Pushing back on cell limits

By Bill Green

As with cigarettes and cancer, we can no longer deny the link between traffic accidents and cell-phone use while driving. Although study after study has shown a distracted driver is a dangerous driver, most state governments - including Pennsylvania's - have failed to regulate this practice.

Recognizing the risk, Philadelphia's government took action. Last spring, City Council unanimously passed a ban on the use of handheld devices while driving or bicycling.

A recent New York Times series cited the very studies City Council considered. One study demonstrated that a driver using a mobile phone was as distracted as a drunk driver. Another determined that drivers dialing phones are four times more likely to cause a crash. Yet another found that drivers sending text messages are 23 times more likely to cause an accident. The upshot is clear: Drivers using handheld devices pose a danger to other drivers, pedestrians, and themselves.

In Philadelphia, we made dialing, talking, texting, and even just holding a mobile device while driving a primary offense, meaning police can stop and cite drivers for these violations alone. However, as you read this, lobbyists for the cell-phone industry are pushing Pennsylvania's General Assembly to undo these protections.

The legislature is considering a ban on texting while driving that, although it's a step in the right direction, does not go far enough. It would let drivers dial numbers, the most distracting part of making a call. It would make texting while driving only a secondary offense, meaning a driver could be pulled over for it only if violating another law. And it would preempt Philadelphia's more comprehensive law.

As the tobacco industry did, the cell-phone industry is making decisions based on its bottom line - decisions that have and will cost lives. Its lobbying has been extraordinarily successful: As the Times reported, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration withheld data demonstrating the dangers of cell-phone use while driving.

We are paying a deadly price - at least 300,000 accidents and 26,000 fatalities to date - for the failure to end this practice. Citizens - the people endangered by the lack of political courage on this issue at the state and federal levels - should urge their legislators to preserve Philadelphia's law and pass an aggressive statewide measure before more people are injured or killed.