I just sent off the following letter to my Texas congressman and senator. If you agree, you can do the same!

Subject: Cellphones and distracted driving.

I saw on the news recently that the Texas House is working on legislation to ban texting and driving. While I applaud the effort to keep our roads safe, I feel the approach is misguided.

As an avid cyclist and motorcyclist, I see lots of distracted drivers and I know full well that they are putting my life at risk. But I feel that cell phone use, and texting in particular, is only the latest in a long line of distractions that can kill.

Personally, I have seen a woman knitting at 45 mph, countless women leaving their lane while applying makeup, people eating, reading, attending their children, or programming their GPS devices, and all of them distracted enough that they could have easily killed someone.

I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about enforcement and I feel we would be asking too much of our law enforcement officers to try and determine if and when a driver would be breaking a ban so specific as texting and driving.

As such, I think a state law the described a more generic “Distracted Driving” would be much more useful to law enforcement. And, much like the current seat belt law, it would easy for law enforcement to “catch” distracted drivers.

I also feel that, if well written, such a law could be used to severely punish distracted drivers who cause accidents with penalties closer to those for drunk driving. Because, quite frankly, I would be just as dead if I were run over by a drunk driver than if I were run over by a driver putting on makeup.

Please take this into consideration as this hot topic makes its rounds.

Thanks again.