Bill to ban texting while driving set for vote
5:24 PM Tue, Apr 21, 2009 | Permalink
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The sponsors originally sought to prohibit driving while talking or texting on a hand-held cellular phone, except in emergencies or in cases where the driver had a hands-free device. But after years of failed efforts to get such a ban through the House, Senate leaders have limited their goal this year to passing a ban on a practice that has been blamed for at least two local deaths, and an accident last weekend, according to Senate spokesman Greg Pare. A final version of the bill has not yet surfaced. In December 2007, a New Bedford man who was text messaging in his SUV hit and killed a 13-year old boy on a bicycle in Taunton. Earlier this year, a Massachusetts State Police trooper was killed in a car crash while pursuing a suspected texter. On Monday, South Kingstown police charged Alfred R. Kaminsky, 38, of Charlestown, with driving while under the influence of alcohol and other traffic offenses after an accident early Saturday in which his car struck a cruiser driven by a police officer. Sgt. James R. Tierney, detective commander of the town police, said Kaminsky admitted he had been text-messaging just before the impact. Text messaging is currently banned for all drivers in 10 states (Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Utah, Virginia, and Washington) and the District of Columbia. In addition, novice drivers are banned from texting in 10 states (Delaware, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and West Virginia) and school bus drivers are banned from text messaging in 2 states (North Carolina, and Texas), according to the National Institute for Highway safety. If the texting-while-driving ban manages to clear the legislative obstacle course, Rhode Island would become the eleventh state to prohibit the practice. Eight years ago, the state nearly became one of the first in the nation to address the issue when the General Assembly approved a bill banning driving while talking on hand-held phones. But then-Gov. Lincoln C. Almond vetoed the legislation. In the years since, lawmakers have passed a law banning drivers under 18 from using cell phones, but have stopped short of extending the ban to older motorists. McNamara said research conducted by the Transportation Research Laboratory in the United Kingdom has confirmed his daily observations of the extent to which texting creates as much - if not more - driver distraction and impairment than driving while under the influence of alcohol or marijuana. McNamara said he sees drivers daily "steering a 2,800 pound vehicle with their two pinkies on the wheel and their thumbs texting away. It's scary.'' But after a decade of trying to win passage of a more far-reaching ban, House Majority Whip Peter Kilmartin, a former Pawtucket police officer who is now a lawyer, said he has not given up. "Honestly,'' he said, "it is probably the one bill in the end I would like to say I passed...[and the one] I hear so much about, I think would do the most good.'' The Senate Judiciary Committee has also scheduled a vote on an annual bill to allow police to obtain search warrants to force blood, breath or urine tests from suspected drunk drivers who have been in accidents that results in serious injury or death. The practice was outlawed in 2000, by a 3-2 decision by the Rhode Island ">Supreme Court. Written by Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg, the ruling said courts cannot allow prosecutors to use the results of such tests while prosecuting drunk-driving cases, including felony cases stemming from fatal accidents. 
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