Clamping down on texting while driving
A.J. Larson was killed last December in a car accident. Larson rolled through a stop sign on Clinton Street in West Seneca and into the path of a sanitation truck. Police say that Larson, 20, was text messaging -- checking or typing out a message on his cell phone -- just before the accident. It is a common form of communication, especially among young people.
Kelly Cline, Larson's mother, is pushing for a state law against text messaging while driving. Texting is more distracting to a driver than talking on a cell phone, which is illegal.
Cline has no illusions that a law would stop everyone from texting while driving. But it would give some people pause, and it gives police a weapon in the fight.
Although the danger of texting behind the wheel seems obvious, the message is not reaching a lot of people. Police say that text messaging contributed to the crash last June that killed five recent Fairport High graduates. Accidents involving texting drivers are mounting. I recently saw a young woman driving on Elmwood Avenue, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping out a text message.
Cline had warned her son not to do it.
Will a law help to curb the dangerous practice? What do you think?
-- Donn Esmonde
