Ban Driving Instead!

Currently awaiting approval from the Texas Senate after passing the House last week is a bill that seeks to ban text messaging while driving. A similiar bill was approved by the House and the Senate in 2011 but was vetoed by Governer Rick Perry who suggested that he would veto again if it passes this year according to mysanantonio.com. My problem with this is that if an educated group of men and women – my mistake, two educated groups of men and women are approving this measure shouldn't that be the majority? I understand that our state government works in a certain way and in this case the decision of the governer to veto said bill, but maybe we could try getting the bill to the governer prior to ten days before the session ends so that the governer is forced to veto the bill while the legislature is still in session that it can be overturned by a 2/3 vote. The machinations of what I will call Legislature V. Governer are quite atrocious as we can see in the past from the low number of overridden vetoes. I seemed to have ran off on a tangent however inconsequential, my main point was that why shoudn't texting be banned while driving. I see way to many people on the roads just talking on the phones driving with one hand not to mention the people that I see looking down at their phones hungrily awaiting their next text message. This is not to say that I myself have never texted while driving just that I would gladly lose the text messaging if it would save some lives and cause more people to be aware of their surrounding while driving. 

Is there anything that we can do as an alternative to texting while driving? Well, I have looked into this and the technology just doesn't seem to be there. We currently have dictation programs but those usually cost more than they are worth and that isn't saying much. The fact that our governer will not allow this measure to pass disturbs me and I am hoping that the legislature will at least have the chance to override if indeed it is vetoed. I just do not see an underlying reason to NOT ban texting while driving, political or financial. People are still going to do it no matter what the laws say but at least our state can start benefiting financially from lawbreaking texters. The safety of our highways will always be paramount to finding out juicy gossip in a text message that could have waited.