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If Hawai‘i lawmakers get their way, sending a text message might cost cell phone users close to $500.
The Hawai‘i state senate, in the current legislature session, is reading a bill that hopes to ban text messaging while driving. If it goes through, the new law would prohibit text messaging while driving and fine those violating it. The exact amount of the fine has yet to be decided, though other states with similar laws already in place have fines set around $500. Text messaging for emergency purposes and by emergency personnel while driving would still be allowed.
"All you need is your eyes off the road for just one second and you can cause a very serious accident," Hawai‘i Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa warned. Ishikawa was referring to an incident on Nov. 4 2005, when a driver was text messaging his wife and ended up veering into the oncoming lane on Kalanianaole Highway. The result was a head-on collision that luckily did not result in any serious injuries.
An editorial by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin mentioned another incident that took place over a decade earlier. In 1996 a cell phone related accident cost the state $1.5 million. The amount was paid to a man from New Jersey who was struck by a motorist using a cell phone while driving.
According to research gathered by the Hawai‘i state senate, in 2006, approximately 250,000,000 wireless phone subscribers in the United States sent nearly 158,000,000,000 text messages. Whether it is with a standard phone keypad or a miniature keyboard, text messaging or "texting" has become the de facto method for much of the populace to communicate via their cell phones.
On the street, on the bus and even in classes, people can be found text messaging. Text messaging has become so ubiquitous that University of Hawai‘i instructor Jay Junker now tells his students that if they need to talk during class he would prefer they text message instead. As previously mentioned, text messages can either be composed using the standard nine-digit keypad of most cell phones and either selecting each symbol individually or using a program to anticipate the words being spelled. On more sophisticated devices, such as Blackberry or Sidekick handheld units, miniature keyboards featuring the standard "QWERTY" layout allow for quicker inputs. Either way, the bill considers that the attention needed to compose and send a message is enough of a distraction to cause an accident.
Supporting the claim of inherent danger, the bill mentions two mainland accidents where driving while texting was a factor. One incident resulted in the death of a bicyclist while the other involved the deaths of five members of a high school cheerleading squad in New York. In both cases the drivers were allegedly text messaging while driving. Locally there have been at least two motor vehicle accidents where text messaging was at the center.
Many states have laws prohibiting the use of cell phone handsets while driving, but so far text messaging while driving has only been banned in the state of Washington, according to www.textually.org, a site "all about texting".
Other states have enacted similar bills in previous years, including Hawai‘i, but most died in the legislature. It remains to be seen if this most recent iteration makes it into the law books.
In response to the possibility of a text message ban, one UH student who has admitted to text messaging while driving said, "I feel a text message ban is fine and good and it'll help the safety of others, however, they need to actually enforce it because they have too many laws like the smoking ban and the cell phone ban that they don't enforce and people do it anyway."
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