Indiana may soon join the ranks of nanny states that prohibit texting. I personally do not text while driving, it can wait until I’m stopped but more often that not, I just call them back if it’s important.

House Bill 1279 was authored by Joe Pearson, a Democrat from Hartford City. While it has all the feel-good intentions of a typical “we want to control more of your life” bill, it misses the mark for those that think it should be law. It only applies if you’re actually “sending” a text, not reading one.

Indiana law already bars texting by drivers under age 18, and that’s fine by me. Kids’ attention spans are short enough as it is. The real question with this law is how are they going to enforce it?

How can the officer prove you were actually pushing buttons? It seems to me the only way to prove it would be to confiscate your cell phone and look. Unless the accused granted permission, that require a search warrant. Under this law you can still punch the buttons on your phone to make a call. How’s the officer going to know what you were doing?

And, what about interacting with your GPS?

Synopsis: Texting while driving. Provides that it is a Class C infraction if a person uses a telecommunications device to transmit a text message or electronic mail message while operating a moving motor vehicle. Repeals the current definition of “telecommunications device”.

The definition of a “telecommunications device” under this bill is as follows:

Means an electronic or digital telecommunications device. The term includes a:
(1) wireless telephone;
(2) personal digital assistant;
(3) pager; or
(4) text messaging device.

No mention of a GPS. You still have to take your eyes off the road and push the buttons on a GPS unit. For that matter, you still have to do the same thing to change the station on your radio, put in a different cd, etc. Or how about people that go through the drive-through and hit the street cramming a burger down their throats with the wrapper blocking their vision?

I’m in no way condoning texting while driving. I won’t even allow my son to talk to me on the phone if he’s driving. We don’t need laws that tell us what kind of light bulbs to use, or, that outlaw the spanking of children by parents, or tell us how bright, or not, the lights on our houses should be, or how and when we can use an electronic device, or whether or not business owners can allow smoking on “their property,” or force us to buy health insurance if we don’t want it.

Why not a law that prevents parents from feeding their kids until their too fat?

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Indiana Wants Me, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.