The Issue - Texting Driving

The Issue - Texting Driving

The issue: Are laws that prohibit drivers from sending and reading text messages while behind the wheel a good idea? Or are the bans too vaguely defined and difficult to enforce to be useful?

    * Critics of texting-while-driving bans say: The bans are so hard to enforce that they are essentially worthless as law-enforcement tools; there is no easy way for police officers to determine whether a driver is texting or being distracted by something else. It is also unclear whether the bans are actually effective in reducing texting while driving.
    * Supporters of texting-while-driving bans say: Motorists who send text messages while driving put themselves—as well as countless innocent drivers, passengers and pedestrians—in grave danger. The risks involved in texting while driving are clearly established. Banning texting while driving would make the roads safer for everyone.

Issues and Controversies: Girl Texting While Driving

AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

A 16-year-old girl in Seattle, Washington, attempts to write text messages while she maneuvers through an obstacle course as part of the Driven to Distraction Task Force. The girl—who considered herself proficient at texting while driving—knocked down several cones representing pedestrians and other objects on the road.

On a Wednesday afternoon in September 2010, Nicole Polizzi, one of the stars of the popular MTV reality show Jersey Shore, was suffering through a traffic jam in Newark, New Jersey, when she decided to tell the world about her predicament. While behind the wheel, Polizzi—who is better known by her reality-show moniker Snooki—used her cellular telephone to post a message to the microblogging website Twitter. "Ugh stuck in newark traffic is no fun," she wrote. "Stop and go traffic I'm killen myself here :( " Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) took note of Snooki's message, and quickly responded with a warning: "I can give u a ticket 4 texting & driving," he wrote.

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