OMG WFT Texting Ban in CA

Ahhh...the new year brings new laws. Including the banning of texting while driving. I will admit that I've texted while driving. Well mostly at red lights. Running late messages to friends at the movies saving a seat for me. Texting work that I'm stuck on Wilshire Blvd about three blocks away that will take another hour due to an accident. Things like that. But not anymore.

When California becomes the seventh state in the nation to ban text messaging Thursday, dispatches from the fast lane will become a violation of the state vehicle code, subjecting drivers caught writing them or reading them to a $20 fine for the first offense and $50 for repeat offenses.

The new law is the handiwork of state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, who also wrote the hands-free cell phone legislation that went into effect July 1. In just under six months, the California Highway Patrol has handed out 45,000 citations to violators of that law, and the CHP is expected to have its hands full trying to keep up with motorists who have their hands full of tiny QWERTY keyboards, thumbing their way down the open road.

It took Simitian six years to ram hands-free calling through the Legislature and onto California’s roadways, but he says he encountered almost no resistance to the no-texting law. “It’s really the worst of all possible worlds,” Simitian said of texting, which has grown increasingly popular with supposedly grown-up drivers. “Eyes off the road, and hands off the wheel. That’s a dangerous combination for all of us, not just the people who are texting.”

I hate to sound like the young folk who needs to text to live my life but I do think that I can safely text in ground to the halt traffic. Will I text? Yes. I'll just look around for cops first.