thinking about what an appropriate punishment should be for those who are caught texting and driving. To begin with, texting and driving really gets under my skin. I often see them stopped at green lights or stopped in traffic with 5-10 car lengths in front of them not realizing traffic moved forward. Those aspects are annoying, but the real issue is how dangerous it is and people still do it.

My form of punishment would be a large fine and mandatory online driving school, similar to speeding or other traffic violations. But then I would invlove their cell phone carrier. This individual would be put into a system that can be accessed by cell phone service providers (Verizon, T- Mobile, Sprint etc). The providers would restrict the use of their phone to only being able to place calls when travelling above 10 miles per hour. Why give them access to place calls? There are several instances in which the need to make a call is necessary for safety and therefore this would not be restricted. Apps like the message app, FB, Twitter, IG, Snapchat, and other social media would be automatically disabled.

I know there is a driving mode on phones now but you can easily turn that off and continue your dangerous texting habits. Once you are caught texting and driving, this ability would not be able to be turned off for a year as punishment.

Now one issue with this is, what if they are in the passenger seat, are they not allowed to use their phone then either? Yes, they have lost the right to use their phone in a car regardless of if they are driving or not. One of the reasons I believe people text and drive is that they are impatient and feel they need to respond to every text immidiately. Hopefully after a year of not being able to use their phone while in a moving vehicle they would be better about not texting and driving.

Thoughts? I am pretty serious about this and feel it could be implemented fairly easily.