Texas House Passes Anti-Texting and Driving Law
The Texas House of Representatives just passed a bill making it illegal to text while driving. House Bill 80 will now be sent to the Senate for consideration. The penalty for violators would be a Class C misdemeanor that carries a fine of between $25 and $99 dollars. Now, it still needs to be approved by the Texas Senate, and could even then be vetoed by our Governor. So, it has a long way to go before it becomes law. Aside from the good intentions of our Legislature and the many voters who support a ban, it is not a good idea because it simply won’t work, and it will create more problems than it solves.
Enforcement Problems
The huge issue with this law will be actually enforcing it. If someone is driving and typing on their phone, how will a police officer be able to know they are texting? They could be looking up a restaurant, typing an address in to google maps, checking Facebook, or doing a hundred other things. And as the U.S. Supreme Court said last year, police cannot examine a person’s phone without a warrant. Furthermore, the proposed legislation specifically prohibits police from going into a person’s phone to check text messages. The only two ways police can know if a driver was texting are if the driver admits it, or if phone records are subpoenaed. Are prosecutors really going to subpoena phone records on a Class C misdemeanor?
Other Problems
This new law would no doubt lead to police stopping more vehicles. That will inevitably mean more DWI arrests, more drug arrests, and more vehicle searches. It will mean more pretextual stops. If all a police officer has to allege is that a driver is looking at their phone in a posture that looked like texting, it will be extremely easy for police to justify a vehicle stop. It would be a way of getting around the Fourth Amendment.
