No place but Texas. Gov Perry vetos ban on texting while driving

[johncoby2]

The bill was passed by the House and Senate and vetoed by the governor because it was a "a government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults".

Uh...it was an effort to manage KID's behavior.

OUr governor is a fucking idiot.

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/veto/16283/

[Seedersandleechers]

1. Damn!

Now that is cold. What an ass.

[Renew Deal]

2. I have a God given right to be killed by someone texting while driving!

:yoiks:

[nobodyspecial]

3. Might as well allow drunk driving as well

It's also "a government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults".

[etherealtruth]

8. That was my first thought

[seabeyond]

14. we sit at stop light and watch car after car, with driver texting and talking on cell.

i cannot tell you how many cars, recently, have drifted into my lane and i have to move out of their way or honk cause i have nowhere to go. i feel like i am doing all the driving for these people.

the up side? my 16 yr old is catching all this and i never talk on cell driving and dont do text. his father has stopped to. so fingers crossed kids wont be so stupid.

i tell them as bad, if not worse, than drinking and driving

[Vanje]

4. A similar bill went down in Idaho

"interfering with folk's personal liberties"

[RB TexLa]

5. Good, I already get enough tickets for the seat belt crap here, don't care to add more for that.

[Nye Bevan]

6. Wow. Quite the libertarian (nt)

[seabeyond]

12. yippy, so we can all keep eye out for you since you are too busy to be driving. nt

[nosmokes]

15. then a sane person would buckle up.

[Elwood P Dowd]

25. You also worship trade deals and outsourcing that cost millions of US workers their jobs.

Keep those right wing talking points coming.

:eyes:

[Raine]

28. Uh maybe if you buckled your seat belt

you wouldn't keep getting tickets, duh. :think:

[catabryna]

7. I'm sorry...

I know what it is like to live under Governor Good Hair. Glad I moved before the recession set in.

[Generic Brad]

9. And does he hold the same opinion in regards to abortion rights?

It's wrong to micromanage the behavior of adults but OK to micromanage the womb of a female. Seems to me the man is a hypocrite.

[tammywammy]

18. I wish he was the same on abortion rights

Alas, he's a hypocrite to the core. Gov. Goodhair just signed into law the ultrasound before abortion bill.

[gejohnston]

10. If you hit someone while texting,

would that not still be reckless driving?

[seabeyond]

11. government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults... really? so i can speed, not wear

seatbelts? what about all the religious oriented rules

[phleshdef]

13. It should always be illegal to drive while 1. Intoxicated and 2. Doing anything overly distracting

You shouldn't drive with animals on your lap.

You shouldn't drive while texting.

You shouldn't drive while talking on a hand held cell phone.

You shouldn't drive while masturbating (very often).

You shouldn't drive while doing anything that puts you at risk of losing the wheel or not paying attention to whats going on around you.

We all agree, I imagine, that driving while drunk is highly irreponsible. You are endangering the lives of others when you take that risk. Its illegal for a reason. The same idea goes for driving while doing something else that requires more than thoughtless changing of the radio station or carrying on a casual conversation with your passenger. People have and will end up getting killed over stupid, hairless ape behavior like this. Opposable thumbs are great to have. But you can still do really dumb shit with them.

[theophilus]

16. Unfortunately someone will die partly because of his action. I hope the family members

sue him for every cent he has, or ever will have. And I hope they WIN!

[AsahinaKimi]

17. SFR...

Stupid "Freaking" Republicans. (Middle word is Exchangeable )

[customerserviceguy]

19. Sounds like something good to use against him

in his expected attempt to get the Republicon nomination. Rachel Maddow really has me worried about this assclown.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

20. More Darwin awards.

I've seen reports of several people in Texas being killed due to texting while driving, or talking on a cell phone while driving.

[fishwax]

23. yeah, but darwin awards are about being a victim of one's own stupidity

I imagine those killed due to texting or talking while driving are not always (or even usually, I'd guess) the people actually doing the texting/talking.

[bmbmd]

21. On a more personal note for me-

he also vetoed a ban on airboat traffic in the eighteen mile stretch of the Brazos River below Possum Kingdom Lake. This stretch of river, some of Texas' most scenic waterways, is my home water. More than once I have been nearly swamped by airboat zooming down the narrow, rocky, confines of the Brazos Valley.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/06/17/3161413/texting-while-driving-ban-among.html#ixzz1Peyz6G8Z

[Duke Newcombe]

22. Which is worse, really?

A) that this backwards asshat Governor vetoed this, or
B) that I have to share a country with backwards-assed people who are cheering this?

[justabob]

24. I hate him so much

Un-fucking-believable. Now the insurance companies have an easy way to bump up our rates too.... not that they need one. Asshole. I wonder when the last time he actually had to drive himself around was. Our drivers are really bad before we even add in phone/texting. Really. :mad:

[Irritable Liberal]

26. He also supports the anti-sodomy laws in Texas

Asshole hypocrite. If that isn't 'micromanaging the behavior of adults" the nothing nothing is.

[Irritable Liberal]

27. 25 people died in a train wreck in Los Angeles because of texting

25 people died in the Chatsworth train crash in Sep, 2008 because the engineer ran through a red light because he was texting.

[WinkyDink]

29. Don't mess with Textas.

[trumad]

30. Uh what about seat belt loves Govner

Texas has them...

http://www.dot.state.tx.us/safety/clickit.htm

[sendero]

31. Idiotic Libertarian thought.

.... is infecting a larger and larger number of Republicans these days. He's going to RUE THE DAY he pulled this little stunt when some kid is run over by a texting driver.

[Flying Dream Blues]

32. That or something like it happens every day. Do you think he cares? No rueing for him,

trust me on this one. He is completely evil and without redeeming qualities.

[Brooklyns_Finest]

33. Blue tooth text

This should come out in a couple of years. If you have a car with an in-dash screen, there should be a function to enable blue tooth text. You'd still have the problem of a persons eyes a way from the road, but it would still be substantially safer than texting while driving.

[jmowreader]

34. We can't even get a texting ban before the Idaho governor

In the 2010 session the Legislature produced a good solid texting-while-driving ban. The Senate wanted to declare texting-while-driving a misdemeanor offense. Okay, that's a LITTLE harsh, so the House wrote a nice bill that said texting while driving was going to be a civil infraction--$50 plus court costs for the first offense, $100 plus costs for the second. So far so good. The Senate amended the bill to create a misdemeanor offense for causing damage while texting. The bill went back to the House, where one Raul Labrador killed it because he wasn't happy with the misdemeanor provisions of the bill. (And then the stupid fuck got elected to Congress. We were better off with Walt Minnick.)

The 2011 session produced a bill that was stupendous in its idiocy: Texting while driving would only be illegal if it distracted the driver. That one died a well-deserved death.

What I cannot understand is, this is 2011. There is Internet connectivity in this state. There are computers in this state. How fucking hard would it be to use one of these computers and some of this Internet connectivity to go to some other state's Senate website, download a texting-while-driving ban law that another governor has already signed, change the name of that state to "Idaho" everywhere it appears, and drop the damn thing into the hopper?