The Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles division is out with its annual report on Texting While Driving Violations. This is the first annual report with the texting while driving law in place for the full year. So, what happened? There were only 3,174 total citations for the entire state last year. This included 18 citations in Broward, 295 citations in Miami-Dade, and 38 citations in Palm Beach County.
It illustrates the generally pointlessness of the law and it should be noted that deaths on Florida’s roads actually increased by 11% last year. Texting while driving should never happen but passing feel-good laws also won’t solve the problem. Our roads are less safe today than they were prior to the passage of this law. We should place a point of emphasis on reckless driving of all types, of which texting while driving is already one, rather than tasking law enforcement with one more specific law which has proven to be largely unenforceable and highly ineffectual.
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