Back in early 2008, we discovered that well over half of you text while driving (even though only about 20% of you do it regularly). Today, thanks to a birdie, we found out that reading or sending texts will be illegal while driving. We have no idea how they will enforce the reading part of that or why you are allowed to read a map, but oh well.
[via NBC29] [pic from inhisgrace/flickr]
Related posts:
- Texting While Driving: Ban Coming Soon in Virginia?
- Virginia Senate Passes Bill Banning Teenage Use of Cellphones while Driving
- Virginia Film Festival starts today!
my friend got in an accident while she was reading what she claims was a text from me. meanwhile, back in the real world, i didn’t send her a text. my point is that what should be illegal is accusing me of things that i didn’t do.
your honor i rest my case, amen.
I think they should text all drivers to let them know.
What about sending emails from your smartphone? Not technically texting…
or facebooking from the tweeter! dvd gps! satellite blog radio!
i mean, i like having an app for that as much as the next guy, but when i’m driving and playing “choose your own that’s what she said” on my kindle, the last thing i want to do is pay attention to the road! can’t they make an app for that?
They should make an app that steers your car so that your hands are free to play on the internet
Can I text if I’m riding a bicycle?
texting from a regular cellphone doesn’t seem as hard (DeCaprio and Damon do it from inside their pockets in The Departed) as texting from my fancy keyboarded smartphone. it seems like it’d be easier to go with the entire cellphone-ban while driving, for enforcement.
remember for a while the cops were allowed to stop cars for ’suspicion of failure to use a seatbelt’, and everyone was up in arms because it amounted to cops being able to stop anyone at any time for any reason, hoping maybe to discover other illegalities, then just claim the seatbelt didn’t show up against a black shirt or whatever. I think for a while they stopped that, and could just add a seatbelt charge when someone was stopped for some other, legitimate reason (speeding, tailight out, etc.). I guess now they have gone back to any cop can stop anyone they think isn’t belted.
seatbelt laws are paternalistic and intrusive; motorcycles don’t have seatbelts. the cellphone thing seems either unenforceable or open to abuse. Any hand-manipulation of a cellphone could be assumed to be texting, unless it’s against your ear. glancing at a ringing phone to see who’s calling looks like reading a text message. mussing with IPOD/Iphone might look like texting. If they stop you, they might demand to see your history of texts to confirm that you had just sent one—which would be a clear threat to privacy.
i object to this law as intrusive and paternalistic. some people can multi-task, some can’t. ones who can’t will probably learn quickly.
/was stopped in a convertible by State Trooper for playing banjo while driving (to Rmond on an empty Rt 64), keeping the wheel straight with my knees. he let me go with a mild reprimand.
Playing the banjo while driving should be illegal
Next thing you know they will ban woman putting on their make up in the car
Shen…we’re in APP-A-LA-CHIA fer pete’s sake. playing the banjo while doing ANYTHING (doing-your-sister, squatting-in-the-outhouse, losing-your-teeth, growing-ZZ-Top-Beard) is part of the native culture we should embrace and cultivate.
Then again, playing the banjo AT ALL should be illegal for aesthetic if not safety reasons.
my fave banjo mockery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HmkwBuCdMs
you have no expectation of privacy in an automobile.
that’s not what the creepy old-man pederasts driving around and around Lee Park for boy-fellatio seem to think.
or the old man who solicited old-man-fellatio in front of the walmart. but that’s demonstrably wrong.
“Old Man Fellatio” would be an awesome band name.
/smash hit: ‘lemonparty”
he probably would have had better, if less private, luck with The Greeters.
wait a sec….Driving? Birdie?
Are you suggesting that we stop texting while playing a round of golf?
Question: Is there an app for the iphone/uphone/weallphone/4iphone that converts speech into text? ’cause then you could text without typing! Amazing! On that note, there also needs to a be an internet chatroom for people who suffer from internet addiction.
Here you go
http://netaddictionrecovery.blogspot.com/
Suh-weeet! Now can you find me an AA group that holds their meetings in a bar?
the texting ban is sort of like the seatbelt thing…they can really only get you for it if they’ve pulled you over for something else already. it’s a secondary offense or whatever.
dialing a phone number looks a lot like texting…
Dang, I keep coming back to this thread just to stare at the girl in that picture…
a lovely gal. and her friends look like a bunch of really jolly goofballs. nice to see Our Nation’s Youth at responsible play (they’re blowing bubblegum, etc., and laughing a lot in the desert).
AND, she has a mega-cute kitten named BOTH: “Skunk” and “Nancy Reagan”. (HOPE!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24221848@N07/
She talks about her freckles in you go to the link.
“a network of petty regulations — complicated, minute and uniform.” But softly: “It does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them” until people resemble “a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
“an immense, tutelary power” determined to take “sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate.” It would be a power “absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident and gentle,” aiming for our happiness but wanting “to be the only agent and the sole arbiter of that happiness.”
de Tocqueville
until she runs into you