Friday, March 27, 2015

Ban on Daydreaming would save more lives than texting-while-driving ban, just as enforceable

Eric Nicholson at the Dallas Observer's Unfair Park blog rehearsed the arguments against the ban on texting-while-driving passed in the Texas House, with a particularly good discussion of the disingenuous numbers used to hype the policy and the inevitable difficulties enforcing it:



It's telling that "daydreaming" is a 50 percent greater "distraction" to drivers than phone use, including texting and talking combined. If we want to keep everybody safe, surely we need to ban that next? Then, of course, we'll need Thought Police to enforce the Daydreaming Ban, and if anybody tells you it's a bad idea, just raise your voice and insist texting while driving is just as dangerous as driving drunk, and daydreaming is half again as dangerous as that! Think of the children!

Nicholson concluded, IMO rightly, that the only potentially valid, fact based argument for the texting ban is to "send a message," and regular readers know Grits thinks criminal laws are a terrible way to do that. After all, who besides lawyers read them? Want to send a message? Then taxpayers' money would be better spent on billboards and TV ads telling people to get off the phone than on cops and courts to "educate" them via Class C tickets.

Grits would also add an important coda to Nicholson's points which this blog raised in December, and which is perhaps even more poignant today in the wake of a bridge collapsing yesterday on I-35:


sunray's wench said...

Why do you need separate pieces of legislation for each separate possible distraction? Why not have just a single bill, that states that if your attention is not directed at the vehicle you are driving plus the road and the other users thereof, you are liable for prosecution if any incident occurs? Then it can be applied to any distraction and the evidence examined.

We have one here; driving without due care and attention.

Anonymous said...

SW, I'm reasonably certain Scott was being snarky here. He's been hanging around the libertarians at the Lege a little too much here of late.

sunray's wench said...

Anon 5.08 ~ possibly, but that aside, my point still stands.

Gritsforbreakfast said...

SW, the reason is, if you just have one offense, like "reckless driving," which has been on the books for years, only one person gets to author a bill banning it, and nobody in the current crop of legislators gets credit. But break it up into 20 "new" offenses - texting, eating, putting on makeup, daydreaming, etc. - and 20 new legislators get to take credit for banning what was already illegal. It's simple political math.

The best part from a politician's perspective: Since you can't solve most social problems through criminal statutes, inevitably when a new law doesn't solve a problem, pols get to claim another one is needed and repeat the cycle (see the drug war, uninsured motorists, illegal immigration, and a raft of others). If your bill actually solves the problem, a campaign client told me years ago, you risk "losing the issue." As cynical as that sounds, it's the basis for the longevity of the core culture war shibboleths that dominate public debate and let them avoid dealing with the big picture issues facing the state from water to transportation to prisons. There are perverse incentives for politicians to focus on insoluble problems: It justifies their continued efforts, even if they never seem to come to denouement.

sunray's wench said...

Hmmm. Usually a party gets the credit here, rather than an individual.

I understand your way, but it still doesn't make much sense!

With Hold said...

Surely, putting a ban on daydreaming is impossible but we definitely want to keep everybody safe, so we need to warn people against texting-while-driving. There are a lot of myths regarding DUI laws and when it comes to selecting good lawyers for DUI, you find it more difficult as can’t simply decide on which firm to hire. I remember, hiring Los Angeles DUI attorney was a daunting task for us when my cousin got charged for DUI.