Bethlehem Wants to Ban Texting and Driving (Drexting?)

It’s pretty obvious that texting and driving is right behind drinking and driving in the top ten list of things you shouldn’t do while driving (eating, having sex and writing a thesis are also in this list) and Bethlehem MAY try and ban it.

Good luck enforcing it, though, but they are already on that.

The gesture is a good one. I can’t tell you the amount of times i’ve seen someone with one hand on the wheel, and the other holding a phone on the wheel with a thumb in fast action mode.

It’s kinda just stupid. Isn’t driving the LAST time you want to text? Talking seems much more… safe.

Bethlehem City Councilman Gordon Mowrer on Tuesday called for a ban on text-messaging while driving in the city, a scaled-down version of what he asked for a month ago.

He said he has faced some legal hurdles with his original idea, a ban on hand-held cell phone use for drivers, but he wanted to get something on the books now.

”Talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous, but texting is worse,” Mowrer said at Tuesday’s council meeting. ”It’s time to do something.”

Mowrer first called for a hand-held ban in the wake of the General Assembly’s failure to enact a ban earlier this year.

But he said there were questions about whether the city would have the authority to pass such a law. There have been statewide proposals, the most recent failing to pass in April.

Still, Mowrer said the city should push through some safeguards for cell phone use in the city because it is ”dangerous.”

The state Department of Transportation reported that hand-held cell phones contributed to 1,049 accidents statewide in 2008, including eight fatalities. Hands-free cell phones contributed to 50 crashes and no deaths.

The issue gained attention when — according to police — a motorist using a cell phone in May 2008 was involved in an accident that killed the parents of Jacy Good as the family was heading home after her graduation from Muhlenberg College in Allentown.

Several communities have passed bans over the last decade, including a ban in Philadelphia that starts Nov. 1. However, the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas in 2000 overturned a Hilltown Township ban.

Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan said he agrees with the concept of Mowrer’s texting ban and advocates a statewide ban. While he’s open to looking at a ban, the mayor has questions about whether the state would pre-empt any law the city would make.

Councilwoman Jean Belinski said such measures always comes down to enforcement and it would be a challenge. Source

Callahan also said that it’s perfectly fine to text while using slot machines, however.

This is all a bunch of pomp and circumstance, however. I mean, how the fuck do they propose a cop be looking for this? I assume a lot of people text from the hip, keeping their phones down at lap level while looking down at it and not paying attention to the road.

However, if someone saves their outgoing messages, I guess it’d be pretty easy to determine if they were just sending a message, right?