Bill aims to stop texting and driving
A state legislative committee will take up a bill today that would require cellphone service providers to offer free applications to keep teenagers from texting while driving.
“I am a parent of three teenagers and it came to my attention as a parent out of concern for my kids driving and using smartphones while driving,” state Rep. Carolyn Dykema (D-Holliston) told the Herald yesterday. “I think it’s all about public safety.”
The Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy will take up the bill this afternoon. The language of the bill, which Dykema drafted, would require wireless service providers to provide, or make available for download, at least one application that prohibits texting while driving for users under the age of 18 at no cost to the subscriber.
The application would have to include a preset auto-reply message when texts are received, disable emailing, incoming and outgoing calls, texting, and internet browsing. It would also have to allow teenagers to be able to call a list of pre-approved phone numbers and dial 911, but prevent the teen from overriding the app until the car has come to a stop.
Numerous apps, both free and paid, are available online. If the best application to meet the bill’s standards is a paid app, Dykema said, service providers would have to pick up the cost.
The D.C.-based Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, an industry advocacy group, voiced opposition to an earlier version of the bill in 2015, calling it “unnecessary and unworkable.”
“This technology mandate cannot distinguish between someone in a car versus a passenger traveling on a bus, by rail, in a taxi, or any other mode of transportation that could be ‘in motion,’” wrote Gerard Keegan, CTIA’s assistant vice president for state legislative affairs.
Keegan also said the apps cannot distinguish between a driver and a passenger and would require the GPS function to be switched on constantly, something that could raise privacy concerns.
Dykema said she was skeptical about CTIA’s claims of the bill being technologically impossible to implement and said she hoped, if passed into law, the legislation would spur innovation in the field and result in new, more effective apps.
The Holliston Democrat stressed the bill is not a cure for the problem of teen texting behind the wheel, and that parents play a vital role in talking to their novice drivers about dangers on the road.
“Teens are invincible, they think bad things happen but they happen to someone else,” Dykema said. “I have conversations with my kids all the time as a parent. Education is still important, but at the end of the day, technology has a big role to play in finding a solution to distracted driving.”