Fine Reduced In Bill To Curb Texting And Driving

The South Carolina House passed a bill Thursday to ban texting while driving, but it lessened the penalty for those who break the law. The bill originally called for a $100 fine and two points on your license, but the House lowered that to a $25 fine and no points.

Rep. Harry Ott proposed the amendment to drop the points, saying, "It's just like we did with the seatbelt law. I don't want this to be a way to reward insurance companies with increased premiums and anytime you have a point violation or you report it to your insurance company, your premiums automatically go up."

He says most people want to be law-abiding, so banning texting while driving would be enough to get most people to comply without a stiff penalty.

But that's not what driver Miriam Kinloch of Columbia thinks. She says of the $25 fine, "I don't think that's enough to make people stop, mainly because I've been at fault for texting while driving and it doesn't sound that harsh. But once I hear about those points, personally, I don't think I'd keep texting while driving."

Kaitlyn Liafsha agrees that the House's bill is too weak. "I don't think it would really do anything, because points I think scares people more than money," she says. 

The bill also originally would have banned cell phone use while driving but the House removed that restriction.

But Rep. Phil Owens, R-Easley, one of the co-sponsors of the original bill, was disappointed. "I felt like that the $100 and the two points was not excessive and would like to have seen that," he says. "I think that it would've been a stronger bill with that, but the body didn't see it that way so they removed it." 

There was also a push on the House floor by Rep. Kris Crawford, R-Florence, to add more activities to the list of things that would be illegal while driving. He's also an emergency room doctor and proposed an amendment that would have also banned eating, drinking, smoking, putting on or removing an article of clothing and putting on makeup while driving. It was defeated, so he tried again with separate amendments for each activity. They all failed.

"I think that we were less interested in dealing with distracted driving than we were with ending up on the news, which is sort of disheartening as an emergency physician because if you're going to say, 'I'm going to make the roadways safer,' people expect their elected representatives to do what they say they're going to do," he says.

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, 20 states, the District of Columbia and Guam ban texting for all drivers. Six states (California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington) plus D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands prohibit handheld cell phone use while driving.

The House bill now goes to the Senate, which is working on its own bill. The Senate version would ban texting while driving. In the Senate version, there would be a fine of $20, a $25 Trauma Care surcharge and one point on your license.