People who text while driving should be fined.

This will be a policy debate. For those of you who do not know, a policy debate is a debate in which those debating debate about a piece of real or imaginary piece of legislation. For this to happen their must be a piece of legislation.

===PIECE OF LEGISLATION==

*This is a piece of legislation by a state legislature*

It is hereby unlawful for any person operating a motor vehicle to "text" while driving. This extends to all drivers. Law enforcement have the right to pull over somebody texting while driving. The penalty for texting during any day light hour is a ticket of one-hundred dollars, the penalty for texting during any night-time hour is two-hundred dollars.

I support this piece of legislation for the following reasons:

(a) Texting while driving can lead to accidents. Accidents can kill people. Is that text really that important? No, it isn't, a text isn't worth the life of another driver or yourself. The police have a right to ensure that safety on the roads is maintained, texting is a threat to that safety. Therefore it should be illegalized.

(b) If we keep texting legal, we might as well make it legal to drink and drive. Both are just as dangerous. They both impair response times and lead to more deaths on the road.

(c) I personally know of an 18 year old girl who died this May as a result of texting. She was the person texting, fortunately, it was a single car accident and no one else was injured. The police have ruled texting is at fault, texting isn't worth a life.

I have hundreds of sources if I am pressed for them, I will include them.

I look forward to this debate.

Hey Republican,

Interesting debate.

Unfortunately, my first post will be light as I've been pretty busy lately. I hope it won't be a problem if I wait to launch into full debate until next round.

There were a few concerns I wanted to bring up:

(1) Even if we accept that your policy is for a good cause, the actual plan is flawed.

--VAGUENESS: Your plan is too vague to actually enforce. Are people allowed to stop on the side of the road to text? Are they allowed to read texts why driving? What exactly constitutes "texting"?

--PENALTY: 100 for day and 200 for night? Isn't that backwards? What this says to me is that it is better to text during the day (when there is more traffic) than at night.

--ENFORCEMENT: How can the police actually see if people are texting? Couldn't people easily say that they were dialing a number or checking their e-mail? How does an officer prove that they were texting?

(2) I won't delve into any other offensive points, but I'd like to see sources for your first three points. I'll go into those in the next round.

Please take a look at the plan flaws. Basically, I think it makes it easy for people to jump on the bandwagon when they see a cause they want to support. Unfortunately, I don't see this policy even mitigating the problem.

Unfortunatley, due to my opponent's long response time, I will most likley have to forfeit several rounds of this debate because I will be in church camp this upcoming week.

However, I will post argument.

My opponent claims that this legislation is very vague, which, it is. I will make some ajustments.

Legislation: Any person that is operating a motor vehicle (defintion of motor vehicle as being in the driver seat while the car is running on a road) that appears to using a telephone for any other purpose other than calling is hereby subject to be pulled over and fined (100 during the day, 200 at night) by a law enforcement officer.

Now, I shall attack my oponent's case.

My Opponent: "100 for day and 200 for night? Isn't that backwards? What this says to me is that it is better to text during the day (when there is more traffic) than at night."

Actually no. Texting at night is more dangerous because 1) people are tired and have slower response times at night and 2) visibility is reduced at night and having your eyes anywhere other than the road is highly dangerous. In many parts of the nation the speed limit is slower at night than during the day for the above reasons.

My Opponnet: "--ENFORCEMENT: How can the police actually see if people are texting? Couldn't people easily say that they were dialing a number or checking their e-mail? How does an officer prove that they were texting?"

The wonderful things about laws like this is that they enforce themselves. Just the fact that texting is illegalized will grealty reduce the number of people texting and driving (people want to be law abiding citizens). And I don't think officers would pull over somebody as soon as they saw a cell phone, they would wait a couple of seconds to see what people were actually doing with a cell phone.

I await rebuttals.

Republican,

I don't want to force any stress upon you by starting my full attack.

However, I will request that you provide sources for all of the points you've made so far.

"I have hundreds of sources if I am pressed for them, I will include them."

I'd like them.

Thanks for the heads up on church camp, Republican. Feel free to make more arguments in the next round.

As my opponent requested I will post sources

This is kind of unfair to me, seeing how my opponent as yet to even establish his own case, he will do so in the last round. However, I will not a chance to respond. :(

==Sources==

1. http://features.csmonitor.com...

2. http://www.sciencedaily.com...

3. http://www.cbsnews.com...

4. http://www.cnn.com...

=Conclusion=

Any attempt that the government makes to try to save lives is good. Even though this law might be difficult to enforce, it would send a message to drivers that strongly discourages texting and may even make some people to stop.

Please vote PRO