Jan 26, 2020 3 min read

The invention of the telephone and the car happened one after the other in the latter part of the 19th century, and surely the likes of Alexander Graham Bell and Karl Benz never imagined that one day you would be able to hold forth on the phone and pilot a vehicle down the highway at the same time.

Yes, they probably would have been amazed. They probably should have been appalled.

Even though driving has been getting safer and safer thanks to better roads and vehicles with improved designs and advanced technology, distracted driving resulting from people talking on their phones or texting has exacted a significant toll. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), distracted driving led to a little more than 3,000 deaths in the United States in 2017. Granted, adjusting a vehicle’s heating and cooling system or fiddling with the radio can also fall under this rubric, but talking and texting are clearly the most insidious threats.

One study has suggested talking on a hand-held device – or even a hands-free phone – was at least as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. The NHTSA has pointed out that sending or reading a text takes a driver’s eyes off the road for at least five seconds. Traveling at 55 mph, that’s the equivalent of traversing a whole football field with your eyes shut.

Given the perils of talking or texting while driving, it’s disappointing that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives didn’t take a stronger stand earlier this month when it comes to prohibiting the use of hand-held devices while driving. Right now, it’s against the law to text while you’re behind the wheel, but legal to talk on a hand-held device. The law approved by the House would make it illegal to talk on a hand-held device, but only as a secondary offense. That means police cannot pull over anyone solely because they have a phone to their ear while driving. The driver can only be punished if they are accused of some other offense, like speeding, or they cause an accident.

Proponents of strengthening the commonwealth’s laws in this area argue that the bill approved by the House could actually make things worse, not better. State Rep. Mike Carroll, a Democrat from Luzerne County, said it will prevent police from pulling over drivers who are texting because it can sometimes be hard to determine if someone is texting or dialing.

“This advances nothing,” according to Carroll, whose in-laws were killed by a distracted driver in 2012.

It should be noted that most of Pennsylvania’s neighbors, including West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland and New York, have tougher laws when it comes to using hand-held devices while driving. Putting some teeth in our laws would hardly make us an outlier. And there is always the possibility that the state Senate will take up the bill and revamp it.

Legislators who had misgivings about the bill said they were opposed because it was intrusive or because they feared black drivers could be subject to racial profiling and pulled over. But Natalie Mihalek, the Republican who represents Peters Township and parts of the South Hills, said it was “a matter of public safety” and “it seemed like a no-brainer to me.”

It seems like a no-brainer to us, too.