As many states debate or pass timid laws to combat widespread texting and cell phone use while driving a motor vehicle, the British have taken a more effective next step that is as serious as a jail sentence.

That nation now treats texting while driving and being involved in a fatal crash as a serious contributing factor to the accident -- similar to the way driving while intoxicated with serious injury or death resulting from a crash is routinely considered in the U.S.

Most laws prohibiting texting in the states that have them treat the offense, and that of cell phone use while driving, the way they might deal with failure to use safety belts. These laws provide for a fine that can escalate with each offense, but the driver must first be caught texting by a police officer, and in some cases -- as with some seat belt laws -- the offense can only be a subsequent, not a primary reason for stopping the driver.

Even at worst for the driver, he or she will face a fine even if the texting or cell phone use has led to a serious or fatal crash. That is not the case had that same driver been drinking or under the influence of drugs while driving. Yet safety experts view cell phone use, and especially texting while driving as equally dangerous for the driver and for anyone else who might get in their way on the highway.

A new law in New York state bans texting while driving and provides fines of up to $150, and a previous law makes it illegal to talk

Advertisement
on a cell phone while driving. That might make some people change their habits, but we doubt many will end the practice before paying at least one fine. No more than the number who stop speeding after getting several tickets.

Drunken driving laws, however, carry much more severe penalties and should be a model for dealing with a new habit that is quickly getting as out of control as driving while drinking once was.

In a British case reported on by The New York Times, a woman who had been texting with at least five friends for an hour while driving slammed into a car that had pulled to the side of the highway because of a mechanical problem and killed the driver of the other vehicle.

The woman's phone was recovered by police and revealed the extensive texting prior to the accident.

Under a 2008 government directive in Britain, texting can be considered an aggravating factor in "death by dangerous driving," similar to drinking, and there is the possibility of up to seven years in prison. The driver in that crash received a 21-month prison term. Prosecutors are, in fact, appealing to a higher court because they believe the sentenced "unduly lenient."

Quite a different attitude from the prevailing ones among lawmakers in the U.S. If not the British model, Americans should consider something that provides more of a deterrant than the current laws, which provide next to none.