Senate Panel Encourages Distracted Driving Bans

This story appears in the June 14 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Senate Commerce Committee last week approved a bill aimed at encouraging states to pass their own distracted driving laws, sending the measure to the Senate floor.

“This is very much an emerging public health epidemic and we have to do something about it,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Commerce Committee.

The bill introduced by Rockefeller and 10 other senators “includes a grant program for states that enact laws to prohibit texting and handheld cell-phone use while driving and requires the transportation secretary to issue new regulations for commercial drivers and bus drivers to reduce distracted driving,” he said.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration already has issued a proposed rule to ban texting by commercial drivers and is working on follow-up regulations.

FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said during a meeting of the agency’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee in Alexandria, Va., June 9 that the agency was in the final stages of reviewing comments on its texting ban and that a “cell-phone rule is well under development to move to its next phase.”

FMCSA has scheduled the final texting rule for mid-October publication, along with a proposed rule “restricting the use of cell phones while operating a commercial vehicle.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), the top Republican on the panel, said, “All would agree that driving while distracted poses serious safety risks not only to the drivers but to passengers, pedestrians and anyone sharing the road.”

“A number of states are already addressing this problem and have enacted laws to regulate motorists’ use of cell phones and text messaging,” Hutchison said, adding that she thought Rockefeller’s approach was the “most appropriate” because it does not threaten to withhold federal funding from states.

An earlier proposal put forward by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is also a co-sponsor of Rockefeller’s bill, would have punished states that didn’t implement texting bans by holding back some of their federal transportation money.

The bill passed the committee by a 17-8 vote June 9, with several Republican members raising concerns about the effect the federal legislation would have on states.

“I think there’s a better approach to be taken on distracted driving,” said Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

“Forty states are working on this very important issue . . . it is being addressed in the laboratory of the states,” Wicker said.

In addition, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), said he would vote against the bill because Nebraska’s law would not meet the standards for funding laid out in Rockefeller’s bill and would be “disqualified” from receiving any aid.

While the federal government continued to debate the issue, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood commended several states for passing their own laws against distracted driving.

Georgia, for instance, became the 28th state to pass a texting ban when Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) signed the Caleb Sorohan Act for Saving Lives by Preventing Texting While Driving.

The bill bans texting while driving and prohibits teenaged drivers from using cell phones while behind the wheel.

“It’s time for Americans to follow Georgia’s lead and just put their devices down. Texting while driving is just too risky,” LaHood said in a June 7 statement.

Georgia’s law, which makes texting a primary traffic offense, goes into effect July 1 and carries a $150 fine.

LaHood had similar praise for Vermont, where Republican Gov. Jim Douglas also signed a bill banning texting by drivers of all ages and the use of cell phones by teens.

“Everyone on Vermont’s roads will be safer because this ban was signed into law,” LaHood said.