89% of Americans support text driving ban
Link: Nine of 10 Americans Would Support New Laws to Ban Driving While Texting, According to New Poll
Interesting news in from the US of A, with recent research showing that 89% of American adults believe that sending text messages or emails while driving is “distracting, dangerous, and should be outlawed”.
The survey, commissioned by mobile messaging service Pinger and conducted by Harris Interactive, also found that 91% of those questioned said they believed drivers distracted by tapping whilst driving were as dangerous as drivers who’d have a couple of drinks.
More on Pinger on a later blog entry, as I think it’s worth a separate post on it’s own. In the meantime, you can enjoy a few more stats from the original press release.
How on earth are you going to enforce a law that bans texting while driving? Are we also banning people reading directions from a map or print-out (not everyone has navigation). Texting is not the problem, people being distracted doing what ever is. Data shows that there is a higher probability for teenagers with friends in the car to make an accident than when they are alone. The less experienced the driver the higher probability any distraction could lead to an accident. I agree with ‘xirider’ there are many other activities drivers should not be doing. We can not legislate common sense.
Posted by clickatell on August 7th, 2007 at 7:46 pm.I wonder if a specific law for this is actually needed? In UK texting and any other activity that diverts attention from driving can be prosecuted under the heading of driving without due care and attention. I’d be amazed if there wasn’t some similar kind of offence in US for low level bad driving.
cyclist
Posted by cyclist on August 8th, 2007 at 1:39 pm.Moderator at 4WinMobile
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