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Texting Kills – Bans Send The Important Message That Inattention To Driving Is Hazardous

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In an ideal world, drivers who text without a care for the safety of the drivers around them would be caught more often.

Police officers would have more than enough time and resources to subpoena phone records to prove that a driver, who furtively was tucking his cell phone away when the offi- cer strolled up to his window, was typing a message instead of watching the road.

This isn’t that world, and none of that is practical.

But local police officers are to be commended for catching the texters whom they’ve been able to witness and question.

Many of the drivers whom officers suspect are texting are actually stopped for doing other dangerous things while they’re distracted: running red lights, swerving in lanes and speeding. Those are the violations for which they ultimately are cited.

Columbus police have cited 24 people for texting while driving in the six months since the ordinance went into effect.

Half of those people were doing something else, such as drunken driving, but the other half were strictly texting.

And they confessed when stopped and questioned.

Texting bans are important, even if patrol officers don’t cite many people with them.

Making the ban official and specific to texting– unlike the “distracted driving” ordinances passed by some communities– signals to the public that texting while driving is a behavior that society deems inherently and unacceptably risky.

Such laws also are handy after the fact, when a texting driver causes an accident through inattention.

The consequences of texting played out tragically in Knox County in August.

The county prosecutor says 18-year-old Megan Peterson of Mount Vernon was texting and driving too fast on Rt. 13 when the driver in front of her slowed to make a left turn.

At the last second, she skidded trying to avoid the slowing car and crossed the median, hitting a car driven by Ryan Thogmartin of Zanesville.

Thogmartin, 27, had severe leg injuries. The passenger in Peterson’s car, 23- year-old Keith Homstad of Johnstown, was killed.

A friend of Peterson’s confi rmed that she had been texting. She was indicted by a grand jury on Nov. 1 for aggravated vehicular homicide and aggravated vehicular assault.

Though certain people always will push the envelope when they think they can get away with it, plenty of good, conscientious people strive to abide by the laws. And that makes everyone safer.–Columbus Dispatch



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