By Greg Seiter
AAA Hoosier Motor Club
Text messaging is one of the most dangerous things a driver can do while behind the wheel of a moving vehicle and yet there are still an alarming number of drivers who are doing it.
AAA Hoosier Motor Club is calling on Indiana legislators to help protect motorists and their passengers by passing House Bill 1279, which would ban all drivers from text messaging while driving.
Today’s motorists are already confronted with a number of dangerous distractions while operating motorized vehicles and research confirms that taking your hands off the wheel, eyes off the road and mind off of driving radically increases your chances of causing a crash. In fact, a recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute showed the crash risk for commercial truck drivers who text increases 23 times. That’s 2,300 percent!
There is remarkable consensus on the need for a law against texting while driving. Currently, 19 states have banned texting while driving and numerous others have legislation pending. Furthermore, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has imposed a federal ban on texting while driving for all commercial drivers.
Make no mistake — these laws work. For example, a study by AAA that examined the effect of California’s 2009 texting ban showed a 70 percent decrease in this dangerous practice, indicating that laws do, in fact, have an immediate influence on driver behavior.
A statewide ban in Indiana would set a standard for traffic safety and empower police to stop this dangerous driving behavior.
Additionally, AAA Hoosier Motor Club is asking drivers themselves to do something about texting while driving. The first step in helping make Indiana roadways safer is for Hoosiers to contact their respective senators and to encourage those individuals to support House Bill 1279, now that the bill has successfully passed out of the House with a vote of 95-3.
Texting while driving is said to be, in many cases, even more dangerous than drunken driving. Now is the time to stop this practice before more lives are lost unnecessarily.
Greg Seiter is public affairs manager of AAA Hoosier Motor Club, Indianapolis.
