New state law bans texting

MONMOUTH — Starting Jan. 1 it will be against the law to text on a cell phone while driving in Illinois.
State Farm agent Jon Ferguson said the law will be a good opportunity for parents to talk with their teens about safe and undistracted driving. Being at a stop sign or stop light does not waive the texting restriction.
"Teen drivers are especially impacted due to inexperience in managing distraction while also concentrating on safe driving," Ferguson said.
Warren County Sheriff Martin Edwards said that teens are more likely to text than adults.
"Everybody uses cell phones, but younger people are more engaged in texting," Edwards said.
Be that as it may, the sheriff also emphasized that the new law is directed at all age groups, not just teenagers.
"Anyone whose attention is divided puts others at risk," he said.
Edwards said the probable impetus behind the law was that a pedestrian may have been killed by a driver who was texting.
"It's so commonplace that people drive while talking on the cell phone, and while that's somewhat risky, it's not at the level of texting. It's not unlike trying to read while going down the road," he said.
According to www.edgarsnyder.com, a Pennsylvania injury law firm Web site, in 2007, driver distractions, such as using a cell phone or text messaging, contributed to almost 1,000 crashes involving 16- and 17-year-old drivers.
For those who think experienced drivers aren't affected by text messaging, think again. A truck driver texting while driving is 23.2 times more likely to get into an accident than a trucker paying full attention to the road, according to a study done by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI).
Edwards said even looking down for two seconds is a substantial amount of time.
"It will have an impact on your reaction to oncoming events," he said. "The problem (is) they're looking down. If it's the cause of an accident, that will be another citation, notwithstanding failing to reduce speed (or) running stop a sign."
Studies have found that texting while driving causes a 400 percent increase in time spent with eyes off the road. The study by VTTI also states that for every six seconds of drive time, a driver sending or receiving a text message spends 4.6 of those seconds with their eyes off the road. This makes texting the most distracting of all cell phone related tasks.
Edwards cautioned that the texting ban will be difficult to enforce.
"We might be able to pick it up if they're going slow in town, but on highways, we're not going to detect that unless we're actually following the car," he said. "I would just hope that by virtue of the fact that the law is on the books it would create a sense of caution about it. Nobody should have been doing it anyway — drive or communicate, not both. It does put people at risk."
Edwards and Ferguson both encourage parents to sit down with their teen driver and discuss undistracted driving.
"(Parents can) incorporate it into their overall cautionary advisements to any young driver," he said.


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