Distracted Drivers Suck

I was nearly killed at lunch time today by a distracted driver. Cross-traffic was stopped or stopping and my light turned green. As I accelerated through the intersection, making a left turn onto a four-lane suburban road, a large dark-blue or green SUV shot through an open lane to my left, and passed between my car and a pickup that was following me. In the short glance I got of the driver in the SUV, she was looking down at something, NOT looking out the windshield. I do not think she was aware that she had just sped through a red light! No horns blew, there wasn't time to react, but there were some very shocked expressions in other vehicles stopped at the intersection. I doubt if the distraction was anything worth dying over. It really shouldn't take more laws to stop people from doing things this dangerous and just plain stupid.

It is already illegal to text while driving in Virginia, but sadly, our sometimes not-too-bright representatives decided to make the law a secondary offense and then set the fine for a first offense at only $20! Another sad joke is we already have similar laws on the books with higher penalties. In most localities drivers can be ticketed for "careless driving", "reckless driving", and even "failure to pay full time and attention to the road". These are much better laws than targeting one device with a specific law that is often impossible to enforce. We don't need more laws, just more aggressive enforcement of laws we already have. If you are a danger to yourself and others, you should be ticketed, fined, and repeat offenders should lose their license.