During the past 2 years, state lawmakers have made texting while driving (TWD) one of the hottest public policy issues in the country. As of this writing, 18 states plus the District of Columbia have enacted all-driver texting bans since 2007 and another 9 states have imposed similar bans on young drivers.
Why have state legislators moved so quickly on TWD? Three reasons come to my mind.
The first is simply the sheer numbers involved. CTIA, The Wireless Assn. (www.ctia.org) estimates 87 percent of Americans now own a cell phone. More than 110 billion text messages were sent in December 2008, compared with 9.8 billion messages in December 2005. Statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also show that 11 percent of drivers (1,050,000 vehicles) use hand-held devices during daylight hours.
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