Gov. Pat Quinn of the state of Illinois will sign an amendment to the state’s Vehicle Code this week, making Illinois the 17th state in the US to have a ban on texting (text messaging) while driving.
The bill does have the exception however if the driver pulls over to park, or puts the car in neutral while stopped in traffic.
Since last year, 16 states have banned texting while driving including Oregon, New Hampshire, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Washington DC.
There are currently senators planning to push a bill that would make it federally illegal to text while driving. Recent studies have shown increased accident rates caused in part thanks to texting and show that texters are at substantially increased risk of getting into accidents.
“With drunk driving it was important to pass tough laws, but the laws won’t really have any effect unless they’re enforced and the public knows about it and it’s properly adjudicated,” says Barbara Harsha of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association. “So passing a law isn’t the solution, it’s only part of it.”
Result for: text messaging
Two men from Pennsylvania have set the record for most text messages sent in a month, with one man sending and receiving 217,000 total. Although both men were on an unlimited text messaging plan, one man, Nick Andes recieved a bill for $26,000 USD at the end of the month.
The bill was two inches thick.
“It came in a box that cost $27.55 to send to me,” Andes said. He immediately called T-Mobile after he “panicked” over the bill and the carrier has said they have credited the account and are looking into the charges.
Andes added that he has been texting for almost a decade and wanted to become the world record holder for most in a month. The previous record was 182,000, set by Deepak Sharma of India in 2005.
The second man, Doug Klinger, and Andes, set their phones to be able to send multiple messages and found they could send up to 6000 texts per day some days.
“Most were either short phrases or one word, ‘LOL’ or ‘Hello,’ things like that, with tons and tons of repeats,” added the men.
Result for: text messaging
The mobile phone carrier O2 has announced that it will be the exclusive carrier for the popular Apple iPhone in Ireland following its successful launch in the UK last year.
The official debut for the device in Ireland is slated for March 14th. The device will sell in O2’s retail stores and also through “Carphone Warehouse” retail stores. The smaller capacity 8GB model of the iPhone will sell for €399 including VAT. The larger capacity 16GB model will retail for €499 including VAT. Obviously the device will work with both Macs and PCs.
The different service plans will be available from O2, with the cheapest beginning at €45. Each plan will have anytime minutes, text messaging and a 1GB data bundle at least.
More details when they become available.
