Finally, Florida Set to Ban Texting While Driving: A Special Commentary by Attorney Greg Perenich

After five  years of prolonged legislative debate and delays, Florida lawmakers have finally approved a compromised bill that if signed into law by Governor Scott would ban driving while texting, instant messaging, and emailing. House Bill 13 won overwhelming support in both the Florida Senate and House with only one senator casting a “no” vote. The new measure would make it a secondary offense to manually text and drive, meaning police officers would have to first pull over a driver for another violation before issuing a ticket. A first offense comes with a $30 fine plus court costs, but due to privacy concerns cell phone records could only be subpoenaed by the prosecution if the texting results in death or personal injury. A second offense within 5 years raises the fine to $60 and adds 3 points to a driver’s record.
Florida now holds the dubious honor of becoming the 40th state to impose restrictions on the use of hand-held devices while driving, and while it was high time our legislators passed such a measure to protect Florida motorists, the current bill is a far cry from deterring texting behind the wheel. For example, the current bill does nothing to prevent “verbal” texting or texting while a vehicle is stopped at a red light. And enforceability will be difficult if not impossible for law enforcement. As a secondary offense, police officers won’t be allowed to pull over a suspected offender unless they can first identify another violation to support the traffic stop. This is all in the face of several respected traffic studies firmly establishing what has been obvious all along: texting and driving and other types of distracted driving is ultra-hazardous and is the culprit in causing thousands of needless deaths and serious injuries on our highways, streets and public roads.
But still, it is a step, albeit a rather small step, in the right direction for Florida. And when the Governor signs the bill into law later this year, as is expected by most Tallahassee observers, we can probably expect a small signing ceremony followed by a few public warnings about the dangers of texting while driving from Governor Scott. Maybe then we can ask our esteemed leaders why it took five years and the deaths, injuries and economic losses to so many Floridians before any action by our state government. Who knows, maybe even one day our lawmakers at both the state and federal levels will impose something more than illusory enforcement and pass vitally needed regulation upon the wireless and mobile device industry to require technological restrictions disabling the use of electronic devices in moving vehicles.