Texting and Driving Equals Willful and Wanton Disregard of Public Safety
Yesterday Toledo City Council passed an ordinance outlawing using a text messaging device while driving. Add that to the growing list of useless laws that are virtually impossible to enforce, to the list of wastes of public resources, and to the list of government telling us to not conduct a specific behavior that no one with an IQ greater than a chimpanzee should be doing.
If you are here reading this site, or received this item via an RSS feed, I will assume you have at least a modicum of intelligence. You know that you should not text message and drive, so you don’t do it.
Ohio already has a law prohibiting willful and wanton disregard for public safety while operating a motor vehicle.
Ohio Revised Code Section 4511.20 prohibits a person from operating,
a vehicle, trackless trolley, or streetcar on any street or highway in willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property.
If a person is visibly in the middle of a text message exchange while driving, then I would consider that complete disregard for public safety. Granted text messaging in and of itself is a legal practice. So is eating a tostada. Both are inherently dangerous while driving, unless you want to end up with either a lapful of beans and sour cream or crashed into a telephone pole or worse.
My guess is the police are not going to enforce this law on persons who are not being obviously distracted. You’ve probably seen the folks that sit with both hands on the wheel and phone at same time with thumbs clicking away. But what about those sly folks being just as reckless, but with the phone in their lap, looking down every 2 milliseconds while driving? Is the cop going to pull them over for suspicion of texting? What if they are merely fondling themselves? Or trying to get a stain out of their skirt? Or trying to get the nickel that just fell out of the coin tray? Will the cop let them slide or fall back on ORC Sect. 4511.20 as a way to cover his butt.
I propose that if the cop can’t see the phone, then he isn’t going to bother. The effect of this law is going to be a nominal improvement in public safety not outweighed by the public expense.
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