Ban on public transportation cell phone use crashes

Lafayette Rep. Rickey Hardy’s attempt to take cell phones out of the hands of public transportation drivers crashed in committee today.The bill, HB407, would have prohibited drivers of taxis, buses, trucks and other public transportation vehicles from talking on their cell phones while driving.

  
“If they want to talk, pull off the road,” Hardy said, or they could use other methods of communicating with dispatchers, like two-way radios.

Hardy made several concessions, including allowing hands-free devices, push-to-talk walky-talky-like phones and CB radios, before his bill ran into opposition from a group of rural lawmakers led by Rep. Dorothy Sue Hill, D-Dry Creek.

Hill got the opposition started by expressing concern that drivers of Council on Aging vans would have to purchase new communications devices to comply with the new law, should the bill pass.

“Let’s provide money for the Council of Aging to buy these devices,” she suggested before proposing an amendment that the law would only apply to the agencies if the state provided the funding.

“I’m all for safety and think everybody should be safe,” she said, but the Council on Aging can’t afford to deliver meals in parts of the parish, much less buy fancy cellular phones. She said the vans often are packed with elderly people taking them to medical appointments.

“So it’s fine for drivers of Council on Aging vans to talk while they’re driving?” asked Rep. Hollis Downs, R-Ruston. “All they would have to do is pull over on the
shoulder and take a call.”

Hill’s amendment was defeated but it stirred other concerns about cost and enforcement, even though State Police Lt. Mack Mix said “it wouldn’t be hard to enforce.”

Rep. Johnny Guinn, R-Jennings, then suggested that since the committee couldn’t agree and kept proposing amendments, it should study the issue more. His amendment converting the bill into a study resolution was approved 9-5.

Studies are conducted when the Legislature is not in session.