North Olmsted: Don’t text while driving
By Jeff Gallatin
North Olmsted
Published Sept. 16, 2009

City officials are preparing to send a message to drivers who text on the road — don’t do it.

Council’s safety committee Sept. 8 unanimously recommended making texting while driving a primary offense, meaning the fine will be more than $100. In initial discussions, the fine could have been $3, meaning it would be considered a secondary offense. The city already has a law on the books making using your cell phone on the road a secondary offense, meaning an officer can’t stop a driver solely for that offense, but can cite the driver for that in addition to more serious traffic violations.

However, in contrast to the existing cell phone law for North Olmsted, committee members and council members attending the session felt the texting problem merited strong action now. The full council was scheduled to consider the proposal again at its regular meeting last night.

“Clearly it’s a problem on the road and something we need to be dealing with as a city,” said Councilman-at-large Mark Mahoney, who worked on bringing the proposal forward with Ward 1 Councilman Lou Brossard. Mahoney and others supported making the fine stronger as well as posting signage at city limits warning people of traffic offenses like this.

Several council members supported making texting a primary offense because of the problems involved.

“It’s just not good driving,” said Councilman-at-large Michael Gareau Jr. “Anybody who has tried to do it can attest to it. It makes for unsafe driving conditions for not only the driver but the other vehicles around them as well.”

Ward 2 Councilman Paul Barker also warned of the problems.

“It’s dangerous to be doing that out on the road,” he said. “You really can’t be doing that, keeping your eyes on the road and attempting to drive the vehicle.”

He said other governmental bodies have already picked up on the problem.

“It’s apparently one of the hot issues in Columbus right now,” he said. “The legislature is apparently expected to pass some form of legislation about the law by the end of the year. And Cleveland already has some tough laws on the books. Our proposal won’t be as tough, but we will be letting people know that it’s not acceptable in the city. Councilmen Mahoney and Brossard did a great job in bringing this forward and getting a good proposal set up for our city to use.”

Council members discussed possibly upgrading the current cell phone, but several council members questioned including that in the proposal.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of support for doing anything like that,” Barker said. “Cell phones can be a problem, but not like when you’re texting and literally can’t be looking at the text and seeing the road at the same time.”