Legislature to consider banning use of cell phones while driving

By Steve Kanigher

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 | 2 a.m.

When the Legislature meets in February to consider bills, including those prohibiting motorists from texting or otherwise using cell phones while driving, lawmakers will hear about a Las Vegas woman who remains on disability six years after she and her husband were seriously injured in an accident on U.S. 95.

Shortly before midnight on Jan. 18, 2004, Jennifer Watkins and husband Richard stopped in the northbound median near Tropicana Avenue, where they were helping a friend with car trouble. That’s when a half-ton truck driven by a 17-year-old girl who was talking on her cell phone and fiddling with her radio plowed into them at 75 miles an hour.

The impact was so sudden the truck didn’t even leave skid marks as it sent the other two cars spinning onto the highway. Richard, who temporarily lost consciousness, suffered a lacerated liver and a head wound. He’s lost his childhood memories and doesn’t like to talk about the accident to this day.

But Jennifer, 27, is willing to retell her story. Having suffered a brain injury as well as fractures of her pelvis and right arm, she is motivated to tell lawmakers why drivers should be banned from talking on their cell phone or texting.

“It doesn’t matter how much driving experience you have,” she said. “It’s dangerous to use a cell phone while driving. It has been proven that it’s distracting. The girl who hit us will have to spend the rest of her life knowing what she did.”

There should be plenty of opportunity to submit her testimony because two state senators, five assemblymen and the Nevada Public Safety Department plan to submit bills banning texting or general cell phone use while driving. Although there are laws against driving while distracted, proponents of bans on texting or other cell phone use say that targeting those distractions will bring greater attention to the problem.

Details such as penalties for violations aren’t yet known, but some lawmakers favor making it a primary offense rather than a secondary one.

The new chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee, Sen. Shirley Breeden, D-Henderson, said she will introduce a bill banning drivers from any cell phone use, including texting.

“Drivers can’t do two things at once,” she said. “We can’t pay attention to the road and at the same time send a text message. It’s time for everyone to pay attention and be responsible on the road.”

AAA Nevada, representing more than 365,000 motorists, supports a ban on all texting while driving and cell phone use by teen drivers because they are the most inexperienced motorists, spokesman Michael Geeser said.

“If you use a cell phone, you can pull over and find a safe spot to use it,” he said. “Texting and cell phone use while driving has become almost epidemic in our community. If the current laws regarding distracted driving were actually enforced, perhaps we wouldn’t need to have this discussion.”

Metro Police spokesman Jacinto Rivera said it would probably be easier to prosecute someone for violating a texting or cell phone ban if the driver caused an accident because authorities could subpoena phone company records to verify whether the person was on the phone. Fellow officer Bill Cassell said such bans also could reduce police workloads because there would be fewer traffic accidents, meaning less time needed to close roads or complete paperwork.

From 2005 through 2009, 1,158 reported crashes in Clark County involved cell phone use, producing no fatalities but 706 injuries, according to the Nevada Transportation Department. The dangers of cell phone use have been apparent to traffic safety experts for many years, but there has been stiff political resistance in Nevada to any ban involving drivers.

One case that garnered widespread media attention was a March 2001 crash caused by then 34-year-old Karen Morris of Henderson, who killed Las Vegas residents Leona Greif, 61, and Marcia Nathans, 65. Morris was driving about 65 mph in a 45-mph zone and talking on her cell phone when her sport utility vehicle ran a red light at Durango Drive and the Las Vegas Beltway, ramming into Greif’s car.

Morris, who pleaded guilty to felony reckless driving, was sentenced to 26 weekends in jail and five years’ probation.

That accident prompted then-Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny to propose that cell phone use by motorists be banned within the unincorporated part of the county, but that was rejected by fellow commissioners who said the county’s ordinance against driving while distracted was sufficient. That ordinance, approved in 1990, makes it unlawful to operate a motor vehicle on the road “without giving full time and attention to the operation of that vehicle.” Violations are misdemeanors punishable by up to six months in county jail and a $1,000 fine.

But lobbyists from the telecommunications industry, concerned that attempts could still be made to ban cell phone use while driving, persuaded the Legislature in 2003 to pass a law prohibiting state and local government from regulating any telephonic device used by a driver.

One argument by the lobbyists is that drivers would be confused if one local jurisdiction banned cell phone use while another didn’t. Sprint lobbyist Margaret McMillan told lawmakers that a cell phone offers safety, security and other benefits, such as the ability to contact others when motorists are being delayed.

“Motorists’ use of wireless phones has become invaluable assets to law enforcement, reporting drunk and aggressive drivers, accidents, health and safety problems, criminal activity, and other highway emergencies,” McMillan said then.

But use of cell phones, and texting in particular, has mushroomed since then. It is now rare to drive anywhere in the valley without noticing a driver with a cell phone to the ear or someone typing away behind the steering wheel. Laboratory evidence has also shown that the human brain cannot fully concentrate on the roadway while using a cell phone.

Like many people, Erin Breen admits that she has used a cell phone while driving. But Breen, director of UNLV’s Safe Community Partnership, said she would support a ban on both texting and overall cell phone use by drivers because of what studies have found.

“Your brain is more distracted when you are talking to someone who is not in your presence than if you are talking to someone sitting next to you,” Breen said. “The problem with texting is that you’re not only engaged in what you’re doing, but your eyes are off the road. At 45 miles an hour, you travel 66 feet a second. Do you know what can happen in 66 feet?”

There are 28 states that ban text messaging by drivers and seven states that prohibit cell phone use behind the wheel.

Nevada lawmakers who will push for some sort of ban say they are confident at least one bill will pass.

Mark Manendo, a Las Vegas Democrat who is jumping from the Assembly to the Senate, is among many lawmakers who have used cell phones while driving. But he said his conversations involve hands-free devices and most occur when he’s stopped at red lights.

Despite failing in previous sessions, he plans to push legislation restricting the cell phone and texting ban to teen drivers.

“They play all these games on the phone and it’s like they can’t put it down,” Manendo said. “They do it in between classes, they do it at dinner and they do it while in the car. But what kills teenagers more than anything else in the United States are vehicular crashes.”

He argues that a ban restricted to teen drivers may have a greater chance of passing, though he said he is willing to listen to other viewpoints.

Four assemblymen are sponsoring a bill draft to prohibit drivers from texting, but their proposal has no age limit.

One of them, Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, said the problem with limiting the ban to teens is that it is often difficult for police to tell whether a driver is underage. Atkinson said his cosponsorship is motivated by statements from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has said states could lose federal highway grants if they don’t ban texting behind the wheel.

“Texting is a hazard and a major distraction,” Atkinson said. “We’re trying to avoid accidents.”

Fellow co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, conceded it would be difficult to make people stop using their cell phones while driving. She used herself as an example, stating that talking on the cell phone has “become a way of life,” a conversation that took place with the Sun while she was driving.

But she said texting while driving should be outlawed.

“With all the driving I do I see it all the time, people sitting at lights texting when they should be driving,” she said.