Mark my words...some 200 years from now (maybe less, maybe more), people are going to be publishing these kinds of ordinances in their "odd laws" books alongside laws like "you can't take your goat to the market on Sunday."

More than half of high school seniors admit they text or email while driving - the first federal statistics on how common the dangerous habit is in teens.

Details.

One in five Americans say they use their phones to send explicit text messages. More disturbingly, one in 10 baby boomers, which would be those 55 years and older, are using their phones to be naughty.

Details.

They have heard it from their teachers. They have heard it from their parents. They have seen the commercials and the billboards. For a while, Haverhill High School even had a smashed-up car out front as a visible warning of the dangers of texting and driving.

After a judge imposed the maximum sentence Wednesday on a local teenager who became the first person in the state convicted of causing a fatal crash while texting, it is still not clear the message is sinking in.

Details.

High School Seniors Texting While Driving

JUNE 8, 2012 | ISSUE 48•23

In a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, 58 percent of high school seniors admitted to sending and receiving text messages while driving.

What do you think?

Students and teachers at Rhode Island high schools will be asked this year to sign a pledge not to text while driving as part of a statewide public awareness campaign.

Details.

[Will this work? Did it work when teens were asked to pledge to sexual abstention?]

quote:

Originally posted by JB:

[Will this work? Did it work when teens were asked to pledge to sexual abstention?]

Not only were their rates of sexual activity the same, but the pledgers were more likely to engage in unprotected sex.

So I guess we'll just see these kids sending longer text messages than their peers...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2008122801588.html

Look up!

A new study suggests "distracted walking" is taking a toll on teenagers as the number of pedestrian injuries soars among 16- to 19-year-olds even as it drops among nearly every other age group.

Details.

2 Tex. Prisons To Get Cell Phone Blocking Systems

The Stiles Unit (Beaumont) and the McConnell Unit (Beeville) are slated to get an internal cell phone blocking system by year's end.

Story

Hummer driver saves children from speeding driver on cellphone:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...edlinkusaolp00000003

There are drivers who are good at hiding it. And then there are those who aren't.

Details.

Although Odessa did not adopt the law, bans on cellphone use while driving are on the rise in cities across Texas, which is one of just 11 states without a statewide law. Austin and San Antonio are among 28 cities that have banned some degree of cellphone use while driving. Penalties include fines of up to $500.

Details.

From heightened misuse?

From holding the phone below steering wheel level to avoid detection.

Solution?

Researchers in India are aiming to take away the ability for drivers to chat on the phone altogether by developing a system that blocks the a driver's mobile phone signal, while not affecting the phones of other passengers in the vehicle.

Details.

Or this.

Or maybe this.

Great. A typically big-government, sledgehammer solution to a thumbtack problem.

I'm not saying its a solution I endorse. Just passing along what is happening in society on an issue that has been evolving for the last 10 years.

I do find it interesting that society frequently jumps to a criminal justice solution (make it a crime) as a means of expressing an opinion about the behavior. Society's second choice is typically public eduction (e.g., anti-smoking or anti-drinking campaigns).

Criminalization seems to only work for rather serious misconduct that society broadly views as inherently wrong (murder). Public education seems to be more successful for behavior that is only wrong because it has serious consequences and not because of any inherent badness in the activity.

The other measure is whether the activity is likely something that would be engaged in by the lawmakers themselves. If so, then they seem historically resistant to criminalization.

Oh, I didn't think you endorsed such a solution. My whine was based on an expectation that that sort of thing might happen in India -- a place that has historically had overregulation and a bloated bureaucracy.

Some common sense suggestions:

Details.