There are very few driving distractions that can be as scary and disturbing as the growing number of people trying to read and type text messages while driving their cars.

 

 

The first reported incident of driving while texting (DWT) was reported in Tennessee in 2005; a man was killed when he lost control of his pickup and crashed down an embankment while attempting to text. That same year in Colorado, a teenager killed someone riding their bike while texting a friend. A study performed by Nationwide Mutual Insurance this year found that 19% of all drivers and 37% of drivers between the ages of 18 and 27 do in fact send or read text messages while driving.

 

Because of this Washington became the very first state to make DWT illegal in May 2007, followed by New Jersey in November. Other states are currently working on their own bills such as: Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. California may not be far behind as they passed a law in July 2008 that prohibited talking on cell phones while driving and they have already banned all 16 and 17 year olds from using any type of device to talk or text while driving. State Senator Joe Simitian of Palo Alto has now introduced a bill to make adult DWT illegal.

DWT is rapidly becoming an intense class of distracted driving and lawmakers are struggling to fight the growing number of accidents involving injury or death as a result of DWT. Many lawmakers believe that it is difficult to determine accurately whether texting on a cell phone is the cause of an accident. Truthfully the only way to determine whether cell phones were the cause is to obtain a warrant to subpoena billing records but it is often very difficult to convince a judge to grant these subpoenas for minor traffic accidents. Police in Washington tend to disagree with this thought process and most believe that rarely a day goes by when they do not witness a single case of DWT and statistics may not truthfully reflect the problem. As of today state law relies on driver honesty and this only rewards the offending person with a $538 fine.