Group of senators want states to ban texting while driving or get federal highway money cut
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers called for states to ban texting while driving or face cuts in highway funds, citing the need to reduce driver distraction and potential highway deaths and injuries.
"When drivers have their eyes on their cell phones instead of the road, the results can be dangerous and even deadly," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who unveiled the legislation Wednesday with Democrats Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina.
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making texting while driving illegal.
Some critics have questioned whether the laws could be enforced, whether there is enough data to warrant such bans, or if reckless driving statutes already cover texting behind the wheel.
Steve Largent, a former Oklahoma congressman who leads CTIA — The Wireless Association, said his organization supports "state legislative remedies to solve this issue. But simply passing a law will not change behavior. We also need to educate new and experienced drivers on the dangers of taking their eyes off the road and hands off the wheel."
The Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety agencies, said it does not doubt the dangers of texting and driving but does not support a ban because it would be difficult to enforce.
"Highway safety laws are only effective if they can be enforced and if the public believes they will be ticketed for not complying. To date, that has not been the case with many cell phone restrictions," said Vernon Betkey, the highway safety association's chairman.
The proposal follows a series of studies showing the dangers of operating handheld electronic devices while driving.
Read More: Texting while Driving - Banned?
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Today, Yahoo died as a search engine. If the deal with Microsoft is approved, what will replace it will be Bing, the search engine that Microsoft launched only two months ago. Within a few months time, Microsoft will go from owning 8 percent of the U.S. search market to 28 percent (comScore). That is still less than half of Google’s 65 percent, but it could give Microsoft a fighting chance in the search wars against Google.
While the agreement was a long time coming, Bing was the cherry on top, so to speak. Earlier today, I spoke with the two executives who oversaw the negotiations for both sides, Yahoo EVP Hillary Schneider and Microsoft SVP Yusuf Mehdi. I asked how big an impact Bing’s sudden success had on bringing the deal to a close. “Seeing Bing as a live experience was a nice assurance,” says Schneider, “but did not change our rationale or timing. This was a conversation that went on over several months. Bing was introduced after we had material momentum in how we wanted to approach this partnership.”
Yet Bing was able to gain market share in its very first month, and it took it from Yahoo, not Google. And Bing is just going to get better. Yahoo faced the very real prospect of market share erosion from below as well as from above. Now in one fell swoop, Microsoft will control all of Yahoo’s search volume. In a conference call today, Steve Ballmer explained how important market share is in search:
Do we think we will have better algorithms for relevance? Yes we do. There is a feedback loop in search. the more searches you serve, the more you learn about what people click on. Scale drives knowledge. There is a return to scale from seeing that much activity [that is more] than Yahoo or MSFT see independently
Microsoft will measure the success of this deal in two ways: increased market share with advertisers and increased market share with consumers. When I asked Mehdi what success would look like a couple years out, he defines it in terms of “shares of queries and spends.” Even before mentioning gaining share with consumers, he says: “Success is a smooth transition for advertisers as they shift more share of wallet from traditional media and competitors to get the better ROI.”
Read Yahoo Got Binged article
