Bill to ban cell phone use while driving rejected, won’t be introduced

The Senate Transportation Committee declined to introduce legislation backed by AAA of Idaho and the American Insurance Association to outlaw the use of cell phones while driving in Idaho, matching Idaho’s current law banning texting while driving. Lobbyist Mike Kane brought the bill to the committee today though it was past the deadline for bill introductions by non-privileged committees; that meant the transportation panel had to agree by unanimous consent to ask a privileged committee to introduce it.

“That’s on me,” Kane told the senators. “We took a little while to get it together. … We looked at some other versions, including limiting it to strictly teenagers.” He said Transportation Chairman Bert Brackett “was very gracious to allow us to come in three days late.”

Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, asked for unanimous consent to refer the bill to the State Affairs Committee for introduction, but Sen. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens, objected. “I think this is a pretty significant issue, and introducing it late is, I probably would not support the bill anyway,” Vick said, “but because it’s a big issue and it’s late, I just think that it would be better to not get into the habit of allowing late introductions of very many bills.”

That doomed the measure for now. Brackett, R-Rogerson, said, “The texting bill that we did pass several years ago, it took three or four years of discussion to get where we were on that one. I would expect a similar thing might be true of this issue today.”