RSS
Home
Senate push to band texting
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
The Senate is working to ban texting behind the wheel, promising to withhold much needed highway funding for uncooperative states.
From The Washington Post:
The bill would force states to write laws to prohibit messaging in vehicles or risk losing 25 percent of their annual federal highway money. Federal lawmakers have used similar strategies to force states to curb speeding and pass seat-belt laws. The new legislation would also set deadlines for regulators at the U.S. Transportation Department to devise minimum penalties for states to implement. States would have two years to enact their own laws.
Sponsors include Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Mary Landrieu (La.), and Kay Hagan (N.C.) Schumer called texting "both widespread and dangerous." The sponsors have mentioned May's texting train operator in Boston, who crashed and injured 49, and the California Metrolink crash last fall, which resulted in 25 deaths.
The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute released a study yesterday, finding commercial truck drivers 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash or "near miss." Today followed with a segment and interview with a Maryland woman whose husband died when a driver crossed into the opposing lane while texting.
Texting is banned in DC and Virginia. Maryland passed a ban and it will start this fall.
Senate Introduces Bill to Ban Texting While Driving, The Washington Post
MBTA: Conductor in Boston trolley crash was texting his girlfriend, The Boston Globe
Metrolink crash leads to ban on cellphone use by train crews, The Los Angeles Times
Related Articles:
Comments
- DC Alternative Transportation Examiner
- DC Bicycle Transportation Examiner
- CTA Tattler
- DC Dogs Examiner
- General Carlessness
- Get There (Washington Post)
- Greater Greater Washington
- How We Drive
- Streetsblog
- The 42
- Transport Politic
- Track Twenty-Nine
- Virginia Intelligent Transportation Systems
- TheWashCycle
- DC Live Music Examiner
