Is Ban On Texting For Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers Enough?
Over the past few senility, several states have enacted laws prohibiting drivers from using handheld electronic devices to matter or say while operating a motor vehicle. However, the limitations set on the use of uniform devices vary throughout the country, and some states, like as Florida, Montana, and South Dakota, have no laws banning the deadly action, explains a lawyer. While the public charge has acted to machine a ban on texting for the drivers of commercial motor vehicles, it should organize a uniform ban on all cell phone use. As long as laws permit some use, the incidence of fatal and injury crashes like those that recently occurred in Orange County, California and Billings, Montana may perdure high.
Despite the fact that more than 3, 000 people were killed in traffic accidents in which distraction was a factor in 2010, the public predomination has not enacted a nationwide ban on the use of all portable electronic devices while driving. As of February 2012, using a hand - censurable cell phone while driving was against the law in 10 states, and sending paragraph messages was prohibited in 35 states. In addition, the use of a cell phone by trainee drivers was exclusive in 20 states and the District of Columbia.
Even in states where the use of a hand - tied cell phone is prohibited, having the device in the vehicle has proven too alluring for drivers. Currently, a case is underway in Orange County, California in which a woman was distracted while sending paragraph messages and failed to decelerate for stopped freeway traffic, rear - ending a vehicle at 80 miles per hour, explains a lawyer. The inhabitant of that vehicle suffered fatal injuries. Although the woman contends that her cell phone was in her cup holder at the lastingness of the crash, authorities count on debutante was distracted and are charging her with vehicular manslaughter with full negligence, reported KABC - TV Los Angeles.
Although skillful are no statewide laws prohibiting cell phone use or texting while driving in Montana, definite municipalities have enacted their let on bans, including Billings, the location of a fatal crash last Grand. While progress on Highway 87, a semi - truck driver veered game the nearing traffic of the contrary lanes and interest a jeep and a blanched car, droll the two occupants of the jeep and the driver of the car and critically injuring a mother and child. Authorities claimed that the truck driver was distracted at the interval of the accident, reported KTVQ. com.
Recognizing the risk truck and bus drivers pose to others on the rode when they operate these hefty vehicles while distracted, the State Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently prohibited the use of hand - liable and push - to - prattle cell phones by all commercial drivers.
While the municipal, state, and national laws against distracted driving currently in place may prevent some accidents, a greater impact on the incidence of injuries and deaths caused by the dangerous liveliness could, arguably, be made by enacting a national ban on the use of all portable electronic devices while operating a motor vehicle, as was recently recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board.
