A bill prohibiting handheld use of cellphones while behind the wheel has cleared the House and is being heard in Senate Judiciary Committee C today. From there, it would need final passage on the Senate floor before the session wraps up on Thursday. Last year, a similar effort got hung up, but Breaux Bridge Representative Mike Huval is confident this year will be different.
“I got it out of the House last year on my second try with 53 votes, the minimum. This year, it got out the second try with 61 votes, so more momentum going in this year than last year,” said Huval.
Current law only calls for no handheld cell phone use while driving in a school zone. Opponents to Huval’s bill say there are other distractions like eating, talking to a passenger or changing the radio station, so why just focus on cell phone use. But Huval says statistics show cell phone use is a factor in many accidents.
“I could see where you have a person eating a hamburger, there’s a distraction as you are taking a bite of the hamburger. But there is no stats that says that eating a hamburger or putting on makeup has been causing multiple accidents,” said Huval.
Huval says Georgia has a similar law as his bill and it has saved lives.
“They’ve actually saved 53 lives, so that’s more than one life a week that their life has been saved, so I’m just seeing the safety issue that this brings to the driving public,” said Huval.
