Oregon wants to hit texting drivers with $2000 fine

[uscitizen]

Lets just cut enforcement expenses and allow people to shoot others who are texting and driving.

 

[ABikerSailor]

We already have a law like that for the city of Amarillo. If you're caught using a cell phone that isn't hands free, or texting, you will receive a 200.00 fine.

You can also get nailed for using cell phones while driving in school zones.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

What's the penalty for scrolling through an i pod while driving?

Drinking coffee while driving

Applying make up while driving

Shaving while driving

Eating while driving

Etc.

I know - all those things are wrong too. Perhaps the best answer is to let people drive as they wish but greatly increase penalties when you cause a crash. Pass a law that anyone found at fault in a fatal crash must do at least 20 years. And if you are at fault in a crash with another car but there were no injuries or deaths then you pay a $2000 fine and lose your license for 6 months. With laws like that, maybe the crazies would drive carefully.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

We already have a law like that for the city of Amarillo. If you're caught using a cell phone that isn't hands free, or texting, you will receive a 200.00 fine.

You can also get nailed for using cell phones while driving in school zones.

$200 isn't enough. To a rich person that's no penalty at all. Suspend their license - that's a penalty for everyone rich or poor.

 

[Carla_Danger]

We need to get rid of all these electronic toys in cars. No internet access or GPS or even radios - at least not while the car is moving.

I think the radio comment is going too far. You can have the radio on the entire time you're driving and not touch it. I have a perfect driving record and listen to the radio each and every time I drive.

Nobody does that. Everybody plays with the radio while driving.

That's just not true. And it's not the same.

 

[Esmeralda]

It is the same as if not worse than drunk driving.
This should be a law in all 50 states

.

 

[Connery]

I think the radio comment is going too far. You can have the radio on the entire time you're driving and not touch it. I have a perfect driving record and listen to the radio each and every time I drive.

Nobody does that. Everybody plays with the radio while driving.

That's just not true. And it's not the same.

I agree. Further, texting requires both an active concentration and extensive manipulation which severely impairs one's ability to drive safely. Listening to a radio is passive activity at best.

 

[LittleNipper]

What's the penalty for scrolling through an i pod while driving?

Drinking coffee while driving

Applying make up while driving

Shaving while driving

Eating while driving

Etc.

Hey, what's the matter with you man... You can't shave and knot a necktie and drink coffee and smoke at the same time while talking on the cell phone? The driving is the easy part, man.
By the way ------------ I take my coffee black and make "Mad Men" look like a bunch of wimps... I think I'll wear the navy blue tie --- darn, just spilled the --- coffee.....................................

 

[freedombecki]

I say lets also make text driving a felony with all the consequent loss of rights and job opportunities that entails. Text driving is super-violent and far worse than things like tax evasion or drug possession that are routinely charged as felonies.

Tough Talk-and-Text Deal for Drivers: A $2,000 Fine

Wednesday, 13 Feb 2013 11:54 AM

Motorists in Oregon who text while they drive may soon pay dearly for it — with lawmakers mulling a whopping $2000 fine for offenders.

"You don't have to drive much to see people texting," state Sen. President Peter Courtney told The Oregonian newspaper. "It's everywhere. It's going on all the time. It's just unbelievable."

Two bills to boost fines have been introduced in the legislature as statistics show hundreds of car accidents are the result of people texting on their cellphones or chatting on them without using a hands-free device.

Four years ago, Oregon passed a law slapping drivers who text or talk with a maximum $500 penalty. But there’s a good chance that amount will be substantially boosted to at least $1,000 and as much as $2,000.

Fine them? Sell the little borgs as slaves. It's as sinister as the accidents their bad habits cause. My husband saw one of them hit a man in a wheelchair outside our business 4 years ago. The man was getting himself across the street in his wheelchair as best he could in a controlled walk zone in a downtown area.

 

[Mad Scientist]

I think it should be a Million Dollar Fine and 20 years in Jail.

Stupid Americans need to know who their Masters are.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

Nobody does that. Everybody plays with the radio while driving.

That's just not true. And it's not the same.

I agree. Further, texting requires both an active concentration and extensive manipulation which severely impairs one's ability to drive safely. Listening to a radio is passive activity at best.

I give up. You don't even understand the issue. It's not the listening it's ; it's taking your eyes off the road to change the station.

 

[Zona]

I say lets also make text driving a felony with all the consequent loss of rights and job opportunities that entails. Text driving is super-violent and far worse than things like tax evasion or drug possession that are routinely charged as felonies.

Tough Talk-and-Text Deal for Drivers: A $2,000 Fine

Wednesday, 13 Feb 2013 11:54 AM

Motorists in Oregon who text while they drive may soon pay dearly for it — with lawmakers mulling a whopping $2000 fine for offenders.

"You don't have to drive much to see people texting," state Sen. President Peter Courtney told The Oregonian newspaper. "It's everywhere. It's going on all the time. It's just unbelievable."

Two bills to boost fines have been introduced in the legislature as statistics show hundreds of car accidents are the result of people texting on their cellphones or chatting on them without using a hands-free device.

Four years ago, Oregon passed a law slapping drivers who text or talk with a maximum $500 penalty. But there’s a good chance that amount will be substantially boosted to at least $1,000 and as much as $2,000.

I just read the NAACP agrees with you. Comment?

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Increase the fine and add some time in the pokey. People who text while driving are waaay beyond stupid.

Observed a texting woman smash her big SUV into the steel piping and whatnot of a shopping cart return area in a Costco parking lot recently. Apparently her attention to texting lead her to believe it was an open parking spot, until her deploying airbag jammed her phone into her boobs. Her comments/bitching afterwards were priceless. Sort of along the lines of, "Who's idea was it to put THAT damn thing there..."

I saw something similar recently. Guy in a big suv was talking on his phone, fooling with the dash-mounted GPS and steering with his third hand! No kidding. He was trying to do all three things at once.

Ran into a big pole in the parking lot, backed up and went around it, all while still doing three things at once.

 

[Zoom-boing]

That's just not true. And it's not the same.

I agree. Further, texting requires both an active concentration and extensive manipulation which severely impairs one's ability to drive safely. Listening to a radio is passive activity at best.

I give up. You don't even understand the issue. It's not the listening it's ; it's taking your eyes off the road to change the station.

Honda Pilot has a button to change stations on the steering wheel, at about the ten o'clock position. You use your thumb to change the station, eyes never leave the road, hand(s) never leave the wheel. All cars should have this.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Text driving is super-violent and far worse than things like tax evasion or drug possession that are routinely charged as felonies.

It will be when it kills someone you love.


People who text while driving are clearly total morons and should have their licenses revoked for life. I make exceptions for people who do it in cars that are physically stopped in traffic but if you're texting while your car is moving then no one is driving and you're an idiot that doesn't belong behind the wheel.

BTW - glad to see you support local government, except of course when they do things you don't like.

 

[Connery]

That's just not true. And it's not the same.

I agree. Further, texting requires both an active concentration and extensive manipulation which severely impairs one's ability to drive safely. Listening to a radio is passive activity at best.

I give up. You don't even understand the issue. It's not the listening it's ; it's taking your eyes off the road to change the station.

You should give up, your position is inane and without merit. Perhaps the car you drive does not have preset buttons on the steering wheel or in the radio itself, most today do have the steering wheel button. My guess is that either your are a lousy driver or you started a poorly constructed OP and are attempting to swim out of the intellectual cesspool you have created.


Glancing at a radio is much different than concentrating on content and typing in a text message.

 

[SteadyMercury]

[No internet access or GPS or even radios - at least not while the car is moving.

Definitely, the radio must go!

We should also ban conversation. If I was made King I'd immediately ban all conversation while the car is moving, and I'd make sure if anyone was spotted moving their lips while another occupant is in the vehicle their license would be revoked for a period of six fortnights. A second offense their license is revoked and they would be paraded around the village backwards on a donkey wearing only a garland of shoes.

Then I'd have my top scientists working on headgear that monitors brain activity to detect the patterns indicating day dreaming. All drivers would be required to wear it, and if anyone starts day dreaming while driving their engine would shut off and until they are willing to attend to their driving responsibilities.

This is life of death people, lets get serious about these distractions.

 

[koshergrl]

I live in Oregon, in a community that is quite busy during the tourist season. Labor Day weekend is one of our busiest weekends so of course the police are out in force.

I got a speeding ticket over labor day weekend, the first ticket I've gotten in decades. I was going 45 in a 30....on a winding road towards the beach. It's a road I know well, but there's a short zone that is marked 30 mph for a couple hundred yards.I missed the sign and didn't brake, and was pulled over and ticketed.

After that, everywhere I went, I saw the same cop with people pulled over...I mean like half a dozen times in a 24 hour period. So for a joke, I took to taking pics as I drove by, with my cell, and sending them to the people on my contacts list.."Oh look here's another" "and another"...I was a reporter and some habits die hard. If I see a pull over, I'm compelled to get up close and get a picture, if I can.

Anyway, I'm driving by another pull-over, and I take out my cell and brace it on my wheel and I'm ready to click when i see (the ringer wasn't on) I have an incoming all from my 9 y.o. daughter, who was somewhere doing something.. I click on the talk button, tell her I'm driving, and then hang up.

I roll past and as I am moving out from a stop sign I hear sirens! I see lights!!!!

So...that cop, who was in the middle of another stop, had received notification from staters somewhere on high with high powered binoculars (this is what he told me) telling him I was on my phone...so he raced away from the stop he was engaged in, flipped a u turn, and raced a block after me.

True story. He told me I'd been busted. I was like, "Are you flipping following me around or what???" It was the same cop.

I told him I wasn't talking on the phone (but I didn't say I was taking pics, haha) but had just clicked on and off. He told me "Well they could see you; I'm going to go back and ask them if they saw you talking, and if they did, then you're in BIG TROUBLE"...lol...I just brazened it out.. and I didn't get a ticket.

I quit taking my cell out to snap pictures, though. I do think they saw me doing THAT and it pissed them off.

I have a great pic on my fb of one of the city cruisers in my hometown being towed from the WalMart parking lot. It just tickled me, I don't know why.

My caption under the pic...."Don't text and drive"....

 

[dblack]

What's the penalty for scrolling through an i pod while driving?

Drinking coffee while driving

Applying make up while driving

Shaving while driving

Eating while driving

Etc.

Yeah. It's called 'reckless driving'. It's already against the law pretty much everywhere. But, we no longer trust our police and courts to make such judgements, so we rely on blanket provisions that ban specific activities (and by omission authorize others) and situations that might not be hazardous at all. Apparently we'd rather have the law micromanage our lives rather than trust our judges to judge.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

I agree. Further, texting requires both an active concentration and extensive manipulation which severely impairs one's ability to drive safely. Listening to a radio is passive activity at best.

I give up. You don't even understand the issue. It's not the listening it's ; it's taking your eyes off the road to change the station.

Honda Pilot has a button to change stations on the steering wheel, at about the ten o'clock position. You use your thumb to change the station, eyes never leave the road, hand(s) never leave the wheel. All cars should have this.

I've always thought something like that would be a good idea and i'm glad to see somebody did it though it prolly adds say $200 to the cost of the car. Doubt if the whole industry goes to it though since they want more car crashes. Car crashes mean car sales.