A Utah man was convicted of the first negligent homicide case attributed to cell phone use, according to an Associated Press article.
Joseph Erickson was driving 5 to 10 miles per hour above the speed limit when he reached to turn off his ringing cell phone and, distracted, plowed into a BMW and killed its driver. A judge sentenced him to 90 days in jail, 150 hours of community service and ordered him to pay a restitution of $8,454.
The case could be used to help support a ban on cell phones while driving, which some Utah lawmakers are pushing for it. New York already has banned hand-held cell phones in vehicles.
| The issue: Some Utah state legislators want to ban cell phones in vehicles after a man, distracted by his phone, caused a fatal accident. |
Banning cell phones is not the answer, however; education is. Cell phones are only one of the distractions to drivers, but having them can save lives in cases of accidents or emergencies. It boils down to common sense, and it’s impossible to legislate that. Changing CDs or radio stations, eating or talking to passengers can just as easily cause accidents, but, like cell phone use, it would be very difficult to regulate them.
It is up to driver education programs and the media to get it into people’s heads that it is dangerous to be distracted while driving. If a person is not able to maintain control and concentration, he or she needs to realize it and stop multi-tasking. It may take some societal re-working, because we seem to prize doing more than one thing at a time – ads and movies are full of scenes of people talking on cell phones, putting on make-up and looking more at the passenger than at the road while driving.
Penalties, however, should be stiffer in cases like Erickson’s. Three months jail time and a fine are not enough when someone is killed. Any kind of vehicular negligence should result in a strict punishment; a vehicle can be just as deadly as any gun, and drivers need to realize this and be held accountable for their actions.
