As texting and driving becomes more of a problem, law enforcement officials are frustrated that the dangerous practice cannot be their primary reason to pull a motorist over and issue a ticket.
The Satellite Beach City Council passed a resolution Nov. 1 supporting a bill in the 2018 Florida Legislature making texting while driving a primary offense, meaning texting drivers could be pulled over.
“I don’t think there is any doubt at all about it. You can’t go more than a few hundred yards without seeing people looking down at their phones texting. I see it every morning, every evening and all times in between,’’ said Satellite Beach Police Cmdr. Brad Hodge.
“Changing this to a primary offense hopefully will deter those people who know they shouldn’t and just need that push to put their phones down, and then of course it gives law enforcement that extra authority to take action,’’ he said.
Hodge said the issue reminds him of when seat belt-use laws were first put in place.
“It’s tough to find anybody not wearing a seat belt these days, but when that went into effect you would see that hand slowly put the seat belt down and fastened. If texting and driving becomes primary, the act of seeing a police car is going to be a lot of incentive toward putting that phone down. Eventually we hope they will put the phones down altogether,’’ he said.
According to the resolution, all but four states (including Florida) in the nation consider texting a primary offense.
Statistics compiled by the National Safety Council and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show about 10 people are killed and 390,000 people are injured every day in the U.S. by distracted drivers.
The statistics are unmistakable, but more compelling for some Brevard County residents are memories of two lives lost to distracted driving.
In 2013, Garrett Viccaro, 24, and his friend, Justin Mitchell, 25 were fishing off the north side of the Eau Gallie Causeway relief bridge when they were struck and killed by a sport-utility vehicle driven by a driver looking at a text message.
Viccaro’s mother, Trisha Viccaro, later came out in support of a pledge drive through AT&T called “It Can Wait.” Her family was No. 25 of 100 victims chosen to have their stories told through the effort. A small memorial remains on the causeway near the site of the accident.
Joel Feldman of Springfield, Pa., when also reeling from the loss of a loved one to texting, founded ENDDD.ORG (End Distracted Driving) in 2009 after the death of his daughter, Casey Feldman.
If you are looking for a distracted driver, you may not need to look any further than your rear-view mirror, he said.
“I had driven distracted often before Casey was killed. I was so angry at the man who killed her and thought ‘how could he do this?’ but I remembered that I had texted and emailed. It was a turning point for me because I realized I could have killed somebody else’s child,’’ Feldman said in a phone interview.
Wanting Casey to be remembered, he set up the foundation and started giving presentations about distracted driving. He has given presentations to about 125,000 students and nearly 20,000 adults.
ENDDD.com now has about 225 regular speakers and will soon hit the milestone of 400,000 students who have heard the presentation, he said. “It’s a lot but it’s not a lot,” he said.
The main thing is to serve as a personal example, in all cases behind the wheel, he said. “Our children are seeing us drive distracted, so why would we expect our children would not drive like us?” he said.