Beginning on October 1st 2013 a new driving law will take effect here in Florida. It will now be illegal to text and drive. Texting while driving is considered a secondary offense. This mean an officer cannot pull you over for solely texting and driving, but can issue the citation due to another infraction, such as speeding.
Florida joins the majority of the US by making the act of texting while driving, illegal. It joins three other states, Nebraska, Ohio, and Iowa by making the law a secondary offense. The first citation will be $30 plus court costs, for the second offense the cost will be $60 plus court costs.
Texting while driving, or in legal terms, sending and receiving data while the motor vehicle is moving, is illegal. This is not to be confused with texting completely stopped at a red light, which is not prohibited! You can send and receive data to your hearts content while stopped at a stop sign or a red light. The new law does not outline and prohibit those actions.
All emergency service personnel are exempt from this new law.
The next time you consider texting and driving,in addition to it now being illegal, think about this:
“Sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, the equivalent of driving, at 55 mph, the length of an entire football field”
