Texting and Driving: Distraction Leads to Fatalities and Fines

By Hannah Morgan

“I always text or talk on the phone and drive; I can totally pay attention, it’s not like I’m gonna crash,” said an RAL senior who chose to remain anonymous. What this Lumberjack doesn’t know is that talking on the phone while driving can slow your reaction time to that of a 70 year old person.

Cell phone use and driving is becoming the new drinking and driving, in terms of level of distraction and number of casualties. However, concern centers around how to enforce anti-texting and anti-calling laws.

“Police are hard pressed to enforce seat belts [laws] already. They’re [policemen] also concerned about taking those resources away from preventing and solving other serious crimes,” Ed Smith said, a senior analyst with the Delray Beach Police Department in Florida.

While Florida is still trying to pass an bill on this issue, Washington recently instated a law preventing cell phone use and driving. There is also a federal law that bans texting and driving across state lines.

However, Washington’s law, unlike that of Oregon, says that texting and driving is not a primary offense, and therefore can only be punished if the driver is pulled over for breaking another law.

“It’s confusing, I can’t really tell if it’s illegal or not. I mean, no one I know has ever gotten fined for texting and driving, so I just do it anyway. How’re the police even going to tell?” an unnamed junior Lumberjill said.

Washington State Senator Tracey Eide is now trying to pass a bill through the Senate that would move cell phones and driving up to a primary offense, and has been working on harsher laws regarding cell phone use in cars for ten years now.

“”We passed the bill out of transportation [committee] yesterday [Jan 25],” Eide said, “I did have three senators vote against it. They think they have a right to talk while driving. I’m looking at this from a safety issue. It took me seven years to get it to a secondary offense. Now we have studies coming back and experts saying [distracted driving] is worse then they thought it was. It’s time for people to hang up and drive.”

Teenagers of the world, buckle up and put down the phone; it’s better to kick the habit now than to pay for it later, either with your money or with your life.