Clemson mayor to seek ban on texting while driving

Mayor Larry Abernathy wants Clemson to join the growing list of places that prohibit sending and receiving cell phone text messages, or texting, while driving.

Abernathy announced during Monday’s meeting of the City Council that he will introduce a measure outlawing texting while driving when the council next meets on Dec. 21.

Abernathy said he had broached the idea to state Sen. Thomas Alexander of Walhalla, who plans to push a similar initiative in the legislature.

Alexander told him that “passage in the legislature was uncertain, but it might help if we started it at the city level,” Abernathy said.

The mayor said he was impelled to the action after reading a newspaper article detailing a study that showed texting drivers are twice as likely to be involved in an accident as a driver with twice the legal level of alcohol in the blood.

It could be a matter of life or death, Abernathy said.

The mayor acknowledged that enforcement could be difficult and he said he had no proposed penalty in mind.

“But I think if we put up some well-placed signs saying that texting while driving is banned, I think it would have an effect,” he said.

Cities and states across the nation are moving toward prohibiting texting while driving.

A statewide ban in North Carolina went into effect Dec. 1. The ban imposes a $100 fine and court costs upon anyone caught sending text messages while driving on a public road or in a public parking lot. The punishment may not include driver’s license points or insurance surcharges, and a conviction does not constitute proof of negligence in civil lawsuits against drivers.

Independentmail.com

by Ray Chandler

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