San Angelo to Consider Ban on Texting-While-Driving

The San Angelo City Council discussed the idea of creating a ban on texting-while-driving at Tuesday’s city council meeting. Councilman Rodney Fleming introduced the idea.

“I have two kids who are about to get their driver’s license, so it made me think, 'what about this texting and driving thing?' So I started researching it and I found out through research that there are already 40 cities that have texting-and-driving and talking ordinances on the books,” Fleming said.

People who are not paying attention, Fleming said, quoting from research he had accomplished on the issue, cause about 25 percent of all accidents.

Councilwoman Charlotte Farmer agreed.

Councilwoman Elizabeth Grindstaff asked to know what the San Angelo Chief of Police thought about it.

But before Chief Tim Vasquez approached the podium, Mayor Morrison offered a spirited statement about there being too many laws.

Here are the Texas cities with texting and driving prohibitions, according to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT):

1. Alamo
2. Alice
3. Amarillo
4. Aransas Pass
5. Arlington (DFW)
6. Austin
7. Bellaire (Houston)
8. Brownsville
9. Canyon
10. Conroe (Houston)
11. Converse (DFW)
12. Corpus Christi
13. Denton (DFW)
14. El Paso
15. Farmers Branch (DFW)
16. Galveston
17. Grand Prairie (DFW)
18. Harlingen
19. Helotes
20. Laredo 
21. Magnolia (Houston)
22. Maypearl
23. McAllen
24. Meadowlakes
25. Mission
26. Missouri City (Houston)
27. Mount Vernon
28. Nacogdoches
29. Palmview
30. Pampa
31. Penitas
32. Richwood
33. Rowlett (DFW)
34. San Antonio
35. Shoreacres
36. Sinton
37. Stephenville
38. Tomball (Houston)
39. Universal City
40. West University Place (Houston)

The mayor mentioned that Governor Greg Abbott said that Texas was suffering from “Californication” where, according to Mother Jones magazine, urban city councils with armies of elected left-wing politicians are enacting a patchwork of laws to control unwanted behavior. Mother Jones reported that Abbott said these laws are “a nasty ‘form of collectivism'" that could "turn the Texas miracle into the California nightmare".

“Why don’t we wait and let the state legislature deal with this, and make it a Texas ordinance. And then the cities can adopt the ordinance from the state, and then everyone is equal… I hate these ordinances because it takes away freedom,” Morrison said.

“I think that it has become important enough that the legislature will deal with it this time,” Morrison said, in response to Fleming’s suggestion that San Angelo go ahead and adopt a texting ban now, and then modify the ordinance once a state law is enacted.

If Morrison wants the city to wait for the state to act, San Angelo will probably wait a long time.

Former Governor Rick Perry vetoed a texting-while-driving ban in 2011. And Abbott has already expressed his opposition during last year’s campaign. His opponent, Wendy Davis, was a co-author of the texting-while-driving legislation.

Police Chief Tim Vasquez said that enforcing a texting ban is difficult for his officers. “It’s difficult for someone (a police officer) to determine if someone is texting,” he said. Hypothetically, if an officer stops someone suspected of texting, how does an officer prove that was the case, unless the driver volunteers that he or she was on the phone? Vasquez asked.

One option misunderstood by casual observers of law enforcement is that the police officer can ask to see the suspect’s phone. Vasquez said that police are not allowed to do that because a cell phone is considered private property. If the crime is classified only as a Class C misdemeanor, the municipal court cannot even issue a search warrant.

Vasquez said that his officers could enforce disallowing drivers from placing a phone to their ear, similar to how the ban on cell phone usage in school zones is enforced. Texting from a driver’s lap or the use of Bluetooth headsets or hands-free setups would be almost impossible, Vasquez said.

Larger cities like Amarillo that recently enacted texting bans did not realize the ticket revenue that was anticipated because the police force there found the law difficult to enforce, Vasquez said.

Today, without a texting ban, Vasquez said that his officers look at driver inattention as being a cause of accidents. (In the field, Traffic Division Officer Brian Bylsma has anecdotally noted that the number of crashes caused by drivers not paying attention has risen.)

Vasquez said that if a law is enacted to ban texting-while-driving, that citizens should not expect thousands of citations. In a larger city of 1 million people in Texas that enacted a texting ban, the number of citations issued the first year numbered about 100, Vasquez said.

Fleming was hopeful for new technology that will allow police officers see a cell phone transmission from a vehicle.

Farmer asked if the fine was large, like a $1,000 fine, if that would be enough of a deterrent.

Vasquez said that regardless of the difficulty enforcing the law, or the size of the fine, that he felt that a ban would be a deterrent, but only among citizens who already obey the law.

Grindstaff was favorable of enacting a texting-while-driving ban. She suggested holding town hall meetings outside the confines of a council meeting to obtain public input.

Councilman Johnny Silvas compared the anticipated pushback to the texting ban to the resistance he witnessed during the smoking ban debate. Silvas claimed that many said the smoking ban would shutter nightclubs. “But businesses flourished,” Silvas argued.

Jim Turner, the citizen sage of the city charter, reminded the council that they couldn’t initiate the creation of a texting ban. “The only way to put a referendum on the ballot is by petition of a group of citizens,” he said.

Council asked the staff to organize a night meeting to gather public input about a texting-while-driving ban. Staff asked if they should create a draft ordinance. “No, don’t do that. It might freak everyone out,” Grindstaff said.