The Oakland Post

Texting ban takes effect

By Mackenzie Roger
Posted: Monday, May 17th, 2010 at 12:23 pm | Last Updated: Monday, May 17th, 2010 at 12:23 pm Comments Print This Email This Tweet This Delicious

The quest to outlaw driving distractions sparked the debate over a text messaging ban while driving in Michigan. 

On April 30, Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed three bills that bannedsending or reading text messages while driving on all Michigan roads, including the Oakland University campus. The laws will take effect on July 1. 

“Give driving your full attention because it deserves it,” said Oakland University Police Department Captain Mark Gordon.

The bills prohibit motorists from typing, sending or receiving text messages. The first violation will result in a $100 fine, with each subsequent citation a $200 fine. 

No points will be assessed to the driver’s record and violations of the texting law will not be recorded on drivers’ master records, according to Senate Bill 468. 

OUPD will enforce the legislation as well. 

Gordon said he rarely sees drivers texting on campus roads, but often sees other drivers doing it on other roads, although he strongly disapproves of the practice. 

“It’s easy to lose track of what’s going on around you while you’re texting and I think most people are aware of that fact,” Gordon said . “You’re on your way somewhere, driving your vehicle and trying not to hit pedestrians.” 

Gordon cites the campus speed limits, high volume of pedestrians and quests for parking spaces as reasons why students largely do not send text messages while driving on campus. 

Once the laws go into effect, the OUPD must discern between drivers texting or dialing a phone number while driving. 

“Dialing itself, the phone, is not going to be an infraction: texting or reading a text message is. The fact that you are dialing your cell phone while driving is not included in the law,” Gordon said . 

Telling the difference between texting and dialing will have to be a judgment call on officers’ part, Gordon said. 

Senior Kristen Marshall, a medical laboratory sciences major, believes that officers will have no trouble differentiating between the two. 

“The time difference is there,” Marshall said. “Typing a text takes way longer than dialing a number.”  

Junior art history major Jeni Dick supports the law. As someone who used to text while driving, she said she now understands the risks involved. 

“I noticed I’d be looking at my phone and I wasn’t paying attention,” she said. “I just knew this wasn’t a good idea.”  

A 2009 study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute discovered that while texting, the average driver took their eyes off the road for 4.6 seconds in a 6-second interval, equivalent to driving 300 feet at 55 mph without looking at the road. 

Additionally, the study found that dialing while driving increases the likelihood of an accident 300 percent. 

The Michigan State Senate and House of Representatives took the study into account while debating a potential texting ban last winter. 

More extensive laws regarding distracted behavior may be more beneficial. 

“We definitely see a lot of texting and a lot of distracted behavior,” said Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard. “Making a phone call can be distracting. There’s a challenge to enforce it [the texting law]. A better law would have addressed distracted behavior.” 

According to Bouchard, the financial impact of receiving a citation might halt certain people from texting while driving, although they may continue other detrimental behavior. 

“[The law] should have been more specifically distracted driving, not just text messaging,” Bouchard said. 

Some OU students have doubts the effectiveness of anti-texting laws, and compare it to Michigan’s 2008 seatbelt law. 

“I think the law will cut down on texting, but I don’t think it’ll eliminate it,” Marshall said. “People are more in a hurry nowadays and don’t care. People still don’t wear their seatbelts all the time, and there’s a law about that, too.”