Illinois House votes to ban text messaging while driving

I'm glad this law is being put into effect sooner than later. In walking from class to class, I've seen one too many close calls where students nearly walk into oncoming traffic while they focus on their cell phones to text people. And these are the pedestrians - imagine drivers distracted enough to not see a car coming or hear a horn honking at them while they blaze a trail, never minding the road, only making sure there's enough signal to send a message.

Personally, I think anyone texting while driving should be ticketed for reckless driving, as it is a major distraction - I don't answer the phone while I'm driving because I know it will cut away from my awareness of the road and endanger those around me. The simple solution is to let a passenger answer it or just let the message wait until your reach your destination - the world doesn't explode just because you made your girlfriend wait a few minutes. If this law helps keep people too stupid to pay attention off the road, then by all means, enact it and enforce it.

I'd like to first make perfectly clear that I acknowledge text messaging isn't necessary to be handled while driving. For those that aren't fluent in the operation of their phone, it can cause horrific accidents and loss of life.

For a moment, I'd like to take a step back and look at our police forces and the reasons they are allowed to pull us over. Currently, they are capable of pulling an individual over for suspicion of DUI/DWI, to administer a seat-belt check, or because we actually were caught breaking a law (speeding,reckless driving, etc). If we offer the option to be pulled over due to suspicion of text messaging, the police now have another reason to interfere with a city/suburban dweller's daily life. The officer can also cite "probable cause" to rummage through a motorist's personal property.

Consider this: When a "road block" is in place, the police need to justify its purpose to be a seat-belt check. They may catch several drunk drivers this way, but they're inhibiting the law abiding citizens from commuting from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. Why should everyone be punished for the crimes committed by those that aren't responsible enough to give up their keys? Why aren't the cops capable of keeping watch, as they do on normal nights, to locate the drunks operating vehicles and deal with them accordingly? Doesn't it seem like an efficient way for police to round up the figurative "herd" and catch whomever they see fit, search the remainder of the vehicles on "probable cause", and issue arrests and tickets?

With this new legislation, police have yet another reason to frivolously pull someone over and issue a citation to meet their "unspoken and unlawful" quotas. I've heard many of stories about a cop pulling a motorist over, who hadn't broken any law, informed the individual that they had run a red light, and offered to reduce the penalty to a seat belt violation.

Pushing another point forward, how can they prove it? When I get pulled over, is the cop going to have the capability to check my phone to see when my last text message was sent? Isn't that removing our freedom of communication? If they're pulling us over on suspicion, and removing a device that is bound to us, aren't they violating our freedom of communication? If memory suits, the Columbine crisis was partly blamed on the student's inability to carry their cellular phones. If I'm not in police custody, shouldn't I be able to retain that liberty? Could that also be an easy way for cops to issue revenue-generating citations? Also, with the relatively small size of screens on phone, and the advent of touch-screen dialing, how is a police officer going to be able to effectively suspect "text messaging" when the device is usually located by the steering wheel, below the window level of the vehicle?

What happens if I tap the red button twice or close my phone and the text messaging screen isn't visible on my phone? Am I now tampering with evidence?

Cell phones have become practical PDA's. They are able to play music, manage a person's life, access e-mail, text message, call, and do a variety of other things. Am I going to be pulled over because mine is also a GPS device, and I sometimes drive with it in my right hand when approaching a destination?

I hate to say it, but this seems to have more holes than the Obama-Care health plan. More thought needs to go into laws and law enforcement before the creation of these things. Then again, that's just my $0.02.