Should It Be Illegal To Text Someone While They’re Driving?

New Jersey is trying to make it illegal to send texts to people while they’re driving. Some people even believe that you should be held liable for a death if you text a driver who gets into a fatal accident. I think it’s sad that this is how inseparable we humans are from our phones these days. Shouldn't the obvious solution to this problem be to simply ignore your phone and any incoming texts while you’re behind the wheel? NO! That’s an absurd notion in today’s world. Much easier to just scour text records pulled from phones in bloody wreckage to determine which sentence caused the crash.

I understand this is a sensitive topic because so many young people have lost their lives texting while driving, but this is a common sense issue. Texting while you’re driving is pretty much like running with a chainsaw, you can’t be shocked when someone dies as a result. The trick is to be more responsible with your phone, car, and/or chainsaw.

Making texting to drivers illegal just doesn’t make sense. The logistics behind enforcing that law would be insane. It would be easier to just devise a digital link up between people’s phones and cars that shuts down texting capabilities while a car is in motion. Instead, it’s all a blame game after the tragedy which doesn't help anyone.

The main question I have with enforcing a ban on texting to drivers is “how the hell is the texter supposed to know someone’s driving?” If I send someone a text that says “Hey did you see Justin Bieber twerking at the VMAs?” to someone who happens to be driving on a freeway at the time and they think “Hey, I’m going 70 miles per hour in a ton in a half of steel, now would be a good time to check my messages!” What if they then read my text and careen off a cliff, is that my fault? My text was a direct catalyst for the accident, but should I really be held liable for that person’s death? I don’t think so. There’s too much gray area within this concept which is why it won’t work.

The simple answer is for drivers to exercise some discipline and not text while driving or even read texts while driving. I think we’d all feel a little better if we knew everyone else on the highway was 100% focused on the road in front of them and not scrolling through Twitter or playing Candy Crush, or whatever the distraction may be. Cars didn’t magically become invincible since the advent of text messaging. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the driver. To hold someone who texts a driver liable for an accident is like holding Barnes & Noble liable for some idiot who decided to read a book when they crashed their car. Hopefully by the time we have phones implanted into our brains, the cars will be able to drive themselves, otherwise that might be the gradual extinction of the entire human race right there.