Texting ban, teen restrictions clears Ohio Senate

ANN SANNER

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Ohio dri­vers would be banned from tex­ting, and teens couldn’t use their cell­phones, iPads or other elec­tron­ics behind the wheel under a bill that the Ohio Sen­ate passed on Thursday.

Some state sen­a­tors argued the leg­is­la­tion chips away at per­sonal free­dom, while oth­ers said it doesn’t go far enough to tar­get dis­tracted driving.

State Sen. Bill Seitz, who opposed the mea­sure, freely admit­ted: “I make it a prac­tice never to vote for a law that I might be guilty of.”

The Sen­ate passed the mea­sure on a 25–8 vote. The House over­whelm­ingly approved an ear­lier ver­sion of the bill, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives would have to agree to the Senate’s changes.

Tex­ting while dri­ving is already pro­hib­ited in 37 states, accord­ing to the Gov­er­nors High­way Safety Asso­ci­a­tion. An addi­tional six states pro­hibit text mes­sag­ing by new dri­vers. Other states also ban novice dri­vers from using cellphones.

Ohio’s bill would make tex­ting behind the wheel a minor mis­de­meanor, with pos­si­ble fines of $150. The mea­sure wouldn’t trump city ordi­nances on tex­ting or cell­phone use that might be tougher.

Seitz, a Cincin­nati Repub­li­can, said he also opposed the mea­sure because it could cre­ate a “stack­ing” of offenses for dri­vers in which they could get cited more than once for vio­lat­ing both state law and city ordinances.

The bill would make tex­ting with hand-held devices a sec­ondary offense for adults. That means dri­vers could be tick­eted for typ­ing emails or instant mes­sages only if they were pulled over for another offense, such as run­ning a red light.

That’s a weaker statewide tex­ting ban than the ver­sion that the House passed on an 88–10 vote in June. The House had made tex­ting a pri­mary offense, but its ver­sion didn’t include the crack­down on teen drivers.

State Sen. Tom Pat­ton, a Strongsville Repub­li­can, said much like the state’s seat­belt law, he hopes that peo­ple will instinc­tively fol­low the rules even if they can’t be ini­tially be pulled over for break­ing them.

“Will we stop it? No. Will we reduce it? Yes. Because we have seen that hap­pen before,” Pat­ton told his colleagues.

The switch to the sec­ondary offense came amid con­cerns in the Sen­ate about how the law would be enforced by author­i­ties. Sen­a­tors had wran­gled with con­cerns about enforce­ment since the bill stalled in their cham­ber last fall.

The Ohio Fra­ter­nal Order of Police sup­ports the bill. How­ever, the group’s pres­i­dent has said the orga­ni­za­tion would have pre­ferred that tex­ting be a pri­mary offense because it would have been eas­ier to enforce.

The bill is tougher on new dri­vers. Minors could have hands-free GPS nav­i­ga­tion devices, but they couldn’t use other elec­tronic devices unless an emer­gency arises, or the vehi­cle was stopped and off the roadway.

The mea­sure would make tex­ting or using an elec­tronic device while dri­ving a pri­mary offense for those under age 18. Minors could be fined $150 for the first offense and have their license sus­pended for 60 days. Repeat offend­ers could face a $300 fine and get their license taken away for a year.

State Sen. Nina Turner, a Cleve­land Demo­c­rat, said the bill had too many loop­holes and exemp­tions that would make enforce­ment chal­leng­ing. Plus, she said, if law­mak­ers were seri­ous about reduc­ing dis­tracted dri­ving, then they wouldn’t “play around the edges” in the bill.

“An adult could still surf the web, check the weather, watch a movie, enter an address or even watch a base­ball game on their phone or their tablet,” Turner said.

Posted by AP News on May 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.