Drudge links another article which only confirms what has already been pretty well established and which common sense would suggest.
Texting while driving is more dangerous than drunken driving.
It’s obvious why. Unless they are completely blotto, drunken drivers at least are devoting their attention to their driving, while texters are somewhere else. Moreover, what the law defines as “drunken driving” increasingly includes any blood-alcohol level above .08, which is possible to for some people to achieve after a single glass of wine.
Forget the legal distinctions, and look for a moment at the moral distinctions.
Which activity is more immoral?
How is immorality defined? As deliberately putting the public at risk? If that is immorality, then texting is far more immoral. Unless drinking itself is to be considered inherently immoral (and therefore makes drunk driving more heinous), I am at a loss to explain why drunken driving is more immoral than texting while driving. Both activities are equally deliberate, are they not?
Under the law, are texters behind the wheel treated more severely than drunken drivers? Hardly. Texting while driving is treated as a traffic ticket. DWI is a major deal, which involves arrest, bail, criminal charges, and often jail time even for a first offense.
So what is going on? Might the logical and moral disassociation explain why MADD seems unwilling to deal with texting?
…texting-related traffic fatalities are epidemic and we’ve barely begun to fight the problem. Indeed, it appears that people are barely aware of it.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) could be of enormous help in the struggle, but has not only shown no interest but has repeatedly resisted any discussion of this major cause of traffic crashes, injuries and deaths.
MADD is a neo-Prohibitionist group of activists who no doubt see the problem with texting as diluting their efforts, so their avoidance of this issue is fully understandable.
Still, I’m curious about the morality angle. Society takes it as a given that driving after drinking is inherently immoral, but texting does not evoke the same feelings. Well, drunken driving didn’t always either. Does this mean that morality evolves? If so, then moral relativism would seem to be the human condition.