Poll: Texting + Driving Should be Illegal

(CBS)  An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that texting while driving should be illegal, a new CBS News/New York Times survey finds, with 97 percent saying the practice should be outlawed.
A mere one percent says that the practice should be legal.

Both men and women, frequent drivers and those who drive less frequently, and Americans from all regions of the country agree that texting while driving should be illegal.

Earlier this month, President Obama signed legislation banning federal employees from text messaging while driving. Texting while driving is currently banned in 18 states.

More than half (52 percent) of those who said the practice should be illegal say the punishment for texting and driving should match the punishment for drunk driving. Forty-four percent say the punishment should be less severe, and two percent say it should be more severe.

Read the Complete Poll

Americans over the age of 45 are more likely to favor harsher punishments for texting and driving than younger Americans.

Fifty-eight percent of those under 45 say texting while driving should be punished less severely than driving while intoxicated, while 65 percent of those over 45 say the severity of the punishment should be equal for both.

More than two in three Americans say driving and talking a hands-free cell phone is safer than talking on a hand-held phone, though some experts disagree. Twenty-eight percent say the level of safety in both situations is the same.

In keeping with this, while eight in 10 Americans think using a hand-held cell phone while driving should be against the law, roughly seven in 10 think using a hands-free device while driving should remain legal.

Driving while talking on a cell phone is illegal in seven states.

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This poll was conducted among a random sample of 829 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone October 5-8, 2009. Phone numbers were dialed from random digit dial samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

[commonsence546]

A harvard study shows that driving while talking on your cellphones cause 2,600 deathes a year

wake up and smell the roses people

[JessM1990]

I have received a DUI recently,and I am also of the younger generation and LOVE to text. But I say this honestly, texting while driving is way harder than drinking while driving,and I have been severely punished for drinking and driving, so it's not to say it's a bed of roses. Texting while driving should be just as severely punished as drinking while driving is because it is just as dangerous, if not moreso!

[racoop]

how about those that dont want to text and drive dont do it AND those that do can do it. There are lots of reasons why it shouldn't be illegal as outlined here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/654f65f6/petition.html

[cidaia]

If you don't like people making it illegal for you to do what you want, then don't go passing laws making it illegal for other people to do what they want.

Meanwhile, those of us that want safe roads, how about letting us do what we want? It's a free country after all.

[KPeters_from_UK]

Yep, I went to your petition and read it. OMG what a bunch of garbage. How about petition asking the Federal government to ban idiots from driving. That would solve it all. Using your list of excuses would it be okay for me to put my makeup (mascara, lipstick and struggling to get the eyeliner on straight)on using my rear view mirror while going 55 m/h on a busy freeway?

In the UK it is against the law to text or talk on your hand held cell phone and yet some how drivers have survived and you know what there have been less people dying on the roads. Doesn't that mean anything to you?

[Virgil-1]

Driving has always been a full time job.No one should have to be told
right from wrong,but the majority of people still can't see.
By-the-way,if it's wrong for one it's wrong for all.God gave you
a brain.Use it!

[voice-o-reason]

Be careful what you want to make illegal or you might end up with no radio in your vehicle, and heater controls accessible only by the passenger side of the vehicle. You may also find it illegal to talk to your passengers while driving a vehicle, they all distract. Common sense tells us that if something distracts you should pull off the side of the road, some people will do that, others won't. This question begs an answer, do you really want to live in a world where everything that is considered dangerous becomes illegal to do. Do you really want government to govern everything in your life?

[stuart-johns2]

Well listen here my anti-paternalistic legislation friend. Take your libertarian nonsense elsewhere. Nobody in their right mind cares about what you think or more precisely, opinions like you just posted.

If you think you have the right to take your eyes off the road to look at a keypad so you can text your buddy while your driving a two ton vehicle on a public throughway you're just stupid.

It is stubborn ignorant people that have caused the government to step in where they never would have had people just used a little common freakin' sense. Grow up.

[bobnjersey]

[This question begs an answer, do you really want to live in a world where everything that is considered dangerous becomes illegal to do. Do you really want government to govern everything in your life? ]

no, it's not desirable to have all that's dangerous become legislated, or have the government protecting you from yourself ... but those who insist on being ignorant selfish b@stards ... which is an ever increasing part of the population ... should be held accoutable for what they choose to do.

all use of the phone should be considered an unsafe practice while driving ... because it is. increase the cost of this behavior to promote a change in that behavior. since everything for most is simply about money ... just make it cost more of it to do stupid things.

[mrsherman]

I think the person the driver is talking to should also be held partly responsible if the driver is in an accidengt. If I'm talking to someone and learn they are driving at the same time, I say "Bye." and hang up immediately.

[mahdeealoo]

I've been almost hit many times just this week. I look over and see a cell phone plastered to an ear. Put down your phone and drive, people.

[aheadace]

Cell phones should not work in a auto if it running or moving end of story.