 "Photo: Dan Handing")
In the past few months, lawmakers in the United States and here in Missouri have been trying to make texting while driving illegal. A law was passed recently that if you are under the age of 21 it is illegal to text or unlawfully use your cell phone while driving, but now Missourians and lawmakers are ready to say that no age should allow this privilege.
In the next few weeks, lawmakers are looking to make texting and driving illegal to not some, but all drivers.
“It shouldn’t be allowed,” said Bruce Bateman, a police officer for STLCC, and a 36-year veteran of the St. Louis City Police Department. “When you’re behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, nothing should matter except driving. If you need to text, then pull over,” said Bateman.
There have been several types of communication being aired on this topic, from small-time paper ads to large-scale media commercials that could not even be aired due to the gore and content. Is it time to air these commercials, and maybe “take off the white gloves” to show the general public this issue? Wait, no, let’s throw out some statistics. The National Safety Council reports that 1.6 million crashes a year on U.S. highways are caused by drivers using cell phones to talk or text, (primarily to text!). The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis did a study on cell phone use and driving effects, and calculated that 2,600 people die annually as a result of using cell phones while driving.
This is not an earthquake or a terrorist attack; this is texting and driving.
If you think about it though, is this not just the way of technology?
When people started talking on their cell phones in their car and not using headsets, weren’t we set out to make laws against it? When people started using GPSs, and took eyes off the road, were the car companies not thrown through the shredder for making driving more dangerous? Bruce Bateman has seen his fair share of car accidents in related incidents in 36 years of law enforcement and his rationale is “Technology that helps you one minute can hurt you the next,” said Bateman.
Cell phone usage, no matter if texting or anything else, is going to put others at risk, and if this new legislature is the way to save lives, the nation and its leaders should fully support it.
“Officials in a key position to testify against it should,” Bateman said. As a father, he sits in the same chair as several American parents hoping to see their families every night when they get home.
The issue at the center is responsibility of our elected officials to make the proper decision, but with statistics as staggering as these, and the lives lost nationwide, it does not look like a decision, but more like common sense.
Be the first to comment on this article!