Driving while clueless

I’m mad and so are many of you.

Another driver using a wireless device recently hit a car and set off a chain accident involving three additional vehicles on Interstate 5.

Thankfully no one was seriously injured, not even the infant whose mother was driving the first wrecked car.

But others who have been victims of those “driving while clueless” have been far less lucky.

Consider the Chewelah-area family, whose five children were killed in 2005 when a driver on a cell phone drove more than 200 feet in the wrong direction before he plowed into the truck driven by their father. Callers have left me with a laundry list of collisions, near collisions, injuries and fatalities. Who among us doesn’t have a driving-while-clueless horror story?

PEMCO Insurance took a poll last year that showed four out of five Washington drivers believe that talking on cell phones while driving should be legal only with hands-free devices, or made illegal altogether.

Another survey by the Yankee Group, an independent technology research and consulting firm, found that at the end of 2003, the average wireless subscriber spent 586 minutes a month on the phone — nearly half of that in the car. No wonder some wireless companies oppose placing restrictions of cell phone use by drivers.

Yet other states and cities have gotten the message. Legislation has been passed in California, New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., limiting drivers’ cell phone use.

Since 1999, I’ve introduced bills to put common-sense limits in place. In 2005, the Legislature passed my bill to require the Washington State Patrol to expand its traffic accident form to include information about whether a driver involved in an accident was using a wireless device. Related information is included in the State Patrol’s monthly and yearly reports. We know that the driver on I-5 was using a BlackBerry because the investigating trooper’s form required such information, thanks to the new law. It’s not all that I wanted, but it’s a start.

So this session, I’m trying again. My bill would make it a traffic infraction for a person to drive a vehicle while holding a wireless communications device to his or her ear.

There would be exemptions for an authorized emergency vehicle and for hand-held cell phones used to report illegal activity; summon emergency aid or prevent injury to a person or to property.

The offense would be secondary, meaning that a driver would have to commit another driving offense to be cited for this one.

Infractions would not become a part of the driver’s record, nor would they be made available to insurance companies or to employers.

Why am I still at it? It’s simple: A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that driving while talking on a cell phone is equivalent to driving while intoxicated — a .08 percent blood-alcohol threshold. No one would suggest that someone with a blood alcohol level at or beyond that limit get behind the wheel of a vehicle. Talking on a hand-held cell phone while driving is dangerous.

Tracey J. Eide
State Senator
30th Legislative District

Editor’s note: Eide is the Senate floor leader and serves on the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education, Transportation and Rules committees.

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