Does Virigina Texting Law Go Far Enough?

On July 1st, 2009 a new law in Virginia took effect which bans texting while driving. Now, I do admit that I have texted myself while driving, and have seen what other people do while texting and driving, and I can say that I'm very happy to know that this law is now in place. It is very distracting to the driver and encourages aggressive driving by people driving behind that person. But does the law go far enough? Let's break down the new law, shall we? Note, I am not a lawyer...just a simple citizen...do not take my interpretation as law. It's only comment.

A. It shall be unlawful for any person to operate a moving motor vehicle on the highways in the Commonwealth while using any handheld personal communications device to:

Notice the "on the highways" portion. This means that side streets, routes, and neighborhood areas are NOT included. According to this, you're free to drive through a crowded neighborhood area where little children are playing around and text away to hearts content.

Now, if Virginia refers to "highways" as meaning "any roadway" then they should've said that, or provided a glossary of terms in the bill to clarify.

1. Manually enter multiple letters or text in the device as a means of communicating with another person; or

This is very interesting. The law only applies if you text in order to communicate with "another person." Well, what if I'm manually entering letters as a means to search in Google? Apparently I can do that still...although that's just as distracting to me since I'm having to view my results, decide which links to click on by reading descriptions, zoom in/out to view the page better, click the link and read the resulting page, etc. There's much more concentration needed to do that than there is in sending a quick text message. BUT, you can legally still do this since you're not "communicating with another person".

However, this does mean you can't use any Twitter apps since you would be communicating to another person. This could get interesting, one day, if VA Police decided to start searching through tweets for people that are posting their GPS coordinates to each tweet that are residing within VA state lines on VA highways. I can see someone getting a ticket in the mail for $20 because they tweeted from I-95 and tagged their tweet with their location.

2. Read any email or text message transmitted to the device or stored within the device, provided that this prohibition shall not apply to any name or number stored in the device nor to any caller identification information.

This part is fine but it's really just saying you can't read email or text messages, but you can look at your contacts or callerID in order to call someone. Why not just say that?

B. The provisions of this section shall not apply to:

1. The operator of any emergency vehicle;

2. An operator who is lawfully parked or stopped;

I'm assuming here that #2 means stopped at a stoplight, side of the road, OR in the middle of stopped traffic, right? Because stopping in stopped traffic is the lawful thing to do or else you would've plowed into the car in front of you. If this is the case, and I'm texting in dead stopped traffic with an officer next to me what will happen? Anything?

3. The use of factory-installed or aftermarket global positioning systems (GPS) or wireless communications devices used to transmit or receive data as part of a digital dispatch system; or

So, I can still use my iPhone for getting turn by turn directions using my Google Maps app. That's good to know...and it doesn't really matter that I'm not part of a "digital dispatch system" since I'm using an app and I'm not using it to communicate with another person.

4. Any person using a handheld personal communications device to report an emergency.

This is a given and they further go on to explain about emergency vehicles.

So there's the break down. Texting, at one time, was the only thing you could do on a phone other than calling someone. But with smart phones like the iPhone, Palm Pre, BlackBerry, etc things like apps, games, web browsing, and photos and videos have saturated the market. Interacting with these things is much more distracting to the driver than texting.

While I applaud Virginia for taking a step toward making our roads safer, I believe this current version of the law has a lot of potholes in it that need to be filled.

Do you think VA Law should've gone further to cover anything that is not related to phone calls, navigation apps, and emergency services? Speak out.