(1) cell phones and other electronic devices are not only instrumentalities and channels of interstate commerce, but products of interstate commerce;
(2) for those reasons, regulation of the use of cellular telephones or other electronic devices to send text messages is covered by the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce as enumerated in article I, section 8 of the Constitution;
(3) additionally, the Supreme Court held in South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (June 23, 1987), that Congress may condition Federal highway funding on State compliance with certain conditions;
(4) people in the United States are using cellular telephones and other personal electronic devices to send text messages or emails, more commonly known as ‘texting,’ with increasing frequency;
(5) according to the New York Times, more than 110,000,000,000 text messages were sent in the United States during the month of December 2008 alone, a tenfold increase in just 3 years;
(6) texting and portable email are valuable to consumers, businesses, and private individuals throughout the United States, but those services also create an extreme risk when used by individuals operating motor vehicles;
(7) a 2008 study by Nationwide Insurance found that 20 percent of drivers in the United States send text messages while operating motor vehicles;
(8) according to a study by Car and Driver Magazine, texting while driving is more dangerous than driving while intoxicated;
(9) a recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found operators of motor vehicles who sent text messages while driving had a collision risk that was 23 times greater while texting as compared to the risk when the operators were not texting;
(10) another study by the University of Utah found that college students using a driving simulator were 8 times more likely to have an accident while texting;
(11) after a serious accident occurred on the Boston public trolley system in May 2009, the trolley operator was found to have been texting his girlfriend at the time of the accident;
(12) the problem of texting while driving has been recognized across the country;
(13) as of the date of enactment of this Act, 14 States and the District of Columbia ban all drivers from texting while operating motor vehicles, and 11 other states have a modified ban on texting while driving;
(14) the risks created by texting while driving are increasing nationwide as the use of texting increases nationwide;
(15) it is necessary, therefore, for Congress to act to protect the safety of all people in the United States on highways and roads in the United States; and
(16) Federal legislation to address the problem of texting while driving is necessary to ensure minimum standards of protection across the country, in the same manner as the national minimum drinking age provides a uniform standard of protection.
U.S. Congress - Text of H.R.3535 as Introduced in House Avoiding Life-Endangering and Reckless Texting by Drivers Act of 2009
