Sept. 04--It's been about six months since Pennsylvania banned texting while driving, but local police are finding it is a difficult law to enforce.
In fact, the Scranton Police Department has cited fewer than 10 people for the offense since the ban went into effect, acting police Chief Carl Graziano said.
One of those was a man who admitted to texting while driving when he swerved across two lanes of traffic and crashed into a parked car earlier this year -- many of the cases aren't that simple, he said.
"It's difficult to make that arrest due to the current law," Graziano said. "It's difficult for an officer to discern whether they're texting or looking up numbers on their phone."
As the law stands now, texting is prohibited, but talking on the cellphone or searching for contacts in the phone are still legal, making it difficult for officers to prove the person in question was indeed texting, Graziano said.
In 2009, more than 5,400 people died in crashes that were reported to involve a distracted driver and about 448,000 people were injured, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distracted driving statistics. Of those, nearly 1,000 deaths and 24,000 injuries included cellphone use, according to the CDC's website. The CDC does not have numbers that specifically address texting.
Dickson City Police Chief William Bilinski said he has only pulled over one person for texting while driving.
"As for the exact texting law, the way it's written, it's hard to enforce and get a conviction out of it," he said.
Even though he can't pull someone over for talking on their cellphone, he can write citations for distracted driving and traffic violations, especially when people are swerving or driving dangerously while on a cellphone, Bilinski said.
Police officers aren't the only ones wanting more guidance from the texting and driving law.
Eileen Miller has been relentlessly campaigning against distracted driving since her son Paul Miller Jr. was killed in a car crash in Monroe County in 2010 -- showing state representatives and senators his photo in hopes they'll push for more stringent legislation against using cellphones while driving.
Progress is slow, she said, because some people think a complete cellphone ban would be to difficult to pass. Her talks with local representatives haven't been as effective as she anticipated.
"I'm very disappointed, but I'm not going to stop," Miller said.
Until more effective cellphone legislation is passed, Miller, along with area police departments and the state Department of Transportation, are working on starting preventative dialogue, especially with kids in schools.
The message is simple and can help save lives, Miller said.
"Keep your eyes on the road, hands on the wheel and mind on task," she said.
[email protected], @ksullivanTT
Copyright 2012 - The Citizens' Voice, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
