Driving-texting ban endorsed

LINCOLN – OMG! Nebraska drivers may have only a few months left to write text messages from the road.

State lawmakers Tuesday gave first-round approval to a bill that would ban texting or sending other written communications while driving.

Under Legislative Bill 945, the penalty for violations would be a $200 fine for a first offense, $300 for a second offense and $500 for a third or subsequent offense.

Each offense would add 3 points to a person's driver's license. Drivers who accumulate 12 points lose their license.

State Sen. John Harms of Scottsbluff said he introduced the bill because lives are at stake when drivers send text messages, e-mails or instant messages from the road.

Such practices require drivers to take their eyes off the road, hands off the wheel and mind off the task at hand, he said.

"In the past few years, this has gone from a dangerous practice to a deadly epidemic," Harms said. "It's dangerous, it's harmful and it kills."

None of his colleagues disagreed with the hazards posed by texting while driving.

But several questioned whether LB 945 represented the best way to address the problem.

Sen. Scott Price of Omaha asked how authorities could prove a driver was texting rather than dialing a phone number, looking up the time or doing other things on an electronic device.

The only way to do so would be by subpoenaing a driver's phone record, he said.

Sen. Tom White of Omaha argued that Nebraska would be better off charging people under existing laws against willful reckless driving, reckless driving or careless driving.

Such laws can apply to the results of a wide variety of distracted driving, including watching videos, checking maps, reading newspapers or putting on makeup, he said.

"The problem is not the law, the problem is the enforcement," White said.

In response, Sen. John Wightman of Lexington assured lawmakers that there will be texting drivers who die in the next year and texting drivers who kill others on the road.

"If we don't have the law, it's going to continue," he said.

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