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Mar. 28, 2010

Three days ago, the Michigan State Senate passed a newer and tougher version of its legislation that would make it illegal to send text messages from mobile phones while driving in the state.

The proposed new law would make texting while driving a primary offense beginning July 1st, 2010, meaning that police could pull over and cite motorists just for texting while driving.

Fines will be $100 for a first offense and $200 for each offense after that.

Michigan's main bill in the newly proposed law already passed the Republican-led chamber by a 28-10 vote, with only Republicans in opposition.

It now will go to the Democrat-led House, which isn't expected to take up the new measure until returning from a scheduled two-week break that ends in mid-April.

In the past, older versions of the bill had made texting just a secondary offense. That meant police would need some other reason to stop a car or truck.

The texting ban has picked up a lot of momentum in Michigan recently because of publicity surrounding more road accidents caused by distracted driving.

Police say a teenage driver killed in a January traffic accident in Ottawa County was exchanging text messages with his girlfriend, got distracted, crashed and was killed instantly in the accident.

Police have since told lawmakers that making the violation a secondary offense would hinder their ability to cite motorists in time to prevent accidents. But some lawmakers doubt a tougher policy making texting a primary offense will pass the Legislature.

"More and more, people not just in Michigan but all over the U.S. are becoming increasingly aware about this serious issue," said Rep. Lee Gonzales, a Democrat from Flint and a strong supporter of the ban on texting while driving in Michigan.

"There's simply a whole lot of attention placed on it, and it's growing almost every day that passes, he added."

The U.S. federal government has sought to crack down on distracted driving, urging states to adopt much tougher laws against sending text messages from behind the wheel. About 58 percent of the states already have adopted measures that ban at least some drivers from texting while driving.

Additionally, several more are also in the process of passing new laws addressing it in other states as well.

As of Friday, texting while driving is already classified as a primary offense in at least fifteen states, and that number will soon rise to at least 20 before May 1st.

According to the U.S. Transportation Department's distraction.gov website, using a mobile phone has the same affect on a driver's reaction time as a blood alcohol concentration of .08 percent, the maximum limit in all 50 U.S. states.

Texting while driving is already banned in some Canadian provinces, and the Ottawa federal legislature is working on making it a federal law, prohibiting texting while driving in all Canadian provinces, with minimum fines of $300 for the first offence and $1,000 for the second, in addition of losing at least 4 points on offenders' driver permits.

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Source: The State of Michigan.