In The News: How to stop the gabbing driver?

CORPUS CHRISTI — Persuading Corpus Christi residents to hang up and drive could be harder than anticipated for a committee considering a cell phone ban for drivers.

Just ask them. They tried to stop talking while driving, with mixed results.

Only two of six members of the Transportation Safety Advisory Committee said they were able to break their own talking-while-driving habit a month after they first discussed banning cell phone use while driving.

So even though most of the committee members said they think cell phone use while driving is dangerous, they’re not sure what they can do.

“It’s a hard habit to break,” committee member Glenn Jones said. “Even those calls I took could have waited. But I don’t know if the political will is there. I don’t know if we can get support.”

Instead of forwarding a recommendation on the rule to the City Council, the committee will evaluate other ways to regulate cell phone use in cars,

The city could set a policy for its own employees that prohibits cell phone use and the city may ask other companies to set up similar policies, There is also an idea to increase traffic violation fines if the driver was seen using a cell phone while committing an offense. Cell phone use was listed as a contributing factor in 30 of the 12,024 car accidents in the city from January 2008 until last month, or less than 1 percent of accidents. Cell phone use is self-reported, so if drivers tells an accident investigator that they weren’t on the phone, it won’t be listed as a factor.

Of the 27 accidents in that time that resulted in a death, three were because of cell phone use, about 11 percent of the cases.

Progress on the rule could be slow. Committee Chairman Bill Green said he wanted to make sure the city studied how any rule could be enforced to effectively curb the habit.

“If we step too far out on this too early, we may undermine our efforts,” he said. “We can find some form of remedy that improves the situation. We are just trying to catch up with technology.”

But some committee members doubted if cell phone use distracted drivers any more than other activities, such as eating, applying makeup or disciplining unruly children.

“I can think of numerous distractions we could nitpick on,” committee member Curtis Rock said. “Prohibiting cell phones now. What’s next? I think that I’ve been able to use a cell phone in the car just fine. We can sit here and think of every single distraction imaginable.”

There is a potential for statewide regulation of cell phone use in cars. The Legislature is considering several bills addressing use of cell phones while driving, including limiting use to hands-free devices, restricting use in school zones or doubling fines for traffic offenses if a cell phone also is in use. Another bill, filed by state Rep. Solomon Ortiz Jr., D- Corpus Christi, would prohibit drivers younger than 18 from using cell phones while driving. Ortiz’s bill passed in the state House and is now before the state Senate.