Kentucky and Nebraska recently became the 22nd and 23rd states to ban texting while driving, and such laws are pending in most other states. But they don’t include Texas. So soon Texas will be in a minority, with no driving safety law making it illegal to send and read text messages at the wheel of a vehicle.

Such laws are vital because too many Americans aren’t using common sense while operating a motor vehicle. Their distracted driving car crash accidents are slaughtering Americans, with 6,000 traffic fatalities yearly and more than half a million injuries, many of them serious.

Were those texts or calls worth such a price?

Texas’ government may be slow to take this bull by the horns, but its cities are not. Conroe, Galveston, Missouri City, Stephenville and Austin all have laws banning texting while driving, and San Antonio is considering one.

Even better, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus is pushing for a broader law which makes “distracted driving” in general its focus, including making cell calls, putting on makeup or eating behind the wheel. In fact, any behavior which precludes someone paying full-time attention to the road will be illegal.

Enforcing such a law may not be easy, but so were seat belt laws when those were first enacted, and since then many thousands — perhaps millions — of lives have been saved. The bottom line is that the message must get through that distracted driving is dangerous and deadly. If it takes municipal rather than state governments to champion that cause, as in Texas, then so be it. Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and other cities, let’s get busy.

As for states, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has given them sample legislation to assist in enacting laws to ban texting while driving, a move that the AAA supports. In fact, the American Automobile Association aims to get laws banning texting while driving in all 50 states by 2013. Are you listening, Texas legislators?

Jim S. Adler & Associates supports safe driving and the Texas-based national organization FocusDriven, which fights distracted driving and texting accidents much as Mothers Against Drunk Driving fights DUI car accidents. Do you want to join us and save lives, perhaps including your own? Then hang up and drive. To refuse would be a hang-up in itself.

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