There is a bill that was proposed in South Carolina states that if convicted of texting and driving you could face up to a $250 fine or up to 30 days in jail along with a suspension of your license. Also a second offence could mean a fine of $1000 or 60 days in jail with a 60 suspension of your driver’s license with two points on your driver’s license (Post Par 5). If this passes it could help some people and maybe make others think twice before texting and driving but they will have problems actually proving that the person was texting while they were driving because the police would need a warrant to check the drivers phone and if the driver had a passenger they could argue that they didn’t text the passenger did. These are the reasons making laws against texting and driving is very difficult.
My solution might be a little far fetched but it might possible work the problem at hand. This does involve a few laws but a different way to approach it. We should make a new law that says all phone companies and manufactures in that make phones for the US so if the phone is traveling over a 15 mph that the phone becomes locked and if you are a passenger there are ways of turning it off but it takes focus. There would also be a law that says if you are pulled over for texting and driving the police have the right to check the log on your phone to see if it was unlocked while driving and can then give you a ticket based on the speed you were going and how long the phone was unlocked. With this in place I feel we could decrease the fatality rate and collision rate substantially.
There are many people that are apposed to have any laws against texting and driving because they feel it is a person choose to make the decision to text or not to text but the fact is that if the crash the likelihood that it is a one car crash is very low and if they had a passenger they could get hurt too. There also has been some talk about hands free talk to text phone systems. Well as a person that has that system it does involve you to look at the screen to make sure that it is correct and that it sent.
In all I feel my solution could potentially fix the problems we are having with the laws that are set in place for the problem of texting and driving. As long as we can get the lawmakers, police force, and cell phone manufactures on board then we can hopefully save many more lives. Next time you are driving and get a text will you think twice about responding?
Work cited http://gpssystems.net/texting-dangerous-driving/ http://handsfreeinfo.com/kansas-cell-phone-laws-legislation http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130325/PC16/130329547 This is not how it will stay!
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