Dont txt while u drive.
You would think that would be obvious. Think again.
A 20-year-old Tremonton man has been charged with negligent homicide because, according to the Cache County attorney, he was driving while texting on his cell phone.
His sport utility vehicle drifted across a highway center line and sideswiped an oncoming vehicle. The driver of that other vehicle lost control, spun into another lane of traffic and was hit by an oncoming pickup truck.
The two people in the sideswiped vehicle were killed.
The investigating officers noticed that the Tremonton man was sending and receiving text messages while they were interviewing him about the accident. They got a court order to examine his phone records and discovered that he had been texting pretty much continually during his journey, including at the time of the accident.
The prosecuting attorney alleges that the man was distracted from his driving by his texting. Hence the negligence.
This year, the Utah Legislature passed a law that prohibits careless driving caused by what we would call preventable distractions. Among those is using a wireless telephone or other electronic device while operating a motor vehicle. The law makes an exception for hands-free devices.
So it's already against the law to drive while texting. But that doesn't mean that multitasking Utahns addicted to instant and constant communication are aware of the law or will obey it.
We would hope, however, that people would stay off their phones and PDAs while driving simply out of self-preservation, if not to make the roads safer for others. The case of the Tremonton man is simply the latest in a lengthening string of Utah auto fatalities caused by people who were driving while communicating on a cell phone.
Because many people seem to be unwilling to hang up and just drive, we believe that the Legislature should strengthen the law to ban all phoning while driving, except to report an emergency. And it should eliminate the exception for hands-free devices.
The danger, after all, is caused by a distracted brain, not distracted hands.
