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Texting While Driving Now Legal In Colorado -- In Some Cases (kdvr.com)
Fines for texting and driving in Colorado have jumped to $300, but according to the fine print, the increased fine only applies to drivers who are texting in "a careless or imprudent manner." Therefore, drivers who are texting in any other manner are still within the law. FOX31 Denver reports: Before the new legislation, any texting while driving was illegal. Tim Lane of the Colorado District Attorney's Office confirmed the softening crackdown on all texting and driving. "The simple fact is that if you are texting while driving but not being careless, it's no longer illegal," he said. What constitutes "careless" driving is up to the discretion of each individual law enforcement officer. Cellphone use of any kind is still banned for drivers younger than 18. Teens caught with a phone in hand while driving will be slapped with a $50 fine.
I live in Ontario, Canada, and we are not allowed to even hold our unpowered cellphones while stopped at a red light, let alone text on it.
In my opinion any law that is that subjective should be considered unconstitutional since it can easily abused by individual law enforcement to harass those they do not like.
Suck up to the cop and maybe you'll get a pass; piss him off and you've just coincidentally committed a serious but ostensibly unrelated crime.
And unless they collect information on people "carefully and prudently" texting and driving (whatever the hell that is) we'll never know whether the law is the same for everyone... but I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't be.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'd rather live in a socialist nanny state then get T-Boned by some damn fool texting his way straight through a red light.
Shucks, that nanny state might come in handy at the hospital for patching you back up after an accident like that.
In Trump country with the GOP in charge, first responders will be checking your credit rating before even bothering with expensive equipment like the jaws of life. Hell, you might not even be worth the foam to put the fire out - let it burn out on its own, haul off your dead ass together with your ruined car, send the towing bill with the collection agency after your next of kin.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
So which politician got caught?
So instead of having a simple concise law that can be enforced! NO texting while driving. We now have a useless law that brings in carelessness and intent.
Since it is so easy for government, lawyers and judges to interpret what someone was thinking and capable of.
I think this is just trial lawyers looking to make money when people die because of others carelessness and stupidity, but as long as the lawyers make big bucks. After all government is just what you can buy.
Nope - can't legally consume ganja or be stoned while driving.
Q: Is there a legal limit for marijuana impairment while operating a vehicle?
A: Colorado law specifies that drivers with five nanograms of active tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in their whole blood can be prosecuted for driving under the influence (DUI). However, no matter the level of THC, law enforcement officers base arrests on observed impairment.
https://www.codot.gov/safety/a...
I'm not sure if "whole blood" is a term commonly used, but that's apparently 5 ng/ml which some argue is too low of a limit. I have no idea how "stoned" 5 ng/ml of blood feels like just as it's difficult for a drinker to know their BAC beyond an educated guess.
It's still wisest to err on the side of caution because cops are looking for stoned drivers.
And take note that this is not a test for metabolites that most employment drug screens test for that can stay in your system for weeks. They're measuring actual THC.
I think this law is too vague, but I think it was meant to allow people who may be stopped (at a red light, rail crossing, stuck with their foot on the brake or pulled over safely on the shoulder) to send a text or adjust their GPS or whatever.
The point of having a law that bans texting while driving is to prevent accidents, not to punish people who cause accidents.
Therefore, having a law worded to ban only "careless or imprudent manner" is effectively pointless for prevention.
No idiot who is going to cause an accident will believe beforehand that they are going to do so. That is why accidents are called "accidents".
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Why are you holding a powered down cell phone at a red light?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I check texts when at a red light. I do not check them barrelling 80 MPH down the freeway.
Yet California treats both cases equally. Oddly enough, I have a magazine in my car that I read while stopped at a red light. This is fine and dandy. So, um, What's This Feature?
There is no possible legitimate reason for a driver to be holding a cell phone at a red light. The drivers behind you do not want to have to hit their horn to make you move when the light changes, nor do we want to bet our lives on the idea that you'll definitely release the phone when you start driving. You're impeding traffic at best, attempting murder at worst. Powering down the phone is simply a trick people do when they see the cop coming to try to get out of a ticket, so of course it's illegal.
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I was being half-snarky... the GOP health bill hasn't passed yet.
But for real, the Canada thing simply means that a cop is empowered to DO something if he sees a driver with a cell phone in his/her hand while driving, and the driver can't weasel out of it simply by claiming it was turned off, requiring the cop to prove he could tell whether it was on or off from the vantage point of his cruiser.
It's just a legal attempt, democratically passed, to get around the fact that cell phones impair drivers as much as being rip-roaring drunk, but there's no blood-alcohol test they can run on a texter to prove that he was actually texting and not just allegedly holding a switched-off phone while driving (yeah, right), particularly if the texter ditched or destroyed his phone at or just after being pulled-over or engaging in an accident.
That's right, some damn fool can kill your sister, but by raising his hand swearing in court that his phone was off just before it was thrown from his car and destroyed, there's reasonable doubt to that vehicular manslaughter charge.
Yeah, maybe there's evidence out there in cyberland, but what's to compel that knucklehead to serve up his Facebook password? Does the district have the money to subpoena the carrier, the provider, Facebook, and to carry out the cyber-forensics to prove he was texting, and not just ordinary driver careless oh gosh I didn't see the light change. Accidents happen, sorry about your sister, think of how my insurance is gonna go up and thank god my airbag worked right.
So, given that the risk of being T-Boned and instantly transformed into a quadriplegic by an asshole texter is very fucking real, please do enumerate the hardships and dangers of the so-called "nanny-state" that outweigh this attempt to put some teeth into no-texting-while-driving laws, particularly with respect to Canada.
I mean, is there evidence of waves of depressed Molson-drinking immigrants flooding over from the great North, thirsting for the Freedom to text and drive without oppression from storm-trooping Mounties?
I don't think so, I haven't seen it.
But maybe I'm wrong. Any Canadians in slashdot-land want to weigh in? Any youse guys feeling repressed up North up there? or are you guys just so chill you can live fine with your hands off your phones while driving?
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
If someone texts me, I'll wait until I am stopped at a red light and then quickly glance at the message.
There is nothing wrong with that.
Your frothing-at-the-mouth hyperbole is ridiculous. "Attempted murder"? Here's a dollar, go buy a sense of perspective.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson