Recently in Distracted Driving Category

Summer vacation is a time for cross-country road trips, while extended drives make GPS-enabled and Web-connected mobile phones that much more attractive. But as an MSNBC article points out, be aware of different states' distracted driving laws before setting out.

Illinois enacted a ban on sending or reading text messages while driving on Jan. 1, as an ABC Chicago article explains. But while Chicago DUI lawyers don't typically handle distracted driving cases, distraction is strikingly similar to intoxication and often just as dangerous.

Today's smart phones are the Swiss Army Knife of road trips. Many of them run applications for finding cheap gas, inexpensive hotels and traffic updates; while most phones nowadays come equipped with GPS-enabled navigation software.

A lobbyist group angling to represent the mobile phone industry and known by the acronym DRIVE, or "Drivers for Responsibility, Innovation and Vehicle Education," is countering efforts by Oprah Winfrey and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to curb distracted driving accidents through greater regulation, Fair Warning reported. 

Fair Warning, a non-governmental organization that serves as a corporate watchdog, linked to a 10-page internal DRIVE document describing its efforts to push back against campaigns to limit mobile phone use in the car (PDF).   

The rationale for the mobile industry's resistance to distracted driving laws is simple: Fears about the dangers of texting and driving (some, including Oprah, have advocated against all mobile phone use while driving) translates into fewer minutes and thus lower profits.

The Northwest Times reported that Rosemary Quiñones, a mother of five who lives in East Chicago, Indiana, was inspired to take action to support the texting while driving law after her autistic 6-year-old son nearly got hit by a car. She realized that her son might have been killed if the driver had been distracted by a text message, since the car stopped just inches shy of the boy.

But while most citizen crusades against societal dangers are prompted by tragedy, such as a DUI fatality or sexual assault, Rosemary Quiñones hopes Indiana will follow the lead of neighboring Illinois by outlawing texting while driving.

Illinois banned the sending or reading of text messages while driving on Jan. 1, which some say is often just as impairing as alcohol intoxication. Distracted driving penalties in Illinois are not quite as severe as a DUI, but it may only be a matter of time before Chicago DUI lawyers start taking on such cases.

For now, offenders are stopped and ticketed if caught.

Morris resident Lora Hunt was convicted of reckless homicide for rear-ending the motorcycle of 56-year-old Anita Zaffke, killing her, while she was distracted by nail polish, the Chicago Tribune reported. The victim's family members hope to make some good out of the tragedy by raising awareness about the dangers of distracted driving.

Lora Hunt's criminal attorney said his client would not have been convicted of a crime had she been distracted by a cell phone or a sandwich, to which prosecutor Mike Mermel replied that polishing one's nails is very different from other forms of distracted driving:

"It is not the same as biting a sandwich ... it's a voluntary disablement. She might as well have been in the back seat making a sandwich."

Chicago DUI lawyers generally don't handle texting while driving cases, which typically are limited to citations, but studies show that the potentially distracting behavior can be just as dangerous as drinking and driving (Car and Driver).

Such studies, buoyed by the increasing frequency of accidents involving drivers who were distracted by their mobile device, have prompted lawmakers to take action. An Illinois law banning texting while driving took effect on Jan. 1, 2010.

But another study, the results of which were reported by The Associated Press, suggests that such laws do nothing to stop distracted-driver crashes.

For all the attention texting while driving has gotten lately, including talk show maven Oprah Winfrey's campaign to stop drivers from using personal electronics in general, you might assume truck drivers would have better sense.

But then again, commercial truckers spend most of their lives behind the wheel and may be more tempted than the rest of us.

Effective immediately, drivers of commercial trucks and buses in the United States are prohibited from texting while driving (Refrigerated Transporter). US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced the new federal guidelines at a conference on distracted driving earlier this week.

Texting while driving is now against the law in the state of Illinois, as is surfing the web on your smart phone. Fair enough; is it so unreasonable to safely pull over to the side of the road if that text message simply cannot wait? And you can always just clip on your headset and make a phone call.

But what about GPS navigation (also known as "sat-nav"), which provides turn-by-turn directions with the help of satellite technology? The technology is designed to be used while driving, so any law restricting its use would be an outright ban, for all intents and purposes. 

Using a sat-nav system is still allowed under the new texting-while-driving law, but it's not clear whether that also includes navigation applications on iPhones or other high-end, GPS-enabled handsets (Tribune).

Popular Chicago-based talk show host Oprah Winfrey is lending her considerable influence to the fight against texting or talking on the phone while driving. She devoted a recent show to the subject.

A press release to fans on her web site starts off with statistics and then gets into personal stories of families impacted by texting-related tragedies, in the style of her long-running show (Oprah.com). 

Much has been said about the distraction that comes with texting while driving, and some even say it's more dangerous than drunk driving (Times UK). A teenager quoted by an article in Mashable says it all:

"Yeah [my dad] drives like he's drunk. His phone is just like sitting in front of his face, and he puts his knees on the bottom of the steering wheel and tries to text."

As if that isn't frightening enough, the Illinois driver with the dubious distinction of being the first to receive a ticket under the state's new texting while driving law also was drunk at the time (Tribune). Des Plaines-based Terry Moore was pulled over after an officer saw him weaving across the center line early in the morning on Jan. 2.

With a little help from the US Dept. of Transportation, a new organization called FocusDriven hopes to get everyone's attention about the dangers of driving while distracted, which researchers claim can be just as deadly as driving drunk (Distraction.gov).

But while earlier campaigns against in-car cell phone use focused more on the act of holding the phone to one's ear, FocusDriven hopes to convince people to hang it up completely while driving:

"Whether texting, using hands-free or handheld phones, these drivers not only put their lives on the line, but they risk killing others on the road. "