Dan's Papers - May 16, 2008 - Schneiderman: No Driving While Intexticated

You've seen the commercials. They're catchy and cute and AT&T's latest unlimited text messaging promotion presents grandma saying, "MYOB will ya, IDK, my BFF Rose!" Now, if you can't decode these textspeak phrases, it may be a good thing or perhaps you've been hiding under a rock somewhere. That's considering the fact that in 2005, transl8it! dxNrE & glosRE: yor complEt guiD 2 onliN ch@ & SMS txt lNgo was published as a language dictionary for the millions of text-messagers and online chatters who use this lingo each day. Some commonly used acronyms on texting are: omg: Oh My God, 2: To or Too, ne1: Anyone, btw: by the way, bbl: Be back later, idk: I Don't Know, gtg or g2g: Got To Go, l8r: Later.

Although many companies claimed to have sent the "first" text message, the commercial breakthrough message seems to have been sent by an engineering student at Nokia in December of 1993. It read, "Merry Christmas." Today, text messaging or SMS (short message service) is the most widely used mobile data service on the planet. At the end of 2007, 72% of all mobile phone users worldwide (or 1.9 billion out of 2.7 billion phone subscribers) were counted as daily "texters." According to the Global Messaging survery, over 90% of the population of countries such as Finland, Sweden and Norway use SMS. The European average is about 85% and North America has over 40%. According to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, an international organization representing all sectors of wireless communications, Americans sent close to 65 billion text messages during the first half of 2006. Additionally, as of January 2007, over 231 million people subscribed to wireless communication devices in the United States, compared with approximately 4.3 million in 1990.

But all this "reachability" is a problem. It's not all fun and games - as we become more connected we seem to become more distracted and the margin for human error increases. Last Tuesday, Legislator Jay Schneiderman (R-Montauk) introduced a bill to ban text messaging while driving. Schneiderman believes strongly that text messaging should be added to the list of prohibited activities for drivers operating a motor vehicle. Across the United States it seems as though lawmakers have been playing a game of "catch-up" with the boom in technology. In January 2007, after a friend was in a car accident related to text messaging, Schneiderman looked into the legality of driving while texting. He learned that it was not already prohibited and decided to introduce legislation providing that no person may "use a wireless handset to compose or send text messages while operating a motor vehicle on any public street or public highway within the County of Suffolk." Violators of the law would be fined up to $150 for each breach.

People do a lot of stupid things while driving and the list of distractions seems to be growing. With multitasking, it's not uncommon to see a woman curling her eye lashes at 60 mph or a man fastening his tie and using an electric razor on the L.I.E. We purchase cars with DVD players, televisions, Internet, disturbing GPS systems, fully loaded stereo systems and if we're really lucky, a few kids in the backseat. While driving east along County Road 39 the other day I bore witness to a woman reading what looked like a romance novel while drinking coffee - and driving. Novels, scripts, laptops, bills, quarterly reports, text messages - whatever the reading is - drivers can't seem to leave it at home.

According to the April 2006 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), eight out of ten traffic accidents, and 65% of "near-crashes" involved some type of driver distraction within three seconds of the event.

The numbers were even more troubling when the study group was restricted to teen drivers.

New York is not the only state looking to ban text messaging - it seems to be the issue du jour. Only two states expressly prohibit texting while driving. Washington banned the practice last May, and New Jersey followed suit in November. Similar bills are now in the works in Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

OMG, I'm a texting addict. With the growing sophistication of phones, now termed "smartphones," people are without a doubt addicted to their phones and the text messages that come through. Perhaps that's one reason people gave the BlackBerry the nickname "Crackberry." The addictiveness of cell phones and the risks of text messaging while driving is endangering the lives of all people on the road. Twenty-eight percent of teens admit to sending text messages while driving, according to a study just released by the American Automobile Association and Seventeen magazine.

Whether you believe you've got fast fingers that can type WU?, omg or c u l8r, police officers are now coining the term "driving while intexticated." Although it's not nearly as reckless as driving while intoxicated, texting poses a real threat to drivers because their attention is diverted from the road for more than three seconds. In either case, these are choices that licensed drivers must make and a good way to save $150 and possibly a life is to put down the phone and drive, like omg, gtg.