Posts tagged "Distracted Driving"

It is not uncommon for a person to get briefly distracted by his or her phone. The urge to quickly send a message, comment on a Facebook status or check an email is too tempting for some. However, under the state law in North Carolina, drivers who are cited for texting and driving are committing a traffic violation and can be fined. Even if it is just for a second, being distracted while driving can cause serious accidents.

In an informal observational study done by NBC-17, nearly a quarter of drivers were seen either holding a phone or talking on a phone. Based on the information that was collected from 500 drivers that were observed, sources estimated that drivers in North Carolina spend 95 million hours texting while driving.

Talk about distracted driving: this distraction was manual, cognitive and visual, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, as David Kiley reports for AOL Autos. And the cause of a highway pile-up that claimed the lives of two people was a cause none other than texting while driving, which will now lead to a citation in North Carolina.

In fact, it was 11 texts in 11 minutes, just prior to the fatal Missouri accident in 2010.

The state's ban on texting while driving has been controversial to say the least. We have previously posted about the confusing and vague nature of the law, as well as some important loopholes.

Now North Carolina legislators are going even further in their fight to outlaw distracted driving. Two new bills are currently being considered which would outlaw cell phone use in its entirety while driving. Texting while driving is already off the table. Now state lawmakers are trying to outlaw dialing, talking, surfing the web, playing games and even selecting music.

We have previously reported on North Carolina's ban on texting while driving. The law went into effect in December of 2009, and since that time there have been over 1,200 citations issued for texting behind the wheel. While most assume that teenagers are to blame, the statistics show that adults are actually more guilty when it comes to this distracted driving practice.

The Associated Press reports that 28 is the average age of those ticketed for texting while driving. At least half of those cited were older than 26, and a handful of distracted drivers were over 60.

North Carolina has had a ban on texting while driving for a little over a year. This law carries a $100 fine for each offense and can adversely affect drivers in other ways as well, including insurance rate increases. In some cases, police may even charge a suspect with reckless driving.

Studies have shown that texting while driving is dangerous because it decreases focus and significantly slows reaction time. Therefore a ban is perhaps warranted. However, the law as it is currently written is vague and does not allow for advancements in phone technology. This could result in some big problems and disagreements when it comes to enforcement.