St. Johns County Chamber Joins With AAA To Get Serious About Texting
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The government estimates that there are 5,800 deaths caused by distracted motorists.
St Johns County Sheriff’s officer, Col. Art May says he is seeing them more and more. Often it presents as a swerving car. In the past, he would have pulled the driver over, assuming they were DUI.
These days, more often than not, he quickly ascertains that the person is sending a text message causing the vehicle to swerve.
May says he has seen a sharp increase in the number of people texting and driving. So have others in the county – one reason the county’s Chamber of Commerce has become the first chamber in the state that has pledged to ask all of its member companies to sign a safe-driving pledge that their employees will not text and drive.
AAA Auto Club South originated the idea with support from the St. Johns Sheriff’s Office.
Taking a stand is not often something you see business doing. But Chamber President, Robin Burchfield, says it’s part of their involvement in the community.
All chambers in Florida will be asked to join in the effort and AAA plans to turn it into a competition to see which chamber can get the most businesses to sign the pledge.
The goal goes beyond keeping our roads safer. Florida remains one of the few states with no laws banning texting or talking on a cell phone while driving. Once again in 2009 the state Legislature failed to pass any legislation.
AAA says it will be a priority for 2010.
No doubt the fact that President Obama sign an executive order banning the nations three million federal employees and military from texting while driving has helped drive the message home, unfortunately so do the number of people killed on our roads.
Florida needs to catch up with the rest of the nation by restricting this dangerous activity while behind the wheel, and do so fast!