@bosskev: This cracked me up. Uh - bad choice of words...

stryder100

@RE-L: The headset frees up your other hand, but it doesn't help with the fact that you have a high level of distraction from the task at hand. Reaction times and accident rates are similar whether you have a headset or cell phone.

ludwigk

@se.beercan:
omg lol-ive garden me 2!

General Halfshaftery

@D.E.P.C.: Agreed. Studies show that talking on the phone or texting while driving reduces your driving skills to the level of being intoxicated. While losing your license over one text message seems like overkill, $20/$50 doesn't seem like enough of a punishment.

Of course, I say all of this from one of the 43 states that doesn't care.

topernicus

D.C. cops aren't doing a damn thing. metro police just give you a funny look for smoking weed on the street. i guess it all depends where you are in dc cause the whole place has got bigger problems than texting.

yungjerry703

@frigg:
How can this be enforced?

Actually it goes as follows:

Police officer sees driver

Decides he's pretty sure he saw the driver looking down a little.

Pulls over driver.

Requests cell phone.

Makes arrest.

Uses this as a reason to effect a search incident to arrest.

Runs hand under car seat and finds your stash.

Arrests you for drugs.

No longer worries about whether the prosecutor has enough to win on the text message charge.

92BuickLeSabre

@xvkarbear: I know. What an ugly, ugly phone. :(

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

woah! T9, my first Color phone, or the first color cell phone to be exact. This phone as the boom

Totalfixation

Here in California, we've had a general "no cell phone use while driving unless using a handsfree device" law since July. I'm guessing this new law must have been drafted up by the Department of Redundancy Department. That being said, I have almost been killed several times by people who were blatantly texting while driving.

MURPHtheSURF5

So, I guess email while driving is out too... damn

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

People who text or talk on their cellphones while driving are incredibly irresponsible (unless you are talking with a headset on of course). I wish that somehow they'd only hurt themselves in the process.

RE-L

giz, that's a really distasteful image. :(

xvkarbear

@snowtires: Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Doc, Happy, Bashful & Grumpy...

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

In Minnesota it's now against the law to text while driving. I'm all for it. I ride a motorcycle to work and am sick of watching people - repeatedly - nearly have accidents because they are too distracted. Teens, execs, construction workers... everyone seems to "need" to text while driving. I simply don't want to get hit and killed by someone who was "just trying to send a quick note."

zanella

How can this be enforced?

Police officer sees driver looking down a little.

Pulls over driver.

Requests cell phone.

Driver extracts cell phone from pocketbook.

Officer, familiar with all cell phones, examines texting log and determines a text was sent just as he observed the look-down.

Officer threatens ticket.

Driver giggles, agrees to provide officer with her cell # in lieu of ticket.

frigg

That is a Carte Blanché to racial profiling... the Cops will be able to stop anyone they want for no reason by saying that they suspected DWTM (Driving While Text Messaging). I feel like the year we live in, is going backwards and stopping circa "1984".

chumia40

yay for the mommy state!

arras

It's not a rumor!

strider_mt2k

Wait, so I get charged like $300(?) for not wearing a seatbelt and endangering myself, yet by texting and endangering countless others, I have to pay for a medium pizza?

Ab. Surd.

D.E.P.C.

@General Halfshaftery: 143.
ooh, ooh, text me back.

se.beercan

wait, what are the seven other states?

snowtires

That may be a slap on the wrist but id still be pissed if i had to pay $50 because i got caught sending a text message.

Odd_Thomas

Outrageous! Texting while driving is perfectly safe. In fact, right now I'm texting this message and driving 85mph down the freeway. What could possi

bosskev

T9'd!

General Halfshaftery

will he also terminate that online predator shirt?
kismet?

se.beercan

"The bill signed by the Governator himself imposes a $20 fine for the first offense and $50 for repeat offenders starting next year. Kind of a slap on the wrist if you ask me"

That's because, like most traffic violations, the fine ISN'T meant to deter you from doing it, but rather to raise revenue for the City/County/State department that pulls you over.

The fine is just large enough to make it worthwhile to stop you and ticket you, on the off chance that someone actually goes to court to fight it and costs the department more money, yet small enough that it doesn't REALLY deter people from doing it (like speeding) and most won't take the time to fight it.

Welcome to the new way to raise your "taxes".

It's been common to do special things like this for years.

"Safety inspection" roadblocks late at night on Friday and Saturday nights......

"Speeding awareness months" during the summer.....

"National 'Click it or Ticket' Months".......

"You drink, you drive, you lose" campaigns.....

"Work Zone fines are Doubled" setups where no work is actually being performed but some cones are setup so that they can write larger tickets....

etc....

mikeg916

@VideoVampire: Are they laden or unladen?

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

@chumia40: They already have their carte blanche. "You were driving erratically. Your tail-light is out. I smelled weed. You were over the speed limit."

All they need to do is nod in the general direction of probable cause. No judge that wants to keep their job will question it. This will change nothing.

Killjoy

@ MURPHtheSURF5

since July? that was in forge about 5 years ago back before I moved away from Los Angeles... where have you been?

dOk

Wait a minute... so not having my papers in order will cost me hundreds to thousands of dollars and may involve confiscation of my vehicle and supension of my license... but endangering the drivers around me with the possibility of violent death will cost me twenty dollars?

OK, got it.

Killjoy

@ludwigk: You are probably right about that.

RE-L

Funny I can no longer type a message on a digital device while driving, BUT if I want to I can write (old school style, ya know with a writing utensil and paper) my entire 80 page thesis on the mating habits of an African Swallow while driving and thats not illegal at all.

VideoVampire

@VideoVampire: Get to me when that gets to be a problem.

"How do you know so much about swallows?"

the_sidewinder

I'll be back

BostonPimpDaddy2

@MURPHtheSURF5:
actually texting was still legal in California. Phone calls without a handsfree device were illegal...but nothing about texting.

jcrockerman

@xvkarbear: Yes, it is. Well done, Sean!

bosskev

so how can they tell the difference between someone looking at the clock on their phone, and someone texting?

hagrun

Good. Now enforce it.

Cupajo

This also most likely a response to the recent case where there was a train crash in N LA, where the driver was possibly texting instead of checking the signals on the line.

Lots of folks died - train drivers were then banned from using cellphones - and here we are a few weeks later having car drivers banned from texting.

Coincidence?

MINI Driver

@xvkarbear: I thought they had found the cell phone of the guy who kept texting people after he was dead on the California train wreck.

Now THAT would have been a distasteful image.

jcrockerman

@mikeg916: My favorite, that we have in pennsylvannia is the so called "safety corridor." All fines doubled through this given stretch of highway. It also seems that more and more are popping up along the highway that i drive most frequently. I think they will eventually merge in to one giant safety corridor w/ the real goal being a quick and dirty way to double fines. I also notice that safety corridors are the places were people seem to speed the most, so they don't really help. (PA speed limit is 55, i average 65 and sometimes hit 70, but STILL i get passed by people who must be doing 80. They are often young college aged girls who i see chatting away on their phone as they blow by me.

All in all though, i don't have a problem w/ the texting fine. My mom used to text while driving and one time I actually just told her to stop. Her ability to drive dropped so low when texting it was rediculous.

luciusad2004

I hate when people say this is like a nanny state. I can think of no explanation for how people come up with such nincompoopery, except that they must be selfish thinkers by default.
I don't care about the idiot who is text messaging while driving; who can't seem to get it through his impossibly thick skull why these laws get passed. If he drives into a concrete barrier, great.

The PROBLEM is when that person drives into another innocent bystander while text messaging. That is the situation this law avoids, just like how you aren't allowed to murder people.
The law isn't thinking "oh no, we don't want people to live a life of guilt thinking they murdered someone! We have to help them by giving them incentive not to!" -- No, the law is thinking that an innocent person does not like to BE murdered, and so the act of murdering someone should consistently lead to significant punishment.

What should happen is we should have a more generic law that says "while driving, you may only operate the car and (at your option) a mechanism that is permitted by the government within that mechanism's stated use."

That would do away with just about all of this crap. As is, every time someone invents a new way for people to distract themselves in cars, we have to wait until people start dieing before the beauracracy comes up with another fricking law to add on to their stack.

Picklesworth

and yet.. doing your makeup while driving is still legal??

aeroworks

Who cares, i surf the web while i drive anyway.

aeroworks

Why do we need a further specialization of an existing, perfectly good "careless driving" law? You are inherently careless if you are texting while you are driving.

jarmod

@jcrockerman: Actually, my wife works for a branch of the police in California, and the original law covers ANY use of a cell phone while driving, including texting, operating the camera, email, etc., that cannot be done completely hands free.

MURPHtheSURF5

I can hardly navigate Los Angeles hair-raising daily traffic I just can't imagine how one can text at the same time. I guess some people are just good in multitasking. Sigh!

rjbuddyboi

That's why the Terminator is my hero~ Now if the other 43 states and Canada would hurry the fuck up. No more "Death by textin'" headlines.

cowpop

@92BuickLeSabre:
Well if you lock your cell phone they can't make you unlock it

analyticalmind84

Didn't go wireless when they told me too, and I don't expect to stop texting anytime either.

mr30gZune

While I appreciate these laws being passed for the safety of drivers, they're not gonna work if they're not being ENFORCED. I still see many drivers blatantly ignoring the hands-free cell phone law while driving around in the Bay Area. Selfish pricks.

dangster

i love how we cant text, but i can dial a number with an automated line and have to input 20 digits that's safe though i guess.

spider2544

Targeting a specific method of communication seems silly. Why not just ticket people for unsafe driving? You can't text, but other distractions are OK, e.g. eating fast food hamburges/fries, shaving, putting on makeup, yelling at kids in back seat, etc?

SuchetaKane

@xvkarbear: "That's what happens, man...that's what man."

integrate

@D.E.P.C.: I completely agree as well...I know girls who have completely total'd their cars on an open road with absolutely no cars around in broad daylight because of text messaging.

integrate

It just makes me wonder why more jurisdictions don't implement these rules. The province I live in, Quebec, has now made it a moving violation to be using your cell phone while driving... huge ticket, 3 demerit points. Considering how high insurance is already, you learn your lesson after 1 ticket.

OttoSimpson

Someone finally gets it. Thank you. @zanella:

sdunlimited

Racial profiling? Wow, where did you pull that one from? The big picture is the key here...The big picture, my friend! Time moves forward and not backwards...see, if I wrote this tomorrow you wouldn't be able to read it now. @chumia40:

sdunlimited

Hey buddy you ok? I'm gonna go get your shoe out of the fast lane... Hang in the @bosskev:

sdunlimited

How sad that laws must be made to fight stupidity.

justhesh

pssst, over here. California is lying to you. it is not a $20 fine. it's actually about $150. $20 base fine + $130 penalty assessment fee. What this means is they are putting an extra charge on your fine, trumping it up about 8 times. All fines get this, traffic, infraction, criminal. I hate how this is not even mentioned on blogs (mostly).

jkr's bold comment

@bosskev: Classic!

Drvec

It's a $250 fine for txting while driving here in Australia. You guys got it easy.

Nikuma

@MURPHtheSURF5 Murphy, you are wrong. I explicitly went and checked the DMV website when this law was passed. The law did allow texting. Not to insult you, but your wife's police dept was probably ignorant.

AmbroseCosta

How could a cop proove that you were texting anyway. You could say you were dialing a phone number and making a call using your bluetooth headset. That isn't illegal.

ronreal