Washington Injury Law Blog

Come January 1, 2008 all of you in Washington who text message while you drive will be breaking the law. The law banning text messaging while driving takes effect at the new year. Please for my sanity stop texting while you’re driving it’s so dangerous.

In my view the law isn’t strong enough. The police cannot pull you over for texting while driving because such an offense has been classified as a secondary offense. This means the police must wait for you to break another law that they can pull you over for. Then the police can add a second charge of texting while driving on top of the reason for pulling you over in the first place, so you get two tickets. Two tickets sounds good but I’d rather have people ticketed simply for texting while driving without the need for anything more.

There are some exceptions as there always is.  You are allowed to text message if you are driving an emergency vehicle, reporting an emergency, or reporting illegal activity. So you can text message the police that another driver is text messaging while driving. That makes sense!

For more info here’s an interesting article by the Seattle PI about cell phone use while driving. All you cell phone users, you’re day is coming. July 1, 2008 the ban on cell use while driving takes effect. After July 1, 2008 only hands free cell phone devices may be used while driving. Can I here an Amen?

Be safe, stop texting while driving and Merry Christmas!