Advocates has sent a letter to leaders in the South Carolina Senate in support of House Bill (HB) 3276 to curb distracted driving while offering recommendations to improve the bill’s efficacy based on research and experience. This legislation will update the state’s distracted driving law and curb manual, visual and cognitive distractions to keep South Carolina motorists and all who share the roads with them safe. We have also encouraged legislators to make the following upgrades:
- Add a ban on electronic device usage for novice drivers. Inexperienced drivers who are learning the skills needed to drive must fully focus on the driving task to ensure their safety and the safety of other road users. Accordingly, novice drivers operating under a graduated driver licensing (GDL) program should be prohibited from any electronic device usage while operating a motor vehicle, with allowable exceptions for emergencies and global positioning system (GPS) usage to provide driving directions. Given the benefits of a GDL phone ban, most states, including North Carolina and Tennessee, ban this action.
- Prohibit device use when a vehicle is stopped in a lane of traffic. The bill permits device use when a vehicle is parked or stopped. We suggest amending the bill to prohibit device use unless a vehicle is lawfully parked off a roadway. The current bill language will permit drivers to use their devices while temporarily stopped at a traffic light or stop sign and distract the driver from being cognizant of their surroundings, thereby endangering others, including vulnerable road users. Sending or receiving a text message causes the driver’s eyes to be off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds. When driving 55 miles per hour (mph), this is the equivalent of driving the entire length of a football field blind.
Read the full letter here.