Texting and cell phone use while driving: Washington’s turn
(NOTE: HOUSE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE WILL HOLD A PUBLIC HEARING ON HOUSE BILL 2635 AT 1:30 P.M. MONDAY)
The statistics are simply overwhelming: When you text and drive, you are impaired at the same level as if you had twice the legal limit of alcohol inside of you. When you use a wireless phone, you increase your chances of a crash exponentially.
I am deeply honored to be working with the indefatigable Sen. Tracey Eide to strengthen the laws against use of a cell phone in the car. Our modest, measured and appropriate legislation in being heard in both the House and Senate transportation committees on Monday. This puts us in line with most other states.
(The National Safety Council has called for a nationwide ban on the use of cell phones in vehicles, a move I do not favor.)
The Driven to Distraction Task Force, a new citizen’s group that formed to make the Washington legislation happen, has been simply amazing. They have organized, volunteered hundreds of hours, educated legislators and the public, and stepped up to make this happen. My friend and 36th District constituent Lowell Weiss has quietly and modestly helped assemble a broad coalition of fellow volunteer citizen activists to push it all forward.
The legislation does three things: 1) It makes it a primary offense (meaning the police can stop you) for using a cell phone without a headset; 2) It makes it a primary offense to text while driving; 3) It makes it unlawful for any 16 or 17 year old to use a phone behind the wheel at all (except emergency call).
Sen. Eide has been the lead on this issue for nearly a decade and her passion around safety on the roads is beyond measure. As a wireless gadget guy through and through, and a long time wireless industry entrepreneur, I had to think long and hard about this issue. And I have. I have a libertarian streak on a number of regulatory issues, and like many I don’t appreciate the ‘nanny state’ efforts of many in government, but this is about our basic right to be safe on our roads. Period. I appreciate the concerns of many about the logistical enforcement of this problem, but surely we must begin.
I am proud of my former industry that has embraced this legislation in Washington and nationwide since it is about the safety of their customers. As the issue has become more pronounced nationwide, the country’s four major mobile operators, AT&T Wireless Services, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, have all taken clear public policy stands in favor of thoughtful, measured legislation to help ensure safety. (Disclosure: The mentioned companies have contributed to my campaigns)
The more I’ve learned about the cold, hard realities of the statistics and the quality of the data showing how dangerous it really is for all of us, the more passionate I’ve become that we must act now.
For too long I personally have been guilty of slipping a look at my cell phone while driving. No more. It’s too serious, too deadly and too important. It’s not about being a legislator, it’s about being a husband and father of four young children.
Please take a few minutes to visit the task force’s web site here or read some of the Q&A’s below.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cell Phone Legislation Proposed by Sen. Tracey Eide and Rep. Reuven Carlyle
Q: What would the legislation do?
A: The legislation would do three things:
1. It would strengthen the state’s ban on driving while texting and emailing, making it a primary offense rather than a secondary one—meaning that police will not have to wait for drivers to commit an additional violation before pulling them over for texting or emailing.
2. It would strengthen the state’s ban on driving while using a handheld cell phone from a secondary offense to a primary one.
3. It would ban teen drivers who hold an intermediate driver’s license from using all electronic devices. A violation of this ban would be a primary offense.
Q: Are there any exceptions for emergencies?
A: Yes. The legislation allows drivers to use cell phones to report illegal activity, summon emergency help, or prevent injury to a person or property.
Q: How much will a ticket cost?
A: The standard fine is $124. However, distracted motorists who cause a collision may be charged with a negligent driving infraction worth $550 or more if someone is seriously injured.
Q: Where do these fines go?
A: To deter police from pulling people over inappropriately, none of the money from a traffic fine goes to the police. By law, 36% of the fine goes to the local jurisdiction where the citation was issued, and 36% goes to the state’s Public Safety Education Account. The rest goes to the judicial information system, EMS and trauma care, auto theft protection, and traumatic brain injury awareness.
Q: Is this legislation motivated by a desire to raise revenue in a year when there’s a huge budget shortfall in Olympia?
A: No. The primary motivation for the legislation is the overwhelming evidence that cell phone use by drivers causes a high degree of distraction and significantly increases the risk of crashes. Budget analysts believe that the new legislation is revenue-neutral—that is, it would neither raise nor cost the state any revenue.
Q: How many collisions are caused by cell phone driving in Washington State?
A: Good state data don’t exist, but the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis concluded that cell phone distraction accounts for at least 2,600 deaths and 636,000 crashes every year in the U.S.
Q: What evidence is there that primary enforcement is effective?
A: When they are backed by primary enforcement, bans on cell phone use have significantly reduced the rate of cell phone driving. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety sums up the evidence as follows: “After a ban was passed in the District of Columbia in 2004, driver handheld phone use dropped 41 percent. Nearly five years after the ban, the rate of hand-held phone use was 43 percent lower than would have been expected without a ban. Connecticut’s ban took effect in 2005. Hand-held phone use immediately declined an estimated 76 percent, and more than three years later use was 65 percent lower than would have been expected without a ban.” The Automobile Club of Southern California saw a similar effect in California: The ban produced a drop of 65 percent shortly after the ban went into effect. Ten months later, cell phone use remained 58 percent below where it was before the state implemented its law.
Washington State’s experience with seatbelt laws also shows the value of primary enforcement. After the state’s seatbelt law was converted from a secondary offense to a primary offense, seatbelt use increased from 82% (2001) to 97% (2008).
Q: What have other states done with regard to cell phone driving?
A: The District of Columbia and 15 states have already made it a primary offense to text and drive. The District of Columbia and five states—California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon—have made it a primary offense to talk on handheld cell phones while driving. Here is a link to a chart listing every state’s laws on cell phone driving: http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html
Q: What do police agencies think of the proposed legislation?
A: The Washington State Patrol and many local police agencies support the new legislation. They report that the current law is ineffective. In fact, police officers directing traffic in construction zones and at sporting events say they feel personally at risk from drivers talking on their cell phones or texting.
Q: Isn’t this just another case of trying to legislate away every potential risk?
A: No. Cell phone driving represents an unacceptably large risk and cost to the people of Washington State. Cell phone use while driving has been shown to be as dangerous as drunk driving. In fact, texting has been shown to be as dangerous as driving at twice the legal blood-alcohol limit. And it’s not a small group who use their cell phones while driving; more than 80 percent of drivers acknowledge that they talk or text. Strong drunk-driving laws, backed by primary enforcement, have significantly reduced deaths and injuries from impaired driving in Washington. The same approach will also work to reduce crashes caused by people who text or talk on cell phones while driving.
Q: How many tickets have been written since the current law went into effect?
A: From July 1, 2008 to November 15, 2009, the Washington State Patrol wrote 2,271 tickets for talking on a handheld cell phone and another 316 for texting while driving. For comparison, the Washington State Patrol issues nearly 300,000 speeding tickets every year.
Q: Shouldn’t we focus more on making drivers aware of the current law?
A: Awareness of the law is not the issue. A recent survey conducted by EMC Research for the Seattle Department of Transportation found that 97% of those surveyed already knew that talking on a handheld cell phone is illegal. Research shows that increasing the level of awareness is not enough by itself to change driver behavior. Strong laws, coupled with sustained and high-visibility enforcement, do change driver behavior, reduce crashes, and save lives.
Shortly after, we can then pave the way for making it illegal to change the radio station while you are driving or drinking a beverage, or putting a CD/Ipod in the player.
To enforce these “moving violations”, we could also make it mandatory to have a state-issued micro-camera installed on your dash or mirror. That way, State-lawmakers could catch any possible lapse in judgment you might make while you are behind the wheel and keep you safe, safe, safe (ahem…and bring some revenue in without an “official” tax)
…..
…… just an opinion.
I think a mind shift among the general population needs to occur. Cellphones only became really popular in the last 15 to 20 years and at first there wasn’t any need to moderate them, and so people never really thought about the risks! But just like getting in the car and putting on your seat belt has become a habit, so too should putting away your cellphone while you are at the wheel!
alliwaw-
The question you are failing to ask yourself is, where do you draw the line on what government should “moderate”?
(As a disclaimer, Rep. Carlyle and I agree that people under the age of 18 should definitely be targeted in this kind of legislation because they certainly aren’t technically an adult by law, yet, they are allowed to be on the roads driving.)
The troubling part of going along with this kind of Legislation, (making something they decide will “endanger” you behind the wheel ILLEGAL) is that it paves the way for more politicians to tell you what you can and can’t do and then take your money when they deem your choices unacceptable.
This is where it gets tricky. I recently met Rep. Carlyle and he seems to be a nice and caring guy. What politicians seem to ignore though, is the more you regulate, the more “worms come out of the can.”
You may think some of my analogies seem far fetched and laughable, but just wait. By supporting these kinds of limits on individual liberties you, in essence, give a green light for politicians to create future laws under the guise of protection that almost always limit your freedoms in your everyday life.
Since government is essentially BROKE and continues to spend well beyond their means, you better believe they will be looking for any way or mean to bring revenue in. That certainly means new ways to “look out for you” by punishing you through your pocketbook.
I’ve already voiced most of my concerns here:
http://www.phinneywood.com/2010/01/21/the-budget-marijuana-cell-phones-top-‘telephone-town-hall’/#comments
Your proposed ‘ban’ on what is defined as ‘texting and email on cell phones’ is hilariously useless, and will not be enforceable. Sorry if that sounds rude, but it’s the truth. This is one of those useless laws that will never make a lick of difference. At best, it will generate more income for the state.
You can pass all of the laws that you like. Doesn’t mean the problem will go away. You want to know the root cause for accidental death in America? Stupidity. People aren’t too bright. Texting while driving? Yep. That’s under the same umbrella. Because guess what? Drinking and driving is illegal (in almost every state). That doesn’t stop people from doing it, and killing themselves and others, does it? How about the tickets and fines? Does that stop it from happening? Of course not. People are bound to do stupid things, Rep. Carlyle.
Allow me to illustrate why this proposed legislation is a total waste of everyone’s time:
What if I use my phone for navigation? What if I hit the ‘voice command’ button while driving? Does that fall into your categorical ban? How will an officer know I wasn’t texting? More importantly: how will he even see any of this? How will this be enforceable? What if I’m receiving a call, and I have to scramble to find and setup my headset? Is that not just as dangerous? I’m drinking a hot cup of coffee, and I spill it on my crotch, drifting into the other lanes because of the pain. Is that not just as distracting and dangerous?
So, it’ll be against the law to operate my cell phone while driving, but it’s okay to eat chili fries, shave and put on make-up. I can see how that makes sense.
Admit it: this is another revenue stream. It’s okay to admit it. That’s the ‘transparent government’ you’re supposedly in favor of. If it’s honestly an attempt at making our communities safer, then brother, you’ve got bigger fish to fry. I’m sorry that nobody has told you any sooner. Let me address the issues of safety and ‘balancing the budget’.
How about you put your efforts towards cleaning up our streets, which are now polluted by abusive lowlives, living out of their RVs? Been through Ballard, lately? Maybe one out of ten of these transient people are decent. The fast majority are littering, polluting, trespassing, drug-addled cretins. In the past month, I’ve watched them:
1) Work on their vehicles in the street, filling the drains with vehicle chemicals (against the law)
2) Illegally dump trash (against the law)
3) Deal illegal drugs (against the law)
4) Sit on the street corner and drink out of open alcoholic beverages (against the law)
5) Expose themselves in public, by using private lawns and properties as their toilets (against the law)
When we go to work, during the day, they rob our homes. When we come home, in the night, they break into our cars. When they aren’t doing that, they take advantage of our kindness at the shelters and at the food banks (neither of which screen their guests). Our police force is spread so thin, that they can’t be bothered to respond to calls involving these problematic transients (considering the law ties their arms to begin with). The burden (and stress) is placed upon the citizen, who in turn, are completely helpless.
We need more police presence on the streets.
Seattle has enough problems, Rep. Carlyle. Please set your eye on the prize, or let someone with more common sense fill your seat. In a perfect Conservative Democrat world, we’d ban everything ‘bad’, and the world would become a magical wonderland. Sadly, we do not live in such a world of magic.
Oh, and you want some pointers on ‘balancing the budget’ and ‘keeping it fair’? How about this: put your efforts towards legalizing and regulating marijuana and other recreational drugs. It puts the street dealers out of work, and it generates an obscene amount of money, via taxes. Not only that, it creates a whole supporting industry (jobs!). Legalizing marijuana places less of a strain on our jailing systems, thusly freeing up more resources to be spent in more important areas.
And for the record: I can’t stand pot. I hate the smell of it, and I dislike most people who worship it. But you know what? It really will fix a lot of our financial problems, if we legalize it. I can’t just will pot out of existence with some legislation, like you seem to think you can with cell phones and driving. It’s time to stand up to the Federal Government’s unconstitutional bullying of State Government. Legalize , regulate and tax the hell out of pot and other recreational drugs. You will cut down on crime and balance the budget. Hell, you’ll have a surplus budget from the constant stream of revenue. We’ll have wasted less taxpayer money, attempting to enforce a non-problem.
You may use these ideas, free of charge. I’m a ThinkTank for Common Sense. You’re welcome.
Reuven, help me. The Harvard Center’s (you cite them above) 200o paper on the risk of cell phone use states:
The adverse effect of cellular phone use on traffic safety is not sufficiently large to be detected in overall counts of fatalities. While cellular phone use has
grown 17-fold between 1990-1998, U.S. traffic fatalities have continued a steady decline that began more than 30 years ago.
AND
We conclude that although there is evidence that using a cellular phone while driving poses risks to both the driver and others, it may be premature to enact substantial restrictions at this time. We simply do not have enough reliable information on which to base reasonable policy. Industry, government, and academia should rapidly enhance the knowledge base on cellular phone use by motorists and, in the interim, should encourage more selective and prudent use of cellular phones while driving.
The paper can be found here: Cellular Phones and Driving: Weighing the Risks and Benefits
Am I missing something? Is there a more recent study from them? Regardless, it is still impossible for the nanny state advocates to state why, with cell phone use up exponentially over the years, accidents are down. DOWN.
I think the main thrust’s of the center’s work is to put risks in context and to prevent unnecessary litigation while at the same time focusing policymaker’s work on items that are of vital importance to the safety of the public rather than issues that make headlines.
I note that the home page of the task force is all about the headlines.
In answer to Gene’s concerns, the Harvard study is now 10 years old. Since then, cell phone use has increased from 38% of the population to 87% of the population in 2008 — likely more now only 2 years later. Texting has emerged and increased 10,000x in only the past 5 years. The policy issues are different today than they were only 10 years ago due to the dramatic increase and change in cell phone use.
Crashes are down due to many safety improvements making major gains since the mid-90s: improved vehicle engineering and nearly all vehicles now having life-saving benefits of airbags, more people wearing seat belts, impaired driving decreasing, and the widespread use of GDL to decrease teen driver crashes. And many more — vehicle stability engineering, roadway engineering. In recent years, gas prices and the economy have decreased driving overall, which has decreased the crash rate even further. Millions of people in each state now don’t even have jobs to commute to/from every day and money-spending errands are down.
But who’s to say crashes couldn’t have decreased even more without the dramatic growth of cell phones? Thousands of people are killed every year in crashes involving cell phones — hundreds of thousands more are injured — so is a policy not worth saving these lives and preventing these injuries? Without a doubt, we know these deaths and injuries are happening. Year after year.
“Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice.”
—Arcesilaus
Deb writes: “But who’s to say crashes couldn’t have decreased even more without the dramatic growth of cell phones? Thousands of people are killed every year in crashes involving cell phones — hundreds of thousands more are injured — so is a policy not worth saving these lives and preventing these injuries? ”
This is weak reasoning buttressed by references to anecdotal evidence…It makes a poor foundation for a law imposed on fellow citizens. Laws that hinder liberty, even in a small way, should be grounded in solid science. Not…”I have some stories of harm done so let’s ban the activity I have identified as the cause.” The Obama Administration has made it a point to change policy-making to one that is more evidence based and less politics-based. So why have we passed this law? I understand that the evidence, what little there is, points to NO DIFFERENCE in distraction between talking over the phone EITHER ON OR OFF the headset. Why does the the law then target those without headsets? I also understand that it exempts law enforcement. Those that enforce the law do not have to obey it. This is almost always a bad policy that leads to oppressive government.
Reuven, less laws like this please. Less laws period. When will you blog about removing a stupid, out-of-date or unenforceable law from the books? This is important work…why do lawmakers take their title “lawmaker” so literally? The point is not to make laws but to provide only those laws society needs to function. Otherwise we get “a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.” (Frank Zappa)
While we are in the area of Texting and cell phone use while driving: Washington’s turn Official Reuven Carlyle Blog, Always keep the car clean and washed. It is also recommended that the car be waxed regularly. This helps by improving aerodynamics and can help in improving gas mileage.