President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

He's still going to get hit with 13 counts of vehicular manslaughter and go to jail for a million years. I doubt a texting while driving law would add to the sentence.

 

Is a drive for texting while driving necessary? Is there no law against reckless or careless driving for failing to maintain your lane? So if he wasn't texting he could just veer into the other lane and crash head-on into a bus and it wouldn't be a violation of any law?

edit: just read Hondo's post. pretty sure not banning texting won't matter.

 

The entire point of laws is to discourage behavior that is dangerous or hurtful to others. Texting while driving is extremely dangerous. That is the point, not heaping more punishment on this particular criminal.

 

Why bother having drunken driving laws then? Just arrest people for reckless or careless driving.

Part of the reason for the texting law would be as a deterrence. If a cop happened to see the guy texting, he couldn't pull him over. With a law, he would be able to do so.

 

Umm lot easier to test for and prove drunk driving. Driver gets out of the car, takes field sobriety test (on camera) then takes a breathalyzer test. With the no texting law you can have cops saying you were texting if your phone was in your hand. Or could just have them pulling people over, see a phone and say they were texting. Kind of think it's a little different, when one thing has a verifiable, demonstrable (miss JDV) way of being proven.

 

No doubt inspired by our previous golf/politics topic. This may be this board's finest hour.

 

It is definitely tougher to prove drunk driving, but that wasn't the question you asked. You asked why it was necessary and that is where it is comparable to drunk driving.

Edit: Darn multi-tasking. I messed up. I meant that it is tougher to prove texting and driving than drunk driving

 

It is simple if the state sets a level and the person's blood alcohol reaches that level.

 

Maybe simple isn't the correct word, but it's definitely more objective to have a breathalyzer test than to go by a cop's vision.

 

Most modern cars have internal sensors and contain information, something like the black box on an airliner. Texts are timestamped. If a text is timestamped at the same time that the airbags deployed, it is very verifiable. If there are several texts in the minutes before the crash, and the driver was driving half an hour from work to home, they have those as well. Not every texting driver will crash and kill a dozen people and have those manslaughter charges available.

I bet that his insurance company would have something to say about it as well, whether there is a law or not - but especially if there is.

 

Yes in the case of a crash that happens. You think if a cop pulls you over and gives you a ticket because he/she said he/she saw you texting, you'll be able to use your phone and not pay that fine?

 

We have no texting laws in Canada but unless a witness reports that they saw a phone in the driver's hand the police may not request your phone records. But if someone sees you using your phone they wouldn't need the records. Catch 22.