I just found out that Greenville, SC has banned texting while driving within the city limits. I’m glad. Looks like I won’t have to send this letter to the editor I “jotted down” to myself via an audio note (on my phone, while driving…):
I’m a freedom-loving American. I don’t want to live in a nanny state. I can certainly understand why state governments would choose not to tell their citizens what to do with their cellphones while driving.
But I’m also, fairly newly, a parent. And, fairly newly, a smartphone owner. I’m surprised at the power of this little device to call for my attention even when it should be on the road down which I am guiding a multi-ton metal object at high speeds.
I’ve been driving now for 13 years and a passenger for longer than that. I have rarely in my lifetime witnessed erratic driving such that I was aware that I was in the presence of a drunk driver. But I am constantly now seeing people texting while driving. And if what the studies say is true, that texting while driving is the equivalent of an X.X. [hadn’t done that research yet] blood-alcohol level, then I wonder—could SC be seen as a forward-thinking state because it refused to buy this law at the price of the lives of its citizens? That is, how many people are going to have to die due to texting and driving accidents before this law comes into effect? I feel fairly certain that such a law will come into effect if these studies are accurate. Must we wait until public outcry over 20, 83, 162? deaths forces us to act? Let’s act now.