Texting while driving ban could face opposition in state House

DES MOINES - Rep. Gary Worthan believes Iowa roads would be safer if the rule requiring him to use only a hands-free phone when he's driving his truck applied to all drivers.

However, politics being the art of the possible, the Storm Lake Republican will settle for a ban on texting while driving.

'I'm realizing this can be incremental,” Worthan said Thursday at a House Transportation subcommittee on Senate File 391, which the Senate approved 44-6 earlier this month. 'This is the bill we can pass this year.”

SF 391 would expand Iowa's current ban on texting while driving to make it a primary offense, meaning drivers could be stopped if law enforcement has probable cause to believe they are texting.

Worthan and Transportation Committee Chairman Josh Byrnes, R-Osage, believe SF 391 will be approved if it gets to the House floor. The bigger hurdle may be getting it there because they expect opposition from fellow Republicans.

'I understand some of my colleagues don't like government telling them what to do, but this is a big safety issue,” Byrnes said.

Amber Markham of the Department of Public Safety said 27 percent of adults and 34 percent of teens say they text while driving, which research has found to be six times as dangerous as driving drunk.

'Who would go out on the roads if you knew that 34 percent of the drivers were drunk?” she said.

Pat Hoye, bureau chief of the Governor's Traffic Safety Council, said SF 391 'truly has the capability to reduce fatalities.”

Lobbyist Dennis Henderson warned that the change could make texting while driving a 'pretext for racial profiling.” However, referring to the bill supporters, he admitted 'the statistics are in their favor.”