Mississippi passes law banning teens from texting behind the wheel
Filed under: Family Money, Transportation
Starting on July 1, Mississippi's teenage drivers will face severe penalties if they send text messages while driving.The Associated Press reports that "Anyone with an intermediate license or learner's permit caught texting while driving could face a misdemeanor charge and a fine of up to $500. If there's an accident while someone is texting, the fine would be up to $1,000."
Am I missing something here? Text-messaging while driving is incredibly dangerous. A Nationwide Insurance study found that 20% of drivers send text messages while driving. Of course that number is higher among teens: 66%) but if it's dangerous -- which it obviously is -- shouldn't it be illegal for everyone?
I just don't understand why Mississippi isn't extending the ban to adults, which is the logical thing to do. Eight states have already banned text-and-drive for all drivers and many others are poised to follow suit.
On the personal finance side, this will probably reduce the amount of texting that young people do, saving parents who are dumb enough to pay their kids' cell phone bills a ton of money. It also might have saved the phone of one Wyoming girl, whose father smashed it after she ran up a $4,756.25 cell phone bill while sending and receiving around 20,000 text messages in a single month.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-14-2009 @ 5:22PM
Dylan said...
Zac, nice article but what really got me was the ending; I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for the parents to get a nearly $5K phone bill, especially when they thought texting was unlimited. Terrible! Even though the charges incurred are apparently legitimate, the sheer cost of the bill particularly riles me because I work for the consumer advocacy website http://www.fixmycellbill.com, powered by a company called Validas, where we slash the average cell bill by 22 percent. The Christofferson's may not have been actively misled by Verizon, but they were clearly unaware of the capability of their daughter's phone to incur massive texting charges. I could go on and on about how shifty these cell companies can be in their attempts to make you overpay. At Validas, we stop them and have currently put over $5,000,000 back in the pockets of consumers. You can check out Validas’s fixmycellbill.com in the national news media, most recently on Good Morning America at http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6887412&page=1.
Good luck to everyone in keeping your wireless expenses down in this rough economy.
Dylan
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4-15-2009 @ 10:00PM
KACHINA321 said...
I HAVE VERIZON AND NOT 1 TIME HAVE I GONE OVER MY MIN. THEY NEED TO CHECK THE GIRLS MIND. PARENTS TODAY SPOIL THEIR KIDS ROTTEN. THEY GET WHAT THEY DESERVE. SO I SAY SCREW THE PARENT FOR GIVING THEIR LITTLE GIRL NO LESSONS ON WHAT MONEY REALLY IS. SHOW THEM WHAT INS. COSTS AND TAKE THAT CREDIT CARD AWAY FROM THEM SO THEY CAN PAY WITH THEIR OWN CASH. ENLIGHTEN THEM TO WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT.
4-15-2009 @ 10:02PM
KACHINA321 said...
TEENS HAVE A HARD TIME DRIVING AS IS. ALL THESE DISTRACTIONS MAKE IT 100 EIMES WORSE. I DONT THINK 16 YEAR OLDS SHOULD BE DRIVING AS IS. 18 SOUNDS A LITTLE MORE MATURE. THEN THESE PARENTS GIVE THEM BRAND NEW FAST CARS AND THEY CANT CONTROL THEM.
KEEP THE BRATS ON THE BUS FOR A FEW MORE YEARS.
ALL IT BRINGS IS TROUBLE TO THOSE WHO THEY HIT AND THEIR INS. COMPANYS. THEY SHOULD HAVE A MILLION $$$$
INS. POLICY ON THOSE UNDER 21. MAYBE THAT WILL SHOW PARENTS WHAT THE REAL COST IS FOR SPOILING THEIR BRATS.
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