Texting Slam Dunk LOL

Nothing is easy in the Iowa Legislature.

There are very few slam dunks. Lawmakers might create a tax credit for slam dunks. Or expand the definition of slam dunks to include layups. Or ban jump shots to encourage slam dunks. Or create a slam dunk study.

You see my point.

That's what happened with a well-meaning effort to ban texting while driving - what looked like the feel-good bipartisan slam dunk of the 2010 legislative session. Now, it's the Downward Facing Driver Act of 2010.

In January, it looked so easy. Texting was America's hottest danger in need of prohibition. Lawmakers had piles of research showing that texting is very dangerous, and real-life stories to back it up. They had Kate Moore, 16, of Des Moines, the fastest text-typer in all America, arguing in favor of a ban.

I envisioned a law that fines drivers dumb enough to get caught in the act of texting while also leveling strong penalties at texting drivers who cause injury or death. Send an official state message that texting and driving is a bad combination. Change your distracted ways. Simple.

That's essentially what the original House bill did. But then, a powerful argument changed everything - people are so stupid that we must either overreach or do nothing.

Proponents of this view insisted that the original bill failed to ban reading messages, reading e-mail, reading online newspapers, surfing the Internet, typing a Word document, playing BrickBreaker, ordering music on iTunes, updating your Facebook status or countless other things stupid drivers might do. (Note that talking on the phone while driving, which lawmakers do a lot, is not mentioned.) Still, in the face of stupidity, the House stuck to its simple bill.

Not so in the Senate. Under its “tougher” version, reading a text or e-mail would be illegal. Did you just glance at your blinking BlackBerry? Or were you dialing a legal cell phone call? Both look like crimes in progress.

The Senate would make looking down while driving a possible law enforcement event, a police-able moment. This seems potentially problematic.

“This would be the first time you put something in Iowa law - the so-called texting issue - where you probably vastly expand that ability for law enforcement to stop someone without direct evidence of a crime being committed,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines.

Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, also dislikes the bill. Hey, bipartisanship.

Something is going to pass, probably, and I still hope they trade tough for simple. You can't ban stupidity, but you can pass a stupid bill.

n Comments: (319) 398-8452 or todd.dorman@gazcomm.com