Just under 3,000 people die in the United States every year because of a motor vehicle collision that involves a distracted driver, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and governments at all levels have been struggling to find ways to reduce this number of preventable deaths. Last month, Bexley City Council passed an ordinance designed to have that effect.
Going beyond the state restrictions on texting and driving, the council passed a law that would ban the use of a mobile device for any purpose while operating a motor vehicle. The law officially went into effect on Oct. 13, and with Capital University’s position in downtown Bexley, it certainly influences the lives of Capital students.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Kris Bigelow said, “because a lot of accidents happen because of distracted driving.”
Her friend Andre’a Weber-Harris agrees, “I think it is a good thing.”
Neither expresses any concerns about the law having a negative effect on them; the fact that it could make Bexley streets safer is all that matters.
Others, like George Park, another Capital Student and employee at One Main Café, aren’t worried about the law since it doesn’t apply to them.
“I don’t have a car on campus to drive so it doesn’t affect me,” Park said. “If I ever do bring my car to Capital, it’s a Dodge Hellcat, and I won’t be doing anything on my phone while driving that.”
Whether due to a desire for safer roads or determination to protect cars they are personally vested in, it seems many Capital students will have no difficulty adjusting to the change. In fact, for some, the new law isn’t really a change at all, as they are from other areas of the country where strict laws on the use of mobile devices are already in place.
One of those is Erie County, Pennsylvania, as Sophomore Nathan Kujan, a life-long resident of the county, explained, “It’s been against the law in Erie for four or five years now.”
Not only is Kujan used to such restrictions on using mobile devices while driving, but he is also in favor of them.
“[I] think it’s stupid to use your phone while driving a car. You can wait,” Kujan said.
You can wait. It can wait. These are things most of us have heard before, either in drivers ed or from anti-texting-while-driving campaigns, and many Capital students agree.
No matter what it is, many agree that nothing on any mobile device can be worth the risk you assume when you take your attention away from road. Perhaps it is because of this widespread consensus that many Capital students are either supportive or, at worst, indifferent towards the new Bexley ordinance.
The fact that you must now wait to use your mobile device in the car until you pull over or drive past the city limits doesn’t bother many because it was a rule most students already imposed on themselves. If this is the case, then all of us here at the university should have no problem adjusting to the new law, and our daily experiences on roads around Bexley should be no different, though perhaps a little safer, than they were before.
