Texting ban gains Statehouse support

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The odds that Indiana will adopt a ban on texting while driving just got better. A key opponent to a ban, state Senator Brent Steele, has changed his stance.

Steele blocked the attempts to outlaw texting while driving earlier this year. Now he says he will grant a hearing in 2011 because supporters of a ban are taking a new approach.

Texting while driving is still legal in Indiana because Senator Brent Steele deemed previous efforts at a ban unenforceable. Police, Steele said, wouldn't be able to determine if a driver was legally dialing a phone or illegally texting.

Supporters of a ban, led by state Senator Travis Holdman (R-Markle), now hope to outlaw both dialing and texting and they have Steele's blessing. "He said he believes this is the path the bill needs to take with this language," said Holdman.

At a Statehouse news conference Holdman was joined by the Indiana President of AT&T, George Fleetwood, who described texting while driving saying, "It is a foolhardy practice at best and lethal at worst and that's why we are supporting a ban on texting while driving."

And Attorney General Greg Zoeller, who said, "You don't have a right to drive a 2 ton vehicle on the highways while you're distracted trying to text."

They hope 2011 debate will focus on public safety rather than legal technicalities.. "But it's clearly showing that distracted driving is increasing our fatalities on the highway," said Holdman, "and that has been shown in Indiana as well."

So far, 28 states have banned texting while driving. Senator Steele said he is still personally opposed to a ban on texting while driving but now believes lawmakers should be able to vote on it.

For that reason, he said that if it comes to a tie vote in committee, he would vote to send it to the floor.