MAYOR PARKER INTENDS TO BAN TEXTING AND DRIVING IN HOUSTON 
If the bill that would outlaw texting and driving statewide, vetoed 2 years ago by Governor Perry, doesn’t catch on this time around, Mayor Parker says she will move to ban the act in Houston: A press release today says that the mayor’s “Houston, It Can Wait” campaign, part of a national push to limit texting-induced accidents and fatalities, “will be guided by a task force consisting of representatives of law enforcement, government, education, corporate, medical, professional and faith-based organizations.” And it appears that Mayor Parker intends to use another local resource to help her get the word out: “Several entities . . . have agreed to broadcast a public service announcement featuring Mayor Parker and rapper Bun B.” [City of Houston] Photo of Southwest Fwy.: Flickr user KreinikGirl
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I’m all about keeping GOVT out of my personal affairs but THIS. If you can’t get down the freeway without harming someone due to negligence brought around by texting, well you don’t deserve the right to do both at the same time. Same goes for the parents looking completely backwards to tend to unruly children. You are all menaces to everyone else following traffic laws. Maybe habitual, douchebag cellphone users and SUVs filled with kids should be sequestered to their own low-speed lane.
The mayor forgot to include on the task force the airheads, braindead and criminally self-absorbed who are texting while driving for a little insight into their behavior.
This is a great move. Now go after left-lane cruisers!
Won’t Law enforcement have to look up from texting while driving to enforce this one?
Can this include the walking while texting, especially while walking down the middle of the street, clueless to the car behind you? And the standing in the middle of the store aisle somehow managing to block the entire aisle while texting? Please?
If a text can wait so can a phone conversation. Ban them both.
Cannot happen soon enough. So sick of selfish jerks who think their lives are more important then everyone else’s endangering other drivers. I cannot think of one good reason this shouldn’t already be a law. Perry’s veto show’s just how much of an embarrassment he is to Texas.
I can’t even count the times I’ve almost been taken out by drivers on cell phones, and they never even notice the near collisions. If people are too stupid to not drive and text/phone, then we do need a law against both.
God forbid she could focus on our crumbling streets, decaying infrastructure, horrendous traffic and mounting pension problems in order to concentrate on what should be a state issue. Vote that clown out at the next election PLEASE!!!
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say Any usage of a phone while driving is illigal? does surfing the Internet on your phone count as texting? How about looking for a specific song to play? What if you are stopped at a light? Then is it ok to text?
I’ve never agreed with so many people in so many ways in a comment section! This just brightened my day. Even if this law/mandate is 5% effective I’ll take it….the people on phones driving like total morons is unbelievable. Cannot believe Perry keeps vetoing something so obviously irresponsible.
There are a good many dangers out there but if government can pass enough laws to keep us all safe from some of them then I’m all for it!
Boooooooooooooooo.
MAYOR PARKER INTENDS TO BAN TEXTING AND DRIVING .I am glad she’s banning driving—it’s about time—but I don’t know about banning texting. I mean, I text all the time.
I don’t understand backwards conservatives like Annise Parker pushing their abstinence-only education approach to text. I mean, let’s be honest, we are only human and it is natural to want to get text anywhere and anytime you can get it—even in the car! Sure, a few young, inexperienced people who are textually active are going to make mistakes that will haunt them for the rest of their lives; some might even die or kill others; but that is no reason not to encourage people to use protection like a hands-free device and have safe text. I don’t get all the conservative hang-ups about textual liberation and the freedom that comes with that—it’s not 1950 anymore! I mean, if I can’t even text someone in my car, what’s next, the government saying I can’t have text in my bedroom?
Annise Parker is hardly conservative, Jason..you act like she’s that fat butt plug Rush Limballs..are you kidding me, dude…and her ban on idiots who text is spot on…you go, girl!
Everybody knows that when you make a law against something it stops happening.
Frequently these laws don’t stop anybody from text-driving (which I do not do because I like being alive), but they do make it so people do it more dangerously.
Now they’ll have to text, drive, AND hide their phones, all at the same time.
why are cell phones and texting singled out? How about doing anything that distracts you from the task at hand (driving) be illegal? Eating, reading, putting on makeup, looking for a radio station, these are all equally as distracting as texting or talking on a cell phone, so why would texting be singled out because it’s relatively new?
How about first, they hire enough officers to enforce the laws already on the books, such as speeding. If you aren’t going 10 over the limit people are tailgating you, or doing something more dangerous. Even when you do decide to go 10 over, you’ve still got half the cars on the road passing you, including the cops.
This makes it worse because the idiots will text with the phone in their lap which is even more dangerous.
@ Jason C – Highlarious! Dude, we should hang out.
These kinds of laws aren’t a complete waste of time or unenforceable. Everybody I know wears a seatbelt when they’re in the car. Hardly anybody did when I was a kid, before the seatbelt law was passed. We try to pretend that government can’t alter personal behavior but it absolutely can, in ways both obvious and more subtle.
How about a federal or state subsidy of bluetooth connectors ($10) so that people can talk hands-free and focus on driving?
Also, I cannot believe that Perry vetoed this bill. What an embarassment he is.
If I recall correctly, the Texas motor vehicle code requires drivers to have both hands on the steering wheel at all times the vehicle is in motion. If police were to enforce that provision, it would solve toasty’s dilemma and make laws banning texting while driving completely unnecessary.
Shucks, that’s nothin’, folks: last Christmas in Beaumont I saw a woman make a sharp, fast turn with a sody in one hand, cell ‘phone in the other, smoking a cigarette, and yelling at the children in the back seat.
I probably don’t need to know how she learned prehensile control of her knees.
Heights Type – 10&2 is a driving safety standard, but I don’t think it’d be the law since mandating two hands on the wheel would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act because it would bar Vets or whoever else happened to be missing an arm, or paraplegics using hand controls from driving.
@PREVIEW
Or people driving a stick shift.
There is already enough police state nonsense in this town… sounds like another revenue generating schemes. If you want to stop cell phone use then install jamming devices along roadways. Couldn’t cost any more than networked cameras at every intersection.
Why don’t the mayor get some of these F’n city streets repaired?? Seems like she spends all her time majoring in the minors. What a fraud.
Everybody is moaning about streets needing repair. At what time in Houston’s history have we not had entire neighborhoods in the throes of street repair? There’s always something under construction in this town, and always people complaining that there isn’t enough of it, or too much. I used to complain about Kirby south of 59, and then all of a sudden, it got fixed. Chill out, people. It’s a big city. You’re gonna get yours eventually. Stop whining.
Without a subpoena you can’t prove someone was texting instead of dialing/answering/checking mail/ etc etc. You have to ban it all, not one part. But passing kneejerk, feel good ordinances seems to be a trend these days.
Yeh but what about eating a #3 from Popeye’s while driving?
BAN CELL PHONES PERIOD! JUST THE MAN’S WAY OF KEEPING TRACK OF US JUST LIKE SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS! DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER!
Fix the damn potholes!
Not sure what planet you live Anse but Kirby was a mess for at least 20 years before it was resurfaced properly. Streets in Montrose and I am sure many other older areas of town are literally crumbling and have been for a generation. So just waiting around for the asphalt fairy to
swoop down from the heavens and regrade and repave seems a bit stupid.
A few years ago I was in traffic next to a guy reading the newspaper draped over his steering wheel. I think Canada has it right… just ban all driving distractions… txt, phone, eating, drinking, reading, etc. Sitting in the driver’s seat carries responsibilities it is not your living room couch!
What is most annoying is the person who is distracted and causes the near miss looks at you like you caused the “near miss”.