Texting while driving in Miami-Dade County Essay

Texting while driving in Miami-Dade County - Essay Example According to research, it has been noted that a person communicating on his mobile phone has a higher possibility of causing an accident than a drunken driver (Rader, 2008). This essay is a critical evaluation on the threat of mobile telephony on Miami Dade County, with respect to texting while driving. The Miami Dade County was the first to legislate a law banning the use of mobile telephones while driving in Florida, which was passed in the year 2001 (Rader, 2008). According to the ordinance, first time violators were to be awarded a $250 fine or opt to register for a refresher driving course while second time offenders were to receive a punishment of $500. Most importantly, this act recognized the efficiency of these gadgets to communicate in cases of emergency and thus exceptions were made to allow their usage in cases such as reporting on fire, crime, irresponsible driving or other urgent occurrences. However, this law was preempted in 2002 thereby allowing drivers the liberty to decide on when and where to use the distractive gadgets (Rader, 2008). This has been the major setback in the county, which, according to statistics conducted by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, experienced a high rate of accident occurrence of approximately 118 fatal accidents per day in 2008 (Muller, 2010). Every time a bill is introduced for debate to restrict the use of hand held phones either to call or text messages while driving, it is either defeated at the committee stage or it fails completely to gain the support of the legislature, which applies to the whole state of Florida. Furthermore, the state of Florida has a preemption policy which does not allow its local authorities to legislate laws governing or prohibiting distracted driving (Miami-Dade County, n.d). As a result, the prerogative of controlling distracted driving especially