New Public Awareness Campaign -- Don't Text and Drive

Area wireless provider NorthwestCell and the Missouri Highway Patrol recently embarked on a public awareness campaign to bring attention to a serious road-safety problem, texting while driving.

Together they are calling on drivers to pledge not to text and drive, and share their promise with their friends and family. In the upcoming months, the two entities will partner to visit all Atchison, Gentry, Holt, Nodaway, and Worth County schools to conduct awareness programs for area high school students.  They share the common goal of promoting safe and healthy behaviors among our area’s youth. 

“More than 100,000 times each year, an automobile crashes and people are injured or die while a driver was texting and driving,” said NorthwestCell General Manager Roger Bundridge, citing a National Safety Council statistic. “Distracted driving is an epidemic on our roadways, and we need people throughout the area to take action in their communities to help put a stop to it”. 

The joint “DNT TXT N DRV” public awareness campaign centers around the simple message “Stop the Texts to Stop the Wrecks.” “Our goal is to educate our youth, and discourage texting while driving,” said Bundridge.  “We will be circulating t-shirts, awareness wrist bands, and posters, and hosting school assemblies in order to promote our effort. Other businesses like NuCor, LMP began their own campaigns this year, so we encourage others to join the effort as well.”

Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55 mph, that's enough time to cover the length of a football field. A texting driver is 23 times more likely to get into an accident than a non-texting driver. Of those killed in distracted driving crashes, 995 involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction.

Among tips to stop texting and driving, put your phone where you can't get it or look for it. Turn your notifications off; the less you hear your phone, the less tempted you'll be to respond while you're driving. If you're driving with a friend, lend your phone to your friend and use them as a designated texter.

More texting while driving restrictions contested in the statehouse

Jim Weible has seen the extreme consequences of texting while driving. Earlier this year, a friend of the St. Louis County resident was driving and texting without wearing a seat belt. Weible's friend, 21-year-old Bond Rho, was driving alone through north St. Louis County when he veered off the road, hit a pole and was thrown from the car. He was killed instantly. "The fact that something like this could happen to a guy that young, a guy I had known that long, it made the statistics you see on the news a lot more real," Weible said. According to a study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, drivers take their eyes off the road for an average five seconds to send a text. Driving at 55 mph, that's traveling beyond the length of a football field without looking at the road. Some legislators, including Sen. Chuck Purgason, R-Caulfield, said people need to make these kinds of personal decisions about what they do when they drive on their own. Sen. Ryan McKenna, D-Jefferson County, said he disagrees with Purgason and sponsored a bill to expand Missouri's ban to include all drivers. "My example is when I first started driving, after I passed the driving test, somebody gave me a miniature typewriter and told me to start typing on it while I drive the car, you would have thought I was crazy," McKenna said. McKenna said his bill is currently stuck in the state's legislative process and that a similar bill is proposed in the House. Since 2009, it has been illegal in Missouri for anyone under the age of 22 to text while driving. Captain Tim Hull, spokesperson for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, said the age restriction makes it difficult for officers to enforce the law. But, Hull said, drivers who text typically make visible mistakes that get them pulled over by officers, such as veering into another lane of traffic or driving too slowly. From August 2009 to December 2010, the Highway Patrol issued more than 80 tickets for texting while driving. Under Missouri's current law, Bond Rho's texting was illegal, but one year later he would have been 22 and legally allowed to text while driving.

Proposed bills look to criminalize texting while driving, regardless of age

Legislation to expand the texting while driving ban was met with conflicting opinions in a House committee hearing Wednesday [March 2]. The House Crime Committee heard three bills to criminalize texting while driving, regardless of age. In 2009, Missouri's legislature passed a ban on texting while driving, but limited the bill to those under age 22. Of the three bills discussed, two would make text messaging while driving a primary offense, allowing an officer to stop a driver solely for texting. The remaining proposal calls for a secondary offense; if passed, a driver would need to commit another infraction, such as speeding or improper lane usage, before being penalized for texting. Col. Ronald Replogle, superintendent of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, spoke in favor of the primary offense legislation. Replogle said the highway patrol wrote 66 distracted driving tickets in 2010, which includes actions like eating, changing the radio station or using a cell phone. "When you [send a text message] behind the wheel of a car, you are just as dangerous as a drunk driver," Replogle said. But the sponsor of the limited approach, Rep. Mike Colona, D-St. Louis, said making texting while driving a primary offense would effectively create a "criminal defense lawyer's dream." Colona said he's concerned with the difficulties officers could have proving probable cause for pulling over a driver under suspicion of texting and the possibility of profiling. Colona called his proposal "the most workable alternative" to a primary offense law. Rep. Nick Marshall, R-Platte City, said he was unsure the legislation balanced public safety with constitutional concerns. Marshall said he was worried constituents would feel government was "too involved" and harbor feelings of animosity. "We don't want to go out and hassle people that are doing legal activity," Marshall said. The committee took no immediate action on the proposals.

Missouri's Senate approves expanding the texting-while-driving ban

Before the brunt of the blizzard hit Jefferson City on Tuesday
(Feb. 1), Missouri's Senate gave first-round approval to a measure that
would expand the current ban on texting while driving to adults.

A few
years ago, the legislature approved a ban on messaging while driving, but
limited it to drivers ages 21 and younger.

Although the measure won easy
voice-vote approval, Rep. Brian Nieves, R-Washington, questioned singling
out a specific activity among the variety of things a driver can do that
causes distraction.

"We just have this insatiable desire to think up
another law and another way that we're going to specifically mandate or
control the behavior of people," Nieves said during the Senate debate.


The measure faces one more vote in the Senate before going to the House.