QUICK THROTTLE® MAGAZINE - NORTHWEST EDITION
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So brother Dave rode in on his Road King today looking every bit the biker part. One of the stickers on his helmet read “Maybe you would drive better if that cell phone was up your ass!” How true I thought. Dave loves to sidle up next to unsuspecting cell phone users on the highway and crack the throttle wide open with his straight pipes. “Scares the Jesus right out ‘em” he claims.

We got to talking about old time dangers on the road; deer on Whidbey Island (that’s how I earned the nickname “DeerSlayer”), drunks in town, all intersections whether marked or not, Friday and Saturday nights in general after 2:00 AM, anywhere in Ballard.

The conversation drifted to modern dangers on the road. Highway traffic congestion, young drivers following too close in their little foreign cars with their spoilers and four inch exhaust (does it really increase performance in a four banger?), dashboard videos, cell phones and text messaging. We both got the “willies” sharing cell phone and text messaging horror stories.

Here’s the skinny: A 2005 study by the University of Utah, found that drivers who talked on cell phones were 18 percent slower in hitting their brakes than other drivers. And a 2006 University of Utah study found that people driving while talking on a cell phone were as impaired as if they were driving with a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level -- the legal limit in Washington State.

TEXT MESSAGING BANNED

Effective January 1, 2008, Washington became the first state to ban text messaging for all drivers. Under the new law, drivers who read and compose text messages could face a $101 ticket.

The problem as I see it is; text messaging while driving is classified as a secondary traffic violation, meaning officers can’t pull drivers over just because they’re text messaging. The driver must have committed another infraction like weaving or unsafe lane changes, (or running over a motorcyclist at an intersection).

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that reading and typing while driving is a bad mix. We lost over 45,000 soldiers in the Vietnam War, and we lose about the same amount every year on our roads across the U.S. Metaphorically, it’s like a war zone out there. We should approach driving with the same alertness and caution we would as if we were on a foot patrol in Vietnam.

HANDS FREE CELL PHONE DEVICES REQUIRED

Effective July 2008, Washington will require hands free cell phone devices while operating a motor vehicle. The law exempts drivers of emergency vehicles and tow trucks, drivers who have hearing aids and drivers reporting emergencies or illegal activities.

Oddly, the law doesn’t prohibit entering or selecting a telephone number to make a phone call. According to a recent New York Times report, 158 billion mobile phone messages and calls were sent in the U.S last year, up almost twofold from 2005. While it is unknown how many were typed by people behind the wheel, doesn’t bring me confidence to know text-mania is gripping our Blackberry obsessed yuppie types and our nation’s young people who consider it more important to communicate while driving than the safety of those around them.

Oh yeah. And finally, under another measure the governor signed last summer, as of July of 2008, car drivers who cut in line at the ferry terminal could also get a $101 ticket and be sent to the back of the line. (Dave and I got our own ideas about how to handle “town-ee” ferry line violators. It involves us and them and some rope but the editor refused to print it in this issue.)

As always, if you or a brother has been injured in a motorcycle accident, I’m here to help you put your life back together on the legal front, or just answer any questions.

Phil Wakefield (AKA Deerslayer) 425-248-4444 Lawyer.

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