would need to be backed by a hefty penalty. Suspension of the offender's driving license for six months would be a good starter.

Auto insurance companies could put a major dent in the practice by including a clause in policies voiding coverage when it can be shown the insured was using a cell phone while driving.

Some have suggested that manufacturers be required to produce cell phones that could not be operated while the user was driving. That might be easy to do with communication devices built into the car but harder with hand-held phones.

A better approach would be to encourage behavior change. Say what you will about smoking bans in public places, but they work — less because of the fear of fines than because of social pressure. When everyone in the room looks at a smoker like a dog that just pooped on the carpet, the rate of smoking drops.

Tobacco advocates rant about how smoking bans violate their rights, but recent reports on the how anti-smoking laws have led to dramatic decreases in heart attacks vindicate the notion that while government may not be able to legislate morality, it can reduce socially destructive behavior.

Because young people primarily are responsible for the 110 billion text messages Americans send during a given month, to be effective anti-DWT campaigns would have to be targeted at that group.

How about getting pop celebrities to donate free downloads for cell phones with messages such as, “Not now, Dude! I'm driving.”