To repeat: Don’t text and drive

COLUMBUS

I was driving across town from the Statehouse to a press conference promoting a new initiative to convince teens to stop texting while behind the wheel when I ended behind some knucklehead who was texting behind the wheel.

He was going 10 mph under the posted speed limit and swerving all over the place.

I couldn’t tell his age — I maneuvered around him as quickly and safely as possible to get away from his zigzagging vehicle.

An officer in the vicinity would have had the authority to pull him over, given his inability to stay within the marked traffic lane.

But an officer in the vicinity probably cannot pull over every dumb capital city driver messing around on a smart- phone on the highway.

There’s a state law against texting while driving.

It doesn’t work.

In Ohio, drivers younger than 18 are prohibited from using any type of handheld electronic wireless device while driving. Those caught doing so face fines, plus a 60-day license suspension for a first offense and one-year suspension for subsequent offenses.

Adult drivers also are prohibited from texting while driving, but the infraction is considered a secondary offense, meaning officers can’t pull drivers over unless they are caught breaking other traffic laws.

Eyes on the screen

Which means at least half of the people I see on my morning and evening commutes are focused on their little electronic screens instead of the road.

To compensate, state officials and AT&T are distributing pledge cards this month to teen-agers visiting motor vehicle bureaus.

On the one hand, that makes sense. Teens and adults should be told often about the dangers of texting while driving.

On the other hand, pledge cards probably aren’t going to stop people from doing whatever they do with their cellphones while behind the wheel.

“You see a car weaving on the road, 99 percent of the time I’ll pull up next to the person, they have a cellphone in their hand,” Lt. Col. George Williams from the State Highway Patrol told reporters last week. “... It is frustrating at times. The law’s in place, but … an adult, you can’t do anything about it. ”

State Rep. Rex Damschroder, R-Fremont, co-sponsored the legislation creating Ohio’s texting-while-driving ban. He wanted to make texting while driving a primary offense for adults at the time, but the bill was amended.

He still wants to take the state’s texting prohibitions a step further.

“... I strongly disagreed with their inexplicable decision to make texting while driving a secondary offense and expressed my thoughts then,” he said in a released statement. “Today, I feel just as strongly about it. ... In the coming days, I will be introducing legislation returning the offense of texting while driving to primary just as the House of Representatives intended. It is my sincere hope that my colleagues in the House and Senate recognize that this change is needed and that we can pass the bill by the end of the year.”

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.