Texting and driving may be a thing of the past

William Atkins
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 18:56

Science - Health

AP adds, “The bill would target the activity in a moving vehicle and not prohibit a driver from texting or e-mailing in a stopped car.”

Laws are generally enacted to protect the public in the areas of safety and health.

Proposed legislation to ban texting/driving is just another example where the government comes in to enact laws because some of its citizens are not responsible enough to know that an activity is dangerous, in this case texting while driving.

In the United States, there are many traffic laws that are designed to protect the safety and health of its citizens. These large number of laws would not be necessary if ("IF") people voluntarily drove responsibly.

Unfortunately, people do not drive responsibly for the most part (for instance, excessive speeding, tailgating, not using turn signals, aggressive driving habits, weaving in and out of traffic, etc.), so laws are enacted by our representatives in the U.S. Congress.

It is important to realize that lawmakers are the responsible body in these cases. They realize the need for an additional law based on scientific studies that prove an activity is dangerous.

Consequently, they enact a law to minimize or prevent such dangerous activity from happening.

The U.S. Congress and state legislatures should be applauded for doing their duty to protect the health and safety of its citizens. And, law enforcement officials and officers should be equally applauded for doing their duty in arresting people for breaking U.S. traffic laws.

Currently, over 40,000 people are killed each and every year in the United States from motorized vehicle accidents. [Statistics: Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Encyclopedia] In other words, over 40,000 people were killed in ... 2007, 2008, 2009, and will probably will be killed in 2010, 2011 .....

Twenty to thirty percent of these people (around 10,000 people) would still be alive if people drove within the letter of the law. [HighBeam: “Driver inattention, driver distraction and traffic crashes”]