If you were king/queen for the day, how would you fix the texting while driving problem?

[CrackbottomLouis]

https://carsurance.net/blog/texting-and-driving-statistics/

Quick Texting and Driving Statistics – 2019 (Editor’s Choice)

• Driving while texting causes 1.6 million car accidents in the US every year.

• 21% of US drivers reported sending emails or text messages while on the road.

• 14% of all fatal crashes in the US involved the use of a cell phone.

• In 2018, the number of deaths related to cell phone use in car accidents was 4,637 in the US alone.
• Almost 390,000 injuries occur annually in the US due to texting while driving.

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Yeah, it's a major issue.

Correlation does not equal causation. Be wary of government stats.

 

[Terri9630]

I wonder how this works with people that have 2 or more cell phones? What if it was a burner phone? What if they were using someone elses phone? I wonder if frequent offenders would just get a cell phone registered in a family members name but use it as their own? I'm just thinking of ways someone who was determined to do this would get around the law.

I'm sure there are ways around it but just knowing that the court can see and compare the times has cut back on people contesting the tickets. If it causes an accident insurance companies have investigators that can work out the rest of the issues you posed. Its not hard to look at the accounts records and see which phones were in the vehicle by gps info.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Be wary of government stats.

I don't often refer to them, that's why I linked car insurance stats.

Either way it is estimated that 11 teens are killed every day from texting while driving (or Facebook, or, or, etc.) I can't say how many times I have been behind someone at a light, the light changes green and there they sit with their nose in their device.

I was almost hit in my big truck one day in Ohio, the guy, a 20 something, was running in the center lane while I was in the right lane, when he went by me he was driving with his knee and both hands working his tablet. I was running north on 23 coming out of Ohio on another day and I was in the passing lane, the truck I was passing veered into my lane forcing me to lay on the air horn and veer as far to the left as I could to avoid being hit. When I got up beside him, yep, you guessed it he had his cell phone in his hand doing something.

It's hard to say, but I do believe it's an issue, running 140,000 miles a year will expose you to a lot of it.

 

[Grizzleyette___Adams]

What absolutely ticks me off are the folks who think they can multi-task while behind the wheel, and someday tragically learn that they cannot...simply because we are all human. We don't have more than two eyes and they are not built to be multi-directional. We are not chameleons.

But unfortunately we have folks who insist on risking the lives of those around them because they think they are in 100% control of the situation. Statistics speak loudly to me, more so than what some people think. I highly resent others endangering my life because of their seriously flawed thinking.

 

[CrackbottomLouis]

I don't often refer to them, that's why I linked car insurance stats.

Either way it is estimated that 11 teens are killed every day from texting while driving (or Facebook, or, or, etc.) I can't say how many times I have been behind someone at a light, the light changes green and there they sit with their nose in their device.

I was almost hit in my big truck one day in Ohio, the guy, a 20 something, was running in the center lane while I was in the right lane, when he went by me he was driving with his knee and both hands working his tablet. I was running north on 23 coming out of Ohio on another day and I was in the passing lane, the truck I was passing veered into my lane forcing me to lay on the air horn and veer as far to the left as I could to avoid being hit. When I got up beside him, yep, you guessed it he had his cell phone in his hand doing something.

It's hard to say, but I do believe it's an issue, running 140,000 miles a year will expose you to a lot of it.

I know it's an issue. Just not, imo, as much as we make it out to be. I used to drive otr a couple years ago so I've been exposed to it too. My main point is we already have laws that cover this. Reckless driving, reckless endangerment, manslaughter in the worst cases. No need for a slew of new laws when we already have laws on the books to cover irresponsible idiocy. I still think social peer pressure through media etc will be far more effective than insisting on the heavy hand of gov. Just my 2 cents.