By
Cat Viglienzoni - July 8, 2010
A lobbying group has put the brakes on plans to redirect
the debate about cell phone use while driving after facing strong criticism
from Washington. The Seward Square Group's lobbying push would have sought to
refocus the distracted driving debate away from phone use to driver education
and law enforcement.
But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said distracted
driving has taken a deadly toll, claiming nearly 6,000 lives in 2008 and
causing more than half a million injuries - all of which were preventable.
"You see it every day - drivers swerving in their lanes,
stopping at green lights, running red lights or narrowly missing a pedestrian
because they have their eyes and minds on their phones, not the road," he said.
LaHood said he was "stunned to read that anybody would
organize activities against safe driving." He has aggressively fought for
restrictions on distracted driving, hosting a summit on the subject last year
and said he will keep "the pedal to the metal" on the issue.
"If you're looking down at your Blackberry for four
seconds you drive the length of a football field without looking at the road,"
LaHood said. "People consistently assume they can drive and text or talk at the
same time - you can't do it safely."
The Seward Square Group's campaign said a "benign
debate about teens and texting has morphed into a full-throttle assault on
mobile technology," and they wanted to pursue other solutions to distracted
driving. They also said the issue has been "hijacked" by celebrities like
Oprah Winfrey, leaving the auto and technology industries as "collateral
damage" in the debate.
Instead, they wanted to create a group, the DRIVE coalition,
to improve public safety and modernize driver education, as well as promote law
enforcement and driver education.
The group had planned to recruit various auto, technology
and insurance companies, including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, General Motors,
Ford, Toyota, Allstate, Geico and others, to back their cause. LaHood called
their plan an attempt to "rile up the electronics industry and derail our coalition."
A spokesperson for Seward Square Group said they had
scrapped plans for the campaign because their goal of expanding the debate to include
other forms of driver distraction had been met.
Electronics companies have expressed concern that the distracted
driving campaign will extend to GPS or voice-activated devices, which they say
reduce the likelihood of a crash.
Just last week, Massachusetts became the 29th
state to ban texting and other non-calling activity
on electronic devices for motorists in an effort to curb distracted driving in
the state. So far, thirty states and D.C. have banned text messaging
behind the wheel and eight have barred drivers from using hand-held cell phones.
