Brentwood Police Chief tells the reason a Distracted Driving Ordinance is needed | The Chief's Desk

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

How many times have you been driving down any street, and saw the car in front of you swerving into the other lane or driving 10 MPH under the speed limit? Years ago, we assumed the driver was drunk. Now we know the driver is often on the phone, or worse, texting. I don’t know about you, but this scares me.

Forty-four U.S. states ban texting and driving. In Missouri, it is against the law to text while driving for anyone under the age of 21. Several communities have taken the initiative to enact ordinances to ban texting while driving for all drivers.

Link: 

Brentwood Police Chief tells the reason a Distracted Driving Ordinance is needed | The Chief's Desk

MoBikeFed comment: December 7th, 2015, Brentwood passed an ordinance defining and prohibiting distracted driving. The relevant part of the ordinance reads:

It shall be prima facie evidence that a vehicle operator is not exercising the highest degree of care if the operator of a moving vehicle engages in any conduct that causes his or her vision or attention to be obscured, diminished or directed elsewhere than
the path of travel or safe operation of the vehicle, including, but not limited to, by using a mirror to engage in grooming; reading anything located in the vehicle other than operation information displayed on vehicle gauges and equipment; writing; drawing; manually imputing information into a GPS or mapping device; or turning one’s head substantially away from the path of travel to observe things in the vehicle or outside the vehicle but contrary to the path of travel.

http://www.brentwoodmo.org/DocumentCenter/View/14454