Senate votes to punish chatting drivers

By Doug Nadvornick, Spokane Public Radio

The Washington state Senate today (Friday) voted to make driving while talking on a cell phone a misdemeanor.

The infraction would not apply to “hands-free” cell phones.

South King County Senator Tracey Eide says a New England Journal of Medicine article compares the dangers of driving while holding and talking on a cell phone to driving while drunk. Eide believes a great majority of drivers agree.

“PEMCO did a 2005 Northwest insurance poll here in the state of Washington,” she says. “Ladies and gentlemen, four out of every five Washingtonians believe there should be some law.”

Eide says her bill would allow the drivers of emergency vehicles to use hand-held phones and it would allow drivers to use a hand-held phone to report a crime or call for emergency help.

The bill would be classified as a secondary offense, meaning police officers couldn’t stop drivers only for talking on a hand-held phone.

The vote in the Senate was 28-to-19. Several Republicans rose to protest the bill, one calling it “creeping socialism”.

East King County Republican Cheryl Pflug says the bill would hurt parents who can’t afford to buy a phone with a head set. She says it would be illegal for them to answer a phone call.

“And so, therefore, you don’t know that your daughter’s going to be standing out there in front of the school at four o-clock, or four-30, in the dark, alone, in the winter.”

Pflug says, “I think that’s unfair. And I think that’s absolutely as much of a safety hazard as saying that some people aren’t going to have the good judgment to know when they can use the phone and when they can’t.”

A similar bill was approved by the Senate last year, but never received a vote in the House. That’s where this version is headed next.