By Don C. Brunell
While state lawmakers work to bridge major differences in the budget, they agreed our distractive driving laws need stiffening.
Companion bills cleared the Legislature. They update current statute which allows law enforcement officers to stop motorists when they see them driving while using hand-held devices. The new legislation bans using hand-held cellphone and electronic tablets even while waiting for a stoplight to change.
The bill takes effect in 2019. The first ticket would be $135 and increase to $235 for subsequent offenses. It doesn’t impact hands-free devices.
Under existing state law, in 2016, AAA Washington reports cops wrote over 35,000 citations to drivers holding their cell phones to their ear or texting. There were over 12,300 cell phone or texting collisions accounting 77 deaths and 200 serious injuries last year.
According to the federal Bureau of Labor statistics, motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of workplace fatalities. Up to 30 percent of all vehicle accidents annually can be attributed to distractive driving.
Driving distractions are not new, they are just amplified by drivers talking and texting on mobile devices or fiddling with the new dashboard gadgets on today’s high-tech cars and trucks. In 1962, for example, a family friend on his way to work slammed his new pickup truck into a parked car while attempting to kill a hornet inside the cab while driving. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.
Forty years ago, before cell phones, a legislator commuted to Olympia while reading the daily newspaper. When asked why, he replied it was the only time he had to catch up on the news.
You can’t read a newspaper, shave, put on makeup, socialize with passengers, or review documents while driving on the freeway at 65 miles per hour. The mental distractions slow vitally needed reaction times.
The central issue is the level of mental attention diverted from driving. Distractions caused by talking on a cellphone, texting and even using voice-activated information systems in today’s vehicles impede traffic safety.
AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety studies show mentally distracted drivers missed important visual cues, had slower reaction times, and even produce a sort of tunnel vision. Drivers talking on a cellphone are two-to-four times more likely to crash, while accident rates for texting and driving are eight times higher. Among teen drivers, AAA found six of every 10 crashes involve driver distractions--the most notable of which involve interacting with one or more passengers. Research indicates mental distractions can last up to 27 seconds even after using hands-free voice commands.
While the new law is welcome, laws and regulation only reinforce the lifestyle changes all drivers must make. Operating a motor vehicle not just an ancillary task, it is the driver’s primary duty.
Don C. Brunell is a business analyst and former president of the Association of Washington Business.
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