PACKET EDITORIAL, March 27
Remember the great debate that raged a few years ago over the issue of whether using a cell phone while driving should be against the law?
Proponents of prohibition argued that using a cell phone while driving is a dangerous distraction, that a motorist with a cell phone in one hand and a steering wheel in the other couldn’t really concentrate on either, creating a serious hazard on our roadways. The state’s motor-vehicle code says drivers should have both hands on the wheel at all times. Permitting use of cell phones while driving, they claimed, would undermine this important principle of highway safety.
Opponents countered that a cell phone is no more or less a distraction than a multi-tiered AM/FM/CD/cassette system, a color-coded air-conditioning/heating/defrosting control panel or any of the other complicated devices drivers have to deal with every day. Holding a cup of coffee while driving is just as dangerous as holding a cell phone yet automakers encourage this behavior by installing cup holders in their consoles.
The Legislature weighed these arguments for a good long time before coming down on the side of prohibition sort of. The law passed in 2004 lists cell phone use while driving as a secondary offense, one for which drivers can be ticketed only if they are pulled over for another, more serious infraction.
Efforts to upgrade the law to a primary offense have failed, despite the fact that automakers and cell phone companies have effectively crafted a technological solution. With the widespread use of devices that allow hands-free use of cell phones, the Legislature could easily amend the law to make the use of hand-held cell phones while driving a primary offense.
But it hasn’t. Which makes one wonder how long it’s going to take and how much equivocating lawmakers are going to go through before something is done about a far more dangerous practice: Text messaging while driving.
A nationwide study released in January found that an astonishing 19 percent of motorists admitted to using their cell phones, Blackberries or other portable electronic devices to send text messages while driving. This has inspired Gloucester County Democratic Assemblyman Paul Moriarty to introduce a bill that would make text messaging while driving a primary offense, and slap a $250 fine on any motorist caught doing so.
Two questions come immediately to mind. The first is how any motorist much less one out of every five would even consider sending a text message while driving. Those of us who make a living at a keyboard marvel at how the technologically savvy have mastered the art of nimbly crafting large volumes of text with their thumbs, but the thought that they might do so while negotiating their way through New Jersey traffic is positively frightening.
The second question is why it would take the Legislature more than a nanosecond to deliberate over Assemblyman Moriarty’s bill. While there may have been legitimate debate over how distracting it is to use a cell phone while driving and, therefore, how far government should go to discourage the practice there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that typing a text message while driving is exceedingly dangerous, and should be immediately and absolutely prohibited.
In fact, we would use exactly the same phrase to describe anyone who would engage in text messaging while driving as we would to the decision facing the Legislature. Each, it seems to us, is a no-brainer.

