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Utah Law Punishes Texters As Much As Drunks In Driving Fatalities
The NY Times reports on legislation in Utah which harshly penalizes people who cause fatal car accidents while texting. Instead of merely facing a fine, offenders may now get up to 15 years in jail — the same as drunk drivers.
"In effect, a crash caused by such a multitasking motorist is no longer considered an 'accident' like one caused by a driver who, say, runs into another car because he nodded off at the wheel. Instead, such a crash would now be considered inherently reckless. 'It's a willful act,' said Lyle Hillyard, a Republican state senator and a big supporter of the new measure. 'If you choose to drink and drive or if you choose to text and drive, you're assuming the same risk.' The Utah law represents a concrete new response in an evolving debate among legislators around the country about how to reduce the widespread practice of multitasking behind the wheel — a topic to be discussed at a national conference about the dangers of distracted driving that is being organized by the Transportation Department for this fall."
This appears to be the correct legislative response, for once.
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Does anyone know if traffic accident rates have gone up in recent years?
I haven't heard that they have. But if talking on a cell phone, or texting, while driving is really as dangerous as it seems, I would have expected accident rates to rise significantly.
Good! Driving while drunk and driving while texting are both negligent choices. If that choice leads to someone's death, they certainly should be treated equally. If anything driving while texting is worse since your decision making abilities are not hindered by an altered state of mind.
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
The NY Times reports on legislation in Utah which harshly penalizes people who cause fatal car accidents while texting. Instead of merely facing a fine, offenders may now get up to 15 years in jail -- the same as drunk drivers.
Good.
So what's the point of this story?
Driving is a responsibility, and if you are irresponsible because you are texting - not merely talking handsfree, not talking hand-to-ear, but typing on a fiddly keyboard, you are going to be distracted. Kill someone doing this, and it isn't an accident, what's accidental about taking your mind off the road.
If you need to text on the road (and also if you need to talk), then pull over somewhere safe and do it there. Or don't answer the phone, and give yourself some "me time" in your own car.
Why shouldn't malicious and willful ignorance be punished harshly?
You know better than to get behind the wheel after ten or twelve beers, but some people do it anyway. Driving drunk, driving while texting, driving while playing a gameboy.... frankly, I don't see much of a difference.
Beyond the fact you can turn off the phone or the gameboy in a snap, whereas sobering up takes time. Given that, I'd figure the penalty would be harsher!
...as it has worked in Canada. The punishment for this kind of crime in Ontario (Canada) is so severe that only fools even dare.
On a side note, the punishment for street racing (going 31 miles above the limit), includes the following done on the spot:
Your car being confiscated, getting fined about US$ 8,000 and having your license suspended for at least 60 days.
Bottom line: It works. I hope those in Utah will see similar results.
I agree with Utah.
Wow, that felt dirty.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
I've got superhuman reflexes, godlike judgement, and 99.99th-percentile driving skills, so those rules constitute an unconstitutional burden! I can easily thread through cross-traffic in an intersection or use the two-millisecond rule for following, with perfect safety -- as long as all the other drivers refrain from their usual rank idiocy.
Oh, sorry, I though this was a speed-limit thread.
Seriously, if you want to text while traveling, take a bus/train! I don't know why people in the US are so deadset against public transportation. I can be much more productive while riding the train/bus than I can(and should!) be while driving.
Monstar L
I'm with others on this... Distracted driving like this is responsible for a lot of severe and fatal "accidents". As someone else said- it is willful misconduct that should be punished. Driving a car is dangerous, period. If you are driving a car- that should be ALL you are doing is driving. If you aren't focused on what you are doing- you are putting your life, and those of everyone around you, in danger. Why is that so hard for some people to understand? I have a 32-mile long commute to work every day, and EVERY DAY I see people swerving out of their lane and driving erratically while gabbing or texting on a cell phone. I almost get hit at least once a week by one of these winners.
Let's pass a new law for every single type of driving distraction that comes along instead of writing one law that covers the general case of distracted driving. That way we can make it look like we are responding to every new problem that comes along so we get reelected more easily.
It should not matter why you are unable to concentrate on what's going on in front of your car if you're responsible for the distraction. Whether it's drinking or texting, in both cases you made the decision that you want to drink/text instead of concentrate on traffic, you're responsible for the outcome.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
to received a lot of attention (here in salt lake) happened a few blocks from my home. I saw it driving to work. A young kid blew the light and t-boned a girl, killing her. The intersection had just been closed when I got to it. It was horrific. I asked my wife if she saw the accident on her way to work. She left 15min before me and, as it turns out, drove through that intersection minutes before the accident. Just by chance neither of us were there when it happened. The poor girl who was killed was just 19 - the stepsister of one of my wife's good friends. There was a PS campaign afterward. Her picture was on billboards all over the city. Whenever I saw one I thought of the kid who killed her, and how he would see them wherever he went.
46 & 2
In effect, a crash caused by such a multitasking motorist is no longer considered an 'accident' like one caused by a driver who, say, runs into another car because he nodded off at the wheel.
Except nodding off or passing out at the wheel is not an accident. It has a cause (medical or just simply not getting enough sleep.) It's one thing if you have a random stroke nobody saw coming. It's another if the doctor has said "you're at high risk for _______. You should not be driving."
If it's a case where you were simply too tired- well, we're not children and it's not rocket science why you "microsleep" or completely fall asleep at the wheel. It happened to me ONCE- woke up in a different lane than I remembered being in. Scared the crap out of me, and I've since learned to get my ass off the road to a rest-stop for a 20-30 minute nap if I feel any of the signs of being too tired, which are pretty damn hard to miss. And to make sure I get enough sleep if I'm doing a bunch of driving!
I see this all the time with bicyclists who are killed by drivers completely let off the hook. A woman local to Boston was killed in Seattle by an older guy driving his van. On a wide-open highway, in clear weather, in the middle of the day. He was charged with nothing- they said it was due to "inattentiveness." In other words, the fucker wasn't looking where he was going, killed someone, and he gets a free pass? How is that justice? How does that hold people responsible for paying attention to where they pilot a 2-ton hunk of metal at 70 MPH?
Methinks the thought of spending the rest of your life in jail for killing someone with your car would make people pay a little more attention than getting an occasional speeding ticket for doing 5mph more than everyone else, which is only a randomly collected road tax.
Please help metamoderate.
I didn't think it was that funny.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
All the way from Europe! (warning, graphic scenes!)
This was all over the news this week. I love that video. Every driver's ed class should show it. In full.
If they truly wanted to stop multitasking behind the wheel there would be a lot more support for removing the human from the equation. We aren't that far off from cars that can accurately and safely drive themselves. Why aren't we funding efforts like the DARPA road challenge more? Lets get that wrapped up and out there. I mean I think its good that people who end up doing bad things, because of their poor behavior choices are being penalized for those choices, but if safety is truly the goal we'd recognize that in one way or another multitasking occurs for most drivers at some point and the only way to truly get rid of it and the risks they represent is to minimize the human role in controlling the vehicle.
Mod parent up.
Go watch it.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Phone records show that you sent a text message 15 seconds before the accident? It's pretty easy to prove, actually.
Plus all these phones have GPS in them these days. It won't be long before they know you were doing 60 mph when you sent that message.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
As someone who doesn't drive and has almost been runover several times when legally crossing the street by some damn idiot on his or her cell phone or texting I have no problem with this...
Agreed. As a driver or pedestrian I've been in many close calls because some idiot was on their cellphone. The best is when they start yelling at ME because THEY ran the stop sign or red light without even knowing it.
However on the flip side, I've also almost hit some pedestrians because they were talking on their cellphone and decided to cross illegally without looking to see that I'm already 1 car length away because their cellphone is obscuring their vision of me.
Driving or walking, it's almost like cellphones are accident magnets.
If you get caught DUI then there are "reliable" tests that can determine your blood alcohol content, which is then used determine legal liability.
How do you prove that a person was 'texting, webbing, reading, etc'?
A (busted?) phone that may or may not show an active message screen x minutes after an accident for the police to look at?
Eye-Witness reports? (looking down at radio vs looking down to text)
These lawmakers are chasing smoke. They want to look like they are trying to make a difference but ANY half competent lawyer could likely get those charges thrown out.
Laws already exist that cover crap like this:
Undue care and attention while operating a motor vehicle.
Unsafe operation of a motor vehicle.
Dangerous driving.
Dangerous driving resulting in bodily harm.
Manslaughter.
Most crashes caused by idiot drivers can get 1-3 of those charges applied, do we _really_ need to add more?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Maybe there's a major accident, and they discover that one of the drivers had sent 2 texts within the last 5 minutes. Of course, they would either have to examine your phone or get the co-operation of your cell phone provider for these things. I remember reading a report of a driver here in Canada (either BC or Alberta) where they pinpointed what happened from his cell phone records. He had sent a text less than 30 seconds before the accident occurred.
Of course, he had splattered himself all over the pavement, so he wasn't around any more to object to them going through those records.
Having said that, I do agree, it would be hard to enforce it in many cases.
A couple times a month I see some idiot clearly not paying attention on the road and making dangerous decisions. The only clear pattern I've ever observed is that 9 times out of 10 it's someone on a cell-phone. Just yesterday some moron in a mini-van came close to merging right into me, and sure enough there was a cell phone next to his head. I've never noticed a pattern in car, gender, race, or bumper-stickers... but the person holding a cell phone up to their ear is a very clear pattern. I've never seen someone texting, so I have to believe it's rather rare.
Unfortunately there's still no law in Minnesota against using a cell phone while driving. For some reason there's a ban on kids using a cell phone while driving, but apparently when you get older you gain a magical ability to drive and hold your cell phone at the same time. I believe most states are the same way.
So if you ask me the big problem is just plain old cell phone use, not texting. Texting while driving is idiotic and should be illegal, but concentrating on it and increasing penalties to ridiculous 15 year jail terms while ignoring the obvious problem of people using cell phones while driving is equally foolish. According to http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html Cell phone usage while driving is not illegal in Utah.
AccountKiller
I am glad to see someone is cracking down on this foolishness. Whenever I drive, I see people in their cars paying attention to anything BUT the road. Inattentive drivers don't go promptly when the light is green, and create traffic backups. They go 45mph on the fast lane of interstates.
Driving is dangerous. It demands ALL of your attention. Texting and phoning while driving is risks everyone's lives. You don't ever want to see me on a civil jury in a "texting while driving" case. Insurers, quake now. Texters and yakkers, up your liability limits and buy an umbrella policy.
These malefactors endanger everyone for a little convenience and entertainment while driving. How typically thoughtless.
I was up late last night and caught some episodes of 1000 Ways to Die, for the first time.
Harsh show to watch but it is rather educational.
Among the various ways people die was this:
A young male idiot was driving his vehicle around whilst texting his girlfriend who
was walking about someplace.
According to the story they were 'texting' where he was to meet her.
Eventually the primary idiot in the story arrived in some parking lot and continued to text his
girly.
She was texting him back and was much to busy to be bothered with looking side to side while doing so.
Driving down one of the parking lot aisles primary idiot one runs right over his
girly, apparently killing her quite dead.
He never saw her and she apparently didn't' ever see him.
Pretty sad huh? Hard to believe really but I can see it happening.
I can recall in my own experience seeing IDIOTS walking about parking lots yammering on their phones.
As a driver one always has to watch out for such. It appears from my observation of people
they hardly ever turn their heads to watch for traffic whether talking on the hand set or texting.
Talking about pedestrians here.
It is a pity Darwin's law does not take these people out sooner and more thoroughly before they
have a chance to breed.
This 53 year old grump would love to see harsher penalties for drivers doing such. Go Utah , Go.
Something between the lines jumps out and bites your arm off. Soltan Gris / London
You don't think cell phone providers keep logs?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Previously, the Mythbusters (and other scientific studies) has shown that talking on a cell phone while driving is worse than driving while legally drunk. Texting is far more distracting than talking on a cell phone, so this legislation seems more than appropriate.
What could possibly be so vitally important that it has to be texted right now, yet not so important that you can't pull over to do it?
The drunk's judgment is impaired when the drunk gets behind the wheel. The texter makes an intentional, volitional, free decision to put other people at risk by texting while driving.
Stupid bastards forget that their cars are killing machines unless properly handled.
I personally prefer "cops at my door brb in 25 to life"
I don't think that I said anything which would indicate that I don't think that vigilantism isn't a crime or should be appeased, but one of the reasons that we have the luxury of thinking this way is that, in fact, our government is supposed to (and, often enough, does) punish people so we don't have to do it ourselves. This "disinterested third party" is supposed to mete out justice proportional to the crime in a less personal way than the victim might, but don't for a minute think that society would stand for the punishment being solely related to the action and completely disconnected from the outcome. Drunken driving is a punishable offense, but the punishment for killing somebody while driving drunk is always worse than if you didn't kill somebody. That is how it is and how it needs to be, at least until we evolve, and that is how it needs to be for texting as well.
This is basically my fear. I have no issue with someone pulling out a phone to text while stopped at an intersection. The only way to be safe from these harsh penalties is to leave a window of at least 30 minutes before/after texting. I doubt a court is going to ask for a narrow time slice when checking phone records to prove your guilt.
And what about delayed-send messages? What if your reception at [place] is horrible, and you sent a text before getting in the car?
i don't get it. if i write a text and don't kill anybody or drive drunk and don't kill anybody, society may see fit to revoke privileges (for example my driving license) but it shouldn't be able to throw me in prison or fine me because i haven't actually caused anybody any harm.
if however i do hit someone and hurt them, then the law can punish me for it.
"How do you prove that a person was 'texting, webbing, reading, etc'?"
I'm not sure how it works in the USA but here in the UK phone providers hold logs of calls - I guess you must have the same or how else does the phone provider bill you for your phone calls at the end of the month? So if an accident happens and there's any suspicion that use of a phone was involved, the police can ask for the phone records. They check the logs.
And I do understand why it's forbidden.
But you're special and won't screw up, right?
It's amazing the rationalizations that people go through. Stop coming up with excuses and pay attention to the road.
You're not special, and you're threatening people's lives with your selfish stupidity.