According to current state law, a driver may not use a cell phone while going through a school zone. State Rep. Jim Pitts has filed legislation that would extend that rule to all the property of an elementary or middle school.
Pitts’ chief of staff, Aaron Gregg, said the legislation arose from a pair of incidents at Red Oak ISD. In each case, a parent texting and driving while on school property bumped into another car.
“Let’s not get some 5-year-old run over because a parent is texting and driving,” Gregg said.
High schools are not mentioned in Pitts’ legislation. Gregg said that was because the lawmaker is looking to extend the current school zone to cover the area where students are dropped actually dropped off.
Gregg said drop off zones aren’t as big an issue for high schools, but added that the proposed bill could change.
The use of cellphones while driving has become a huge problem in Texas. According the the National Safety Council:
Cell phone use while driving is the No. 1 distraction behind the wheel. Accorsing to stats at https://www.hornsbywatson.com/personal-injury/tractor-trailer-accidents, almost 70 percentof the respondents to a AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety survey reported talking on a cell phone while driving during the previous 30 days. Researchers observing more than 1,700 drivers found that three out of every four drivers using a cell phone committed a traffic violation.
In 2010, cell phone use was a contributing factor in 3,387 Texas crashes.