Stronger effort needed to stop texting and driving

Drivers know it’s a hazard, a potentially deadly one. Law enforcement certainly knows it. So why, then, do people on American highways – and in North Carolina – continue to text while driving?

Likely, they think they’re being more careful than they are. “I’ve always got one eye on the road.” “I try not to do it while moving.” “I’ve never had a traffic ticket.” “I don’t do it in heavy traffic.”

These are foolish and dangerous rationalizations for what is ultimately dangerous driving behavior. And it’s getting worse. Far worse.

In North Carolina, where texting while driving was banned in 2009, there were 3,600 citations issued in 2013, and that reflected huge increases in every year since the law was passed. In New York, where hand-held cellphone use including talking and texting is banned, there were nearly 85,000 tickets issued last year, up from 9,000 in 2011. In Massachusetts, the number in that period went from 1,148 to 6,131.

And so on.

North Carolina provides for a citation and $100 fine. But as is the case everywhere, the texting ban is hard to enforce. If a driver is texting and runs off the road, hitting a sign or something like that, he or she is unlikely to admit to texting. If the accident is more serious, some law officers might investigate the texting angle more thoroughly. But the bottom line is, it’s difficult indeed to catch someone in the act of texting.

In some communities, police are being proactive. Consider an Associated Press report from Massachusetts, where in the town of West Bridgewater an officer on a bicycle pulls up beside drivers and, if he sees them texting, hands them a $105 ticket. And in Chattanooga, Tennessee, troopers have used tractor-trailers as patrol vehicles, the better to peer down on drivers and catch them texting.

National safety campaigns have been launched, of course, using examples of real accidents to underline the need to curb texting while driving – incidents where a brief text message distracted a driver long enough to cause a fatal accident.

Clearly, automakers and the phone manufacturers should work on devices that will not permit texting in cars, which in this age seems possible. Municipalities and states should raise fines for texting while driving to three or four times the current levels. North Carolina and other states have tried to raise awareness, but, sadly, they can’t seem to stop this danger by appealing to common sense. The result, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was an estimated 3,500 deaths last year, a likely low figure because of the difficulty of proving texting.

There must be a great national and state effort to put a stop to this. It is a potentially fatal hazard, and it’s growing into an epidemic.

This story was originally published September 6, 2016 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Stronger effort needed to stop texting and driving."