February 23, 2012 (Press-News.org) Texting while driving increases the likelihood of a car accident or crash. The Alaska legislature passed a law in 2008 that it thought made texting and driving a crime, but the ambiguous language has raised questions from judges across the state.
A bill has been introduced to clarify the language and make it clear that texting while driving is prohibited in Alaska.
The problem with the law is how it described texting. It currently states:
"A person commits the crime of driving with a screen device operating if the person is driving a motor vehicle, a the vehicle has a television, video monitor, portable computer, or any other similar means capable of providing a visual display that is in full view of a driver in a normal driving position while the vehicle is in motion, and the monitor or visual display is operating while the person is driving."
Does That Mean Texting?
It didn't use the term "texting" and it seem to imply that something like unlocking a cell phone or using a GPS function on a smart phone could be read as a violation of the statute and a crime.
Late last year, Magistrate Jennifer Wells in Kenai, issued a dismissal in a texting-while-driving case. She stated, "If the Alaska legislature wanted to prohibit texting, then it should have, and could have, clearly said so."
The revised HB 255 is designed to fix this issue, by adding language that states, "...while texting, while communicating on a computer, or while a screen device is operating..." to make clear texting, email or similar activity is prohibited.
The legislature also added "or...the person is reading or typing a text message or other nonvoice message or communication on a cellular telephone, personal data assistant, computer or any other similar means..."
Staying Ahead of the Curve
One problem in attempting to regulate this type of issues is the pace of technological change. Smartphones did not exist ten years ago, and texting is similarly recent. The 2008 language attempted to be broad and all encompassing, but turned out to be too vague.
In order to regulate a behavior, the statute must describe an activity well enough that people understand what the law is prohibiting.
Driver Distraction and Highway Deaths
The temptation to use smartphones to surf the Internet and send text messages in a vehicle is strong and growing stronger. As the urge to glance at the phone becomes irresistible, consider the National Transportation Highway Safety Administration reported in "2009, 5,474 people were killed in crashes involving driver distraction, and an estimated 448,000 were injured."
Article provided by Law Office of Gregory J. Grebe
Visit us at www.grebelaw.com/
Alaska Lawmakers Working to Clarify Anti-Texting Law
The Alaska Legislature has a bill pending that would make clear texting while driving a motor vehicle is prohibited. The current statute has been read by some judges to be too vague.
2012-02-23
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
IDIBELL researchers take a step forward in transplanting pig cells to regenerate human cartilage
2012-02-23
Researchers from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) have studied for the first time the response of human NK cells (Natural Killer) against porcine chondrocytes (cartilage cells).
The results of the research, published in The Journal of Immunology, indicate that these cells, characteristic of the innate immune system, play an important role in the rejection of xenotransplantation (transplantation from another species) of porcine chondrocytes.
NK cells
Together with neutrophils and macrophages, NK cells are part of the first line of cellular defence ...
Toxic aldehydes detected in reheated oil
2012-02-23
Researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, Spain) have been the first to discover the presence of certain aldehydes in food, which are believed to be related to some neurodegenerative diseases and some types of cancer. These toxic compounds can be found in some oils, such as sunflower oil, when heated at a suitable temperature for frying.
"It was known that at frying temperature, oil releases aldehydes that pollute the atmosphere and can be inhaled, so we decided to research into whether these remain in the oil after they are heated, and they do" ...
Researchers solve puzzle of proteins linked to heart failure
2012-02-23
Sudden cardiac death is a risk for patients with heart failure because the calcium inside their heart cells is not properly controlled and this can lead to an irregular heartbeat. New findings published in PLoS ONE, which reveal mechanisms that underlie this life-threatening risk, provide new possibilities for fighting it.
The study, led by researchers from the University of Bristol's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, show how two individual but very similar proteins cooperatively adjust the amount of calcium inside the heart cells, and how this dual regulation may ...
What can animals' survival instincts tell us about understanding human emotion?
2012-02-23
Can animals' survival instincts shed additional light on what we know about human emotion? New York University neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux poses this question in outlining a pioneering theory, drawn from two decades of research, that could lead to a more comprehensive understanding of emotions in both humans and animals.
In his essay, which appears in the journal Neuron, LeDoux proposes shifting scientific focus "from questions about whether emotions that humans consciously feel are also present in other animals and towards questions about the extent to which circuits ...
Family history -- a significant way to improve cardiovascular disease risk assessment
2012-02-23
A new study by researchers at The University of Nottingham has proved that assessing family medical history is a significant tool in helping GPs spot patients at high risk of heart disease and its widespread use could save lives.
Previous research has suggested that family history can be an indicator of a patient's risk of heart disease but at present family medical details are not systematically collected and used by GPs in cardiovascular risk assessment.
This first-ever clinical investigation into systematically collecting family history as part of cardiovascular ...
In food form, some probiotics have a better chance to promote health
2012-02-23
Amsterdam, February 22, 2012 – Functional foods containing bacteria with beneficial health effects, or probiotics, have long been consumed in Northern Europe and are becoming increasingly popular elsewhere. To be of benefit, however, the bacteria have to survive in the very hostile environment of the digestive tract. A group of scientists from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås, Norway have developed a "model gastric system" for evaluating the survival of bacteria strains in the human digestive system, and determined that some bacteria strains survive better ...
Birds sing louder amidst the noise and structures of the urban jungle
2012-02-23
Sparrows, blackbirds and the great tit are all birds known to sing at a higher pitch (frequency) in urban environments. It was previously believed that these birds sang at higher frequencies in order to escape the lower frequencies noises of the urban environment. Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Aberystwyth have discovered that besides noise, the physical structure of cities also plays a role in altering the birds' songs.
Urban birds sing differently and at a higher frequency than woodland birds in an effort to penetrate the wall ...
World of Warcraft boosts cognitive functioning in some older adults
2012-02-23
For some older adults, the online video game World of Warcraft (WoW) may provide more than just an opportunity for escapist adventure. Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that playing WoW actually boosted cognitive functioning for older adults – particularly those adults who had scored poorly on cognitive ability tests before playing the game.
"We chose World of Warcraft because it has attributes we felt may produce benefits – it is a cognitively challenging game in a socially interactive environment that presents users with novel situations," ...
Geological cycle causes biodiversity booms and busts every 60 million years, research suggests
2012-02-23
A mysterious cycle of booms and busts in marine biodiversity over the past 500 million years could be tied to a periodic uplifting of the world's continents, scientists report in the March issue of The Journal of Geology.
The researchers discovered periodic increases in the amount of the isotope strontium-87 found in marine fossils. The timing of these increases corresponds to previously discovered low points in marine biodiversity that occur in the fossil record roughly every 60 million years. Adrian Melott, a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kansas ...
Toxins from diseased brain cells make diseases of the brain even worse
2012-02-23
Sometimes our immune defence attacks our own cells. When this happens in the brain we see neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. But if the the immune defence is inhibited, the results could be disastrous. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have now discovered one of the molecular combat mechanisms in the brain that gets out of control in these diseases. In time this may enable targeted therapies to slow down the disease without harming the patient.
"In their attempt to recover, diseased brain cells release chemical ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Patrick Tan appointed as Duke-NUS Dean to lead next era of medical innovation and education
Development of a novel modified selective medium cefixime–tellurite-phosphate-xylose-rhamnose MacConkey agar for isolation of Escherichia albertii and its evaluation with food samples
KIST develops full-color-emitting upconversion nanoparticle technology for color displays with ultra-high color reproducibility
Towards a fully automated approach for assessing English proficiency
Increase in alcohol deaths in England an ‘acute crisis’
Government urged to tackle inequality in ‘low-carbon tech’ like solar panels and electric cars
Moffitt-led international study finds new drug delivery system effective against rare eye cancer
Boston stroke neurologist elected new American Academy of Neurology president
Center for Open Science launches collaborative health research replication initiative
Crystal L. Mackall, MD, FAACR, recognized with the 2025 AACR-Cancer Research Institute Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology
A novel strategy for detecting trace-level nanoplastics in aquatic environments: Multi-feature machine learning-enhanced SERS quantification leveraging the coffee ring effect
Blending the old and the new: Phase-change perovskite enable traditional VCSEL to achieve low-threshold, tunable single-mode lasers
Enhanced photoacoustic microscopy with physics-embedded degeneration learning
Light boosts exciton transport in organic molecular crystal
On-chip multi-channel near-far field terahertz vortices with parity breaking and active modulation
The generation of avoided-mode-crossing soliton microcombs
Unlocking the vibrant photonic realm: A new horizon for structural colors
Integrated photonic polarizers with 2D reduced graphene oxide
Shouldering the burden of how to treat shoulder pain
Stevens researchers put glycemic response modeling on a data diet
Genotype-to-phenotype map of human pelvis illuminates evolutionary tradeoffs between walking and childbirth
Pleistocene-age Denisovan male identified in Taiwan
KATRIN experiment sets most precise upper limit on neutrino mass: 0.45 eV
How the cerebellum controls tongue movements to grab food
It’s not you—it’s cancer
Drug pollution alters migration behavior in salmon
Scientists decode citrus greening resistance and develop AI-assisted treatment
Venom characteristics of a deadly snake can be predicted from local climate
Brain pathway links inflammation to loss of motivation, energy in advanced cancer
Researchers discover large dormant virus can be reactivated in model green alga
[Press-News.org] Alaska Lawmakers Working to Clarify Anti-Texting LawThe Alaska Legislature has a bill pending that would make clear texting while driving a motor vehicle is prohibited. The current statute has been read by some judges to be too vague.