Florida is inching closer and closer to the passage of a law that would make texting at the wheel illegal, but persons who have been impacted directly by distracted driving believe the law is so weak as to be ineffective.
The bill was passed earlier this week by the Senate and now will be heard in front of the House. If ultimately signed into law, the measure would designate texting and driving as a secondary offense, so a person couldn’t be pulled over unless their texting led them to conduct some other illegal maneuver. The fine imposed is a relatively minor $30, and texting would still be permissible at red lights.
All of these exemptions and relatively small punishments have led some to wonder if the ban is even worth it. A mother who lost her 13 year old daughter to distracted driving believes that the penalties need to be harsher. She said, though, that it was a crawl in the right direction if not necessarily a step.
Another man who lost his daughter to texting and driving said this measure will not disabuse people of the notion that texting at the wheel is something that shouldn’t be done. The aforementioned mother agreed, saying that the punishment is weaker than your typical parking ticket.
Still, one other mother who lost a child expressed her belief that this is a good start to tackling an important problem.