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An omnibus crime bill passed by the Missouri General Assembly this past session banned texting while driving for motorists 21 and younger. It didn’t go far enough, and it’s discriminatory.

Texting while behind the wheel is dangerous at any age, and while it is highly likely that most drivers doing it skew younger and are less experienced drivers, this is still flawed legislation and needs to be corrected in the upcoming session.

If texting is too dangerous to allow 20-years-olds to do, why is it OK to allow 22-year-olds or even 30-year-olds to do it? A mom refereeing a fight in the back seat while simultaneously soothing a crying baby does not need the added distraction of answering a “whats 4 dinner?” text message on her cell phone.

Apparently it’s OK to let truck drivers — as long as they are older than 21 — text while they tool on down the highway behind the wheel of a potentially lethal machine that weighs 80,000 pounds. But it doesn’t take a gigantic truck for a distracted driver to kill someone. A split second is all it takes.

Just ask the parents who have lost a child or the family that lost a father to a distracted driver, texting friends about their plans for the evening.

While it’s is true that some motorists are plenty distracted putting on makeup, shaving, eating tacos, reading road maps and killing out e-mails, texting takes their eyes off the road even longer, creating more opportunity for an inattentive driver to slam into a stopped car, crash into a pole or kill a bicyclist.

Driving requires full attention to the road and awareness of what’s going on with other drivers, pedestrians, emergency vehicles and roadway construction. Just look around at how many drivers you see talking on cell phones — and you know some of them have been drinking. If they keep glancing down, they are probably texting, too.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 6,000 people were killed and a half million injured in collisions linked to texting or talking on cell phones. That’s 20 percent of overall accidents.

Researchers have found that while talking on cell phones increases the chances of getting in an accident, texting can be a much worse offense because it takes even more concentration away from driving.

Texting has been banned for federal workers while driving government-owned vehicle, and Congress is considering passing a nationwide ban on texting while driving, which is already illegal in a number of states.

Instead of lagging behind the curve, Missouri should be ahead by banning texting for drivers of all ages. A statewide ban on texting while behind the wheel would make it clear to drivers that Missouri cares about public safety and that the risk is just too great to allow TWD.

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