By Selena Maddox
KENNESAW, Ga. – There are people on the road who still attempt
to text while driving their vehicle despite Georgia’s no texting while driving
law.
The law against texting while driving went into effect on July
1, 2010. From then to the end of 2014,
there were 1,780 car crashes related to cell phone distractions. Of those crashes, 169 were worked by the Cobb
County Police Department.
Distracted driving was the contributing factor in 15,580
crashes statewide from July 2010, to the end of 2014. Georgia Department of Transportation,
District Seven, District Engineer, Kathy Zahul describes distracted driving as
“any activity that takes a driver’s eyes off the road.” This means anything from talking, texting, picking
something up, changing the radio, etc. What
if you get into an argument with someone then get behind the wheel? “Your eyes may technically be on the road,
but does the road have your full attention?” said Zahul.
Officer Pete Jones has been with the Cobb County Police
Department for about 18 years working with traffic accident reconstruction. According to Officer Jones, there are two
parts to the no texting while driving law, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-241.
The first part, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-241.1, focuses on drivers
under the age of 18 with a CP or a class D license. “Those drivers cannot talk on a cell phone,
they can’t listen on a cell phone, they can’t write, send or read any type of
electronic message,” said Jones. That
includes texting, emails, and browsing the Internet.
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Officer Pete Jones has been with the Cobb County Police Department for about
18 years. He wants people to just wait to text when it comes to driving.
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It is not easy for officers to determine if someone is
texting while driving. “Everybody knows
that they are not supposed to be doing it,” said Jones. “As soon as they see a police car [their
phone] gets put down in their seat.” If
an officer detects any type of unsafe driving maneuvers, they would have to see
the person with a text to determine if they were in fact texting while driving.
It is hard to actually determine how many crashes in Cobb
County are due to texting while driving.
According to Jones, the database that holds all of the crash report
records is very hard to query. Jones
said that they have asked many times for the database changed, but right now
nothing has been done to fix the problem.
When an officer shows up to a crash the causation is underreported
because people usually don’t come out and say they were texting while driving.
Zahul said it’s hard to determine how many crashes in
Georgia are linked to texting and driving.
This is because of the absence of a specific field on the uniform crash
report to indicate the contributing factor of the crash as being texting while
driving.
“The solution to texting and driving is not something we can
engineer our way out of,” said Zahul. She
works very close with the Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety to focus
on the behavioral side of drivers. Together,
they use electronic signs with messages stating texting and driving increases your chances of being involved in a crash
by 23 times.
Officer Jones wants people to just wait to text when it
comes to driving because it not that important.
Zahul said, “Georgia is a Toward Zero Deaths state.” This means that G.D.O.T. is working to have
zero fatalities on roadways. “How many
texts have you ever received that are as important as someone’s life?” said
Zahul. “Which one are you willing to
give your life for?”
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