The issue isn’t if the new texting while driving law is enforceable, it’s about if it’s strong enough to create a change. Some people believe the new law is unenforceable and therefore a trivial, inconsequential law, something to be laughed at and ignored. For others, the law offers hope for the future of driving safety, much like the Utah seat belt laws enacted in 1994.
Attitudes toward buckling up have changed drastically over the years. Children now don’t even question the idea–“click it” is an automatic response whenever they enter a vehicle. Youth are blissfully unaware of the effort and energy it took to facilitate the nationwide mentality change during the past decade.
In April, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported in 2008 that 83 percent of Americans now wear their seat belts. Utahns have increased their seat belt usage from 75.7 percent in 2000 to 86 percent in 2008. The previously scoffed-at law has essentially altered the way a nation regards driving safety.
Similarly, the new DWT (driving while texting) law is no joke to be laughed off as a fact of life or something everyone is doing so it can’t be stopped.
Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, said his efforts in helping to pass the law began when a widow from Logan approached him seeking his help. Her husband was a rocket scientist on his way to work in September 2006 with a fellow employee as a passenger. Another driver was texting and his inattention allowed his vehicle to drift across the lane. He crashed into her husband’s oncoming vehicle, killing him and his friend.
Hillyard said the Logan County attorney’s office was having a problem determining what the man should be charged with because DWT fell under the offense of being a distracted driver, a class C misdemeanor. In this case, they felt the driver should be charged with reckless driving to prove negligent homicide, which is a class A misdemeanor. He believed the law as it was did not take into consideration the conduct of texting, which is much more severe than speeding or other traffic violations.
“It’s a technical kind of thing that you cannot enforce every law, but the whole point I was trying to make is this: Regardless of that fact, if it’s hard to enforce or not hard to enforce, it is for us to say as a position that we are just not going to tolerate that,” Hillyard said. “The role I really played was focusing strictly on the texting and making it comparable to a DUI.”
In fact, DWT has been found to be even more dangerous than drinking and driving. In a February 2008 study, Dangers of Texting While Driving, by Transport Research Laboratory reported that participants’ driving reaction time was 35 percent slower while texting versus 12 percent slower than drivers at the legal alcohol limit. The effects of DUI and DWT are so similar, it’s even earned the nickname “intexticated.”
The new Utah code 41-6a-1716 was enacted on May 12. And although some might believe it’s just a silly, unenforceable law, Officer Chad Soffe of the Cottonwood Heights City Police Department said he has already begun pulling drivers over for the offense. As a primary law, it is a great tool to use to pull over reckless drivers, allowing officers to issue tickets for secondary offenses such as the seat belt law.
“If we see them, we are stopping them,” Soffe said. “It can be a useful and helpful law and it may take officers a while, but if they can see they can use it to make things safer, they’ll start to use it.”
Although the law is still a class C misdemeanor with a punishment of up to 90 days in jail and up to $750 fine, if texting drivers injure another person, they get an automatic class B misdemeanor, which could be up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. It also becomes a class B offense if there is a prior conviction within the past three years.
Drivers who are pulled over can lie and more than likely get away without a ticket, but at least now they will be held to a much higher consequence if they create an accident that could injure or kill people in another vehicle. The inability to keep oneself from texting while driving is a maturity issue. No text message is worth someone’s life.