Bernstein says he thinks the younger a person is, the more likely they are to be texting.
Older people tend to be “more cautious and mindful.” He says more research needs to be done on texting while driving.
“What keeps people from texting is knowing the facts,” he says.
Facing the facts
For those in Illinois, the facts include that texting while driving is illegal and it is causing car accidents. Although texting while driving is recognizable, the law against it is difficult to enforce.
The Illinois law that prohibits texting while driving became effective Jan. 1, 2010. The law bans the use of an “electronic communication device” such as a wireless phone or a portable computer for the purpose of reading, writing or sending an electronic message, according to the Illinois General Assembly website. This does not ban the use of global positioning systems.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for American teenagers, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2010 statistics.
Sgt. Steve Anderson of the Springfield Police Department says while proving a driver has been texting is difficult, texting and driving does cause accidents. There are indicators a driver is texting, such as vehicles that weave in and out of their lane, or if a driver is at a stoplight and looking up and down a lot and doesn’t notice when the light turns green, he says.
If he pulls a driver over, that driver might not admit to texting while driving, but he can ask to see a person’s phone to look at a record of their texts, he says. However, like any other traffic violation, a person can deny the officer the right for them to search the phone.
Cameras are set up in various areas of the city, he says, which could potentially be used to watch for drivers who are texting, but “it’s not routinely done.”
Jack Campbell, chief deputy at the Sangamon County sheriff’s office, says there have been four citations and two warnings in Sangamon County for texting while driving since the law was made effective in January 2010. However, he says the number of area accidents caused by texting while driving is unavailable.
In addition to difficult enforcement, Nika says texting has gone unmentioned as a factor in serious car accidents in reports because officials must subpoena phone records to determine if texting was a cause for an accident.
“They’re not going to the next step to see if it’s texting, and so the numbers aren’t there,” Nika says.
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