Texting while driving causes personal injuries. Common sense dictates that it is impossible to keep an eye on the road and text. Use of cell phones diminishes the ability to drive safely. Driving while texting is essentially driving blind.
Massachusetts is one of 21 states currently considering legislation that would ban texting while driving. Twelve others have already passed bans including Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Tennessee, Utah, Virgina and Washington. Washington, D.C. has also outlawed the behavior.
In Massachusetts this past May, the Senate dropped its longstanding opposition to a ban on texting while driving laying the groundwork for a prohibition in Massachusetts after several tragedies caused by distracted drivers. The Senate vote came less than two weeks after Aiden Quinn, a 24-year-old MBTA operator, told authorities he was sending his girlfriend a text message when he missed a red light and slammed into a stopped trolley near Government Center Station. The crash destroyed three trolleys and injured nearly 50 people.
A bill currently pending in the federal government would give federal funds to states that forbid driving while texting or talking without a hands-free device. It could pass this year. Amid calls from the Obama administration and traffic safety advocates to ban texting and talking on hand-held cell phones while driving, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) has thrown his support behind the effort -- a sign that the Senate could pass such legislation this year.
The Bellotti Law Group, a Boston personal injury law firm, has successfully resolved cases where our clients have been severely injured due to someone driving blindly while using their cell phone.
