Keep driving rules uniform

So, the law stops you from texting while driving your car — but it allows the trucker behind the wheel of that mammoth 18-wheeler on your rear bumper to type onto a computer keyboard?
That’s the way it ought to be, says the trucking industry as it opposes federal legislation mandating a ban on text messaging and similar devices while driving.
Now, we’re opposed to the federal ban, too, but for a different reason.
The proposed law would withhold federal highway money from states that did not outlaw testing while driving. Cutting down on distracted driving by prohibiting texting is a good thing, necessary for safety. Virginia has already passed its no-texting law, and wouldn’t be harmed by the federal legislation in any case.
But we don’t think Washington should be dictating to the states by threatening to withhold our tax money. It’s a matter of principle.
Meanwhile, we understand the trucking industry’s position. Onboard computers save money when truckers need to find a delivery location or obtain up-to-date highway information. Stopping to get that information, losing time and wasting fuel, eats away at thin profits.
Plus there’s a safety issue. Pulling off the road to text or type into a computer may be easy enough, if inconvenient, if you’re driving a four-wheel vehicle. But finding room to pull a tractor-trailer off the highway, and exiting and re-entering traffic safely, is a different matter.
But there is no disputing the danger of using electronic messaging devices — BlackBerrys, iPhones, computers, whatever — while driving. According to the New York Times, a study at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute “found that [truckers] who used on-board computers faced a 10 times greater risk of crashing, nearly crashing or wandering from their lane than truckers who did not use those devices.”
And these are vehicles that, because of their weight and mass, can do massive damage in a crash. The Times notes that, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, fatalities caused by large trucks are increasing even as improved safety devices such as antilock brakes and air bags are reducing fatalities overall.
Then there’s the inequality, or hypocrisy, factor. If operators of four-wheelers are to be restricted, where’s the fairness in exempting drivers of 18-wheelers? In fact, if there’s going to be unequal enforcement, restrictions on trucks should be tougher because of their greater potential for damage.
The trucking industry says onboard computers are easier to use than handheld messaging devices and therefore do not pose the same risk. Screens have “maybe two or four or six lines” of text, Clayton Boyce, spokes-man for the American Trucking Associations, told the Times. “And they’re not reading the screen every second.”
But it takes several seconds to read two to six lines of text. And in those eyes-off-the-road seconds, disaster can unfold.
There’s got to be a better way. Let dispatchers look up the computer information and relay it via no-hands telephone. Innovate some other method of safely conveying the data.
But don’t exempt those who can cause the most pain and damage from following the same sort of rules the rest of us might have to obey.