SARASOTA - Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have banned the potentially deadly practice of text messaging while driving, and now Florida representatives are trying to do the same.
The bill has gone in front of the Florida legislature before, and the other times the bill has died. But now Sarasota representative Doug Holder says the third time is a charm, and a new study makes it perfectly clear that texting while driving is a real hazard.
In New York Wednesday, a tow truck hit a car and then ended up in a swimming pool. The tow truck driver told police he was juggling two cell phones - one he was talking on, the other he was texting.
It was stories like that one that got the attention of Sarasota State Representative Doug Holder. He talked to ABC 7 Thursday at his son's baseball practice. "We saw the news, and saw there were five high school girls that were about to graduate that were in an accident, and it was a fatal accident and texting was cited as one of the reasons why that accident occurred."
Representative Holder has tried to get this bill passed before. And with a new study conducted by Virginia Tech, he believes his fellow legislators won't deny it anymore. "I truly believe that it will get passed. There is more attention now then there ever has been on texting while driving."
"The most alarming result we found is that texting while driving is 23 times more dangerous than just driving by itself; and that's a huge number," says Tom Dingus at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
Florida Highway Patrol lieutenant Chris Miller agrees; taking your eyes off the road just for a few seconds can lead to a crash. "If you are traveling down the road at 45 mph, you're traveling at 66 feet per second; that means every second, your vehicle has traveled 66 feet. Now if you take your eyes off the road for just 2 seconds -- to text, talk on the phone, dial a number -- you've traveled 131 feet during that 2 seconds."
Add your reaction time to that number, and you've traveled more than half the length of a football field.
"As you have your loved ones, I have mine...and I certainly don't want someone who is sending a text message to not pay attention to that fact that we are crossing an intersection and plow into us and harm me and my family members, just like I won't want that to happen to any other Floridian," says Lt. Miller.
If the texting bill is passed, drivers could face a $30 fine for texting while driving. Troopers urge drivers to focus on driving. If you need to talk on the phone, send a text, or put on make-up...pull the car over.
