By: Journalist Lilian Fuchs (ECU)
Representative Cannon Mitchell (OSU) brought a bill about electronic usage while driving.
The current laws say you can only be ticketed while sending, reading or composing a text message. This does not cover any social media, game playing, music changing or anything else you might use your phone for while driving.
“This is such a prevalent issue at Oklahoma State — I would get emails once a month with a loss in the Cowboy family because someone got hit by a car because someone wasn’t paying attention,” Mitchell (OSU). “As a member of the student government, I was very upset about it. I talked to the campus police and said, ‘Hey why can’t we give these people tickets for distracted driving?’ They told me that as long as they aren’t doing this, this or that, then they aren’t texting and driving and it’s legal to do that. I realized that that needed to be a bill.”
The vast majority of the body loved the bill and they were surprised that it was not already a law.
“I do think that it is very important to have further legislation over handheld devices and vehicles,” Representative Isaiah Osei (ORU). “From Mitchell’s perspective, and the way he explained the bill, there hadn’t been further legislation in quite some time, and phones have really developed in the last 10 years. Phones themselves have gotten more distracting and have gotten bigger.”
Representative Jacob Castro (OSU) said he opposed the bill because it did not specify how much time can be spent on a device, such as using it to navigate traffic.
“I believe the intention is good, but this is not the place for it right now,” Castro said. “I think we should define how long you can be on your electronic device. I think we should include that you can use your phone to navigate through traffic, and then I would vote ‘yes.’”
This bill passed in the house with 69 votes ‘yes’ and 1 vote ‘no.’Watch the Road