The city of Huntsville, AL has just passed a new -“Eyes on the Road Ordinance” – which will take effect September 20th. This new law will make it illegal to text and read emails while driving in the city limits of Huntsville. The new law prohibits the following: texting, reading e-mail, scrolling through music files, and viewing YouTube. The law also prohibits programming a destination into a satellite navigation unit while driving. Huntsville becomes the fifth city in Alabama to pass a texting ban. The other cities include: Birmingham, Vestavia Hills, Jacksonville and Roanoke in Randolph County. One concern with the law is how will the law be enforced. A violation of this law will be classified as a secondary offense, which means you cannot be pulled over for just texting; you must also be committing another offense such as speeding or tailgating. This seems to take all the teeth out of the law. Thus, someone could be texting and driving with no seatbelt and they could not be pulled over as both are secondary offenses.
The above video displays the dangers of texting while driving. Hopefully, this type of ban will reduce the number of Huntsville car accidents. Our firm recently resolved a Huntsville car wreck claim where the at fault driver was texting while she was driving at 70 mph on the interstate. See the article: Settlement Reached in Huntsville Alabama Car Wreck Caused by Texting Driver.