If you are following these words while you are driving, please stop. Now. While we value you as a reader, we value you even more alive. Other motorists and pedestrians likely would appreciate your paying closer attention to the road, too, as, presumably, they have a fondness for living as well.
Editorial: Do not read this while driving
If you are following these words while you are driving, please stop. Now.
While we value you as a reader, we value you even more alive.
Other motorists and pedestrians likely would appreciate your paying closer attention to the road, too, as, presumably, they have a fondness for living as well.
The same applies even more to texting while driving, which officially becomes illegal in North Carolina today. A motorist who is caught driving while texting now faces a $100 fine plus court costs.
Some critics who argue for even stiffer consequences have a point. Studies suggest that the chance of an accident increases by a whopping 32 times for a driver who is texting.
Yet too many of us are paying as little attention to our better instincts as to the road. Although 97 percent of drivers surveyed earlier this year by the AAA Foundation found it "completely unacceptable" to send a text or e-mail while driving, 1 in 7 confessed to texting while driving.
Of course, the law's impact remains to be seen. As is the case with a 2007 state law that restricts younger drivers with graduated licenses from using
The cell phone law requires an officer to determine age from a distance. It also contains a gaping loophole that permits calls to parents by younger drivers. Thus the officer has to establish not only who made the call but to whom the call was made.
Similarly, how can an officer tell for certain if a driver is texting? How can that officer also distinguish texting from dialing a number while driving, which remains legal, though no less hazardous, in North Carolina?
One study concluded that five months after the state's cell phone law took effect, the frequency of teen drivers talking on their phones stayed the same.
At the very least the higher visibility and attention the new texting law has brought to the subject could heighten awareness.
But, in the end, the laws of common sense will have to prevail.
Greensboro News & Record