Messaging while driving a lousy idea

Alabama lawmakers continue to wrangle with the need to pass a law making it illegal to use a cell phone or similar device to send and receive text messages while driving.

It appears there is strong support for a measure among safety advocates and motorists who have had accidents or close calls because someone was texting while driving.

Some law enforcement officers have expressed concern that such a law would be difficult to enforce because if they see someone looking down while driving, they cannot tell if they are texting, reading a book or performing other tasks that distract their attention from the road. Plus, Alabama already has a law against distracted driving.

While I personally have no qualms about an anti-texting law - I am not a texter - I understand the concerns of the police officers. If the law is not carefully written, even if someone was texting, they could go to court, tell the judge they were reading a book and possibly get out of the ticket unless the officer actually saw the phone in their hand. Hopefully, the judge would still fine them for distracted driving.

In reality, why should we even need a law that tells motorists not to send and receive text messages while driving? Shouldn't common sense tell us to keep our eyes and minds focused on the road?

With the amount of traffic on our roads, it's dangerous to do anything that distracts our attention from driving.

While traffic in the Shoals is light compared to large metropolitan areas, I would still not attempt to text - even if I knew how - while driving. It's simply too dangerous to write and read messages on a cell phone while trying to be alert for other motorists who are not paying attention to the road, either.

I have lost count of the number of close calls I've had on local roads when I encountered an erratic driver who appeared to be texting, had a cell phone pressed to their ear, were shoving a cheeseburger into their mouth, reading a newspaper, watching television or applying makeup or shaving.

Bottom line?

We all should keep our eyes on the road and our minds on our driving at all times when we are behind the wheel.

There's no text message that is so important that we cannot wait until we pull over to read it and send a reply. The life you save could be your own.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day with the solution to the texting-while-driving problem. The simple message on the decal was "hang up and drive."

Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or dennis.sherer@TimesDaily.com.