According to a report in the Miami Herald, school bus drivers in Dade County may soon be banned from texting while driving. A member of the Miami-Dade school board proposed the new rule because, as he puts it, "people don't understand how serious of an issue this is. It's really dangerous."

We'd make a joke here, but frankly, we're still drowning in our own disbelief. (Really? This is legal?)

[Miami Herald]

Photo Credit: Getty Images

When the first set of cell phone driving laws were passed, many of them did not include text messaging provisions. While the concept of texting-while-driving falls under most driver distraction laws, those are often not enforced until after an accident or incident occurs. Click on the maps below to discover whether your state has a full statewide ban, has pending legislation, teen-driving laws or nothing at all.

Primary v. Secondary
As with many laws, including seat belt laws and open container laws, enforcement is either primary or secondary. If it is a primary enforcement law, that means you can get pulled over just for violating it. If it's a secondary law you have to also break an additional law before you can get cited. In nearly every state with a full or novice ban this is a primary, and not a secondary, offense. Washington is the only state with a full, comprehensive "secondary" ban.

Photo Credit: TimCaynes

States With No Statewide Bans (In Red)
Approximately half the states have no text messaging laws at all. In most cases there's no cell phone driving law at all. In states like Georgia there is a cell phone ban but no provision for anything related to texting. Illinois has given cities the ability to create and enforce their own texting laws, though Chicago is the only city to do so yet. There are also a couple of cities in Wyoming where local ordinances have been passed. On the other side, states like Florida and Kentucky explicitly forbid local governments from enforcing such laws.

States With Statewide Bans (In Red)
There are 14 states, plus the District of Columbia, with full bans on texting-while-driving either as part of the overall cell phone law or as a recent addendum. Colorado is one of the few states with a text-messaging ban (effective the end of 2009) with no full cell phone bans. The Arkansas texting-while-driving ban is effective in October 2009 so enjoy it while you can.

States With Novice Bans (In Red)
Though some believe driving and texting, ie. endangering everyone around you, is a right of all real'mericans, most people are not insane enough to believe it's okay for a 16-year-old with a learner's permit to focus on creating the ideal emoticon instead of the road. In addition to the states with full bans, there are nine states with some form of novice driver ban. These range from the strict Maine law covering everyone under 18 to the more lenient Nebraska law for anyone under 18 with a learners or provisional license. Mississippi is one of a few states where the law applies to anyone with a learner or provisional license. Enforcement in most of these places is limited to an after-the-fact ticket where the "fact" is probably a distracted teenager driving into a Starbucks.

States With Pending Legislation (In Red)
There are a dozen states where lawmakers have proposed texting-while-driving bans but have not signed them into law. In Illinois, for instance, the law is sitting on the governor's desk and is likely to be signed before the end of the summer. There's pending legislation in Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, Mississippi and Oregon at various levels in the government. Currently, Pennsylvania has a large-scale law related to teen driving that's gaining momentum.

[Sources: Governor's Highway Safety Association, PE.com, and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety]

Former Jalopnik contributor Mike Austin wired a Racelogic VBOX III data logger C&D's long-term Honda Pilot, recording vehicle speed via the VBOX's GPS antenna and brake-pedal position and steering angle via the Pilot's OBD II port. He then wired a red light to the windshield to play the role of brake lights from an imaginary car ahead of the Pilot. When the red light lit up, the driver's supposed to hit the brakes.

Each trial, one with C&D young buck Jordan Brown and his trusty iPhone, the other with old man Eddie Alterman and a Samsung Alias (we're assuming he hasn't yet received his Hachette-assigned Blackberry yet), would have the driver respond five times to the light, and the slowest reaction time — the time between activation of the light and driver hitting the brakes — was dropped.hey'd

How'd they fare? Let's let Mike tell us how Jordan Brown fared:

Intern Brown's baseline reaction time at 35 mph of 0.45 second worsened to 0.57 while reading a text, improved to 0.52 while writing a text, and returned almost to the baseline while impaired by alcohol, at 0.46. At 70 mph, his baseline reaction was 0.39 second, while the reading (0.50), texting (0.48), and drinking (0.50) numbers were similar. But the averages don't tell the whole story. Looking at Jordan's slowest reaction time at 35 mph, he traveled an extra 21 feet (more than a car length) before hitting the brakes while reading and went 16 feet longer while texting. At 70 mph, a vehicle travels 103 feet every second, and Brown's worst reaction time while reading at that speed put him about 30 feet (31 while typing) farther down the road versus 15 feet while drunk."

And C&D head honcho Eddie Alterman? He fared much worse.

While reading a text and driving at 35 mph, his average baseline reaction time of 0.57 second nearly tripled, to 1.44 seconds. While texting, his response time was 1.36 seconds. These figures correspond to an extra 45 and 41 feet, respectively, before hitting the brakes. His reaction time after drinking averaged 0.64 second and, by comparison, added only seven feet.

The results at 70 mph were similar: Alterman's response time while reading a text was 0.35 second longer than his base performance of 0.56 second, and writing a text added 0.68 second to his reaction time. But his intoxicated number increased only 0.04 second over the base score, to a total of 0.60 second.

So what does this mean — which is worse? It seems to us that if you are young and virile, it's safer to be drunk driving than it is to be texting while driving, simply because you're spending more time looking at the road even if you're inebriated. If, however, you're old n' busted, it's safer to be driven by one of those short community home vans. Also, they shouldn't be texting while driving because it's hard for them to see the little buttons to press. Silly old people — stick to drinking, not texting.

We've got video from this morning's Today Show where Mike and Eddie show Phil LeBeau how to hold a whiskey bottle properly behind the wheel coming shortly. Want to read more — head over to CarandDriver.

UPDATE: Now we've got video from today's Today Show appearance. Watch in amazement as Mike Austin gets, literally, like eight words in edge-wise! But yes, that's right, he did say Phil LeBeau did terrible!

It may be the Chief in the Seattle-area town was responding to another text message of "R U TEH BRAIN WILSON FRUM BEACH BOYZ?" but he apparently was checking his Blackberry and absentmindedly "lifted his foot" from the brake pedal while stopped at a light. As one might expect, a police cruiser unguided will find something to crash into and that's exactly what happened when the car collided with the stopped vehicle in front of him. At this point, no charges are planned, though Washington state does maintain anti-texting-while-driving laws. Do as we say, not as we do. [Seattle Times]

Paulo Jorge Nogueira da Silva, 46, is currently in court on six charges of death resulting from dangerous driving because he was reportedly operating his 40 ton container truck while using his laptop on the highway.

Andrew Thomas QC, the prosecuting attorney, states,

"As the Statham family came behind a large container lorry, which was at the back of the queuing traffic, their car was struck from behind by another lorry. The Stathams' car was crushed between the two trucks. The front of the car was forced underneath the rear of the lorry ahead of them and the passenger compartment was compressed."

Thomas continues with the results of the horrible accident,

David and Michelle Statham, of Llandudno, and their four children - sons Reece, 13, Jay, nine, and Mason, 20 months, and 10-week-old baby daughter Ellouise - were killed instantly in the crash on the M6 at Sandbach, Cheshire, last October.

Texting while driving is highly dangerous and distracting for all drivers, but using a laptop while hauling heavy cargo goes tenfold. Pay attention while driving, no matter the vehicle you're operating.

[EPP]

• Cell phone use among teens while driving is 76%
• 57% admit to texting "sometimes" or to often reading or sending text messages while driving
• 93% of teens play loud music when they drive
• 48% admit they're easily distracted when friends are passengers
• 91% think they're good drivers
• 34% say they're friends are good drivers
• 97% have witnessed other teens take risks while driving

Once your car is stolen, or you feel the need to find out where it is, you call the Citrak. It has a designated number. Once called, the Cistrak will immediately send a text message back to the called number with the exact location of the vehicle, including the postal code of the area it's in. Also available is an online service that allows over-protective parents or paranoid car-owners to set a vehicle safety zone. If the car ever exists safety mode, the Cistrak will start firing off alerts and text messages to mom and pops, or to obsessive owners.

Cistrak isn't cheap, at nearly $600. It also requires an annual service fee of $120, after the first year, which the manufacturer throws in for free. [Cistrak via Tech Digest]

As discussed in our Guide To Cell Phone Usage Laws, these kinds of laws are often secondary, meaning that you can only get pulled over if you committed a primary offense such as speeding or running a stop sign. The good news is the offense will not appear on your driving record and thus impact your insurance. [Mobile Messaging]