Several bills dealing with texting while driving are being considered in Pierre this year. The Senate State Affairs Committee deferred action on one that places sanctions against commercial drivers who text while behind the wheel.
Similar bills have been proposed to ban texting and driving in South Dakota in the past - but they never made it through the Legislature. Some lawmakers favor an across-the-board texting ban.
Craig Tieszen, a State Senator from Rapid City, is among them. He has backed a texting ban every time it’s come up.
“We all know that we’re going to have a discussion in the Legislature – we know there’s a bill coming – it hasn’t been filed yet, but there’s a bill coming, a general texting ban. It just seemed wise to me, rather than have that discussion around a bill that deals only with commercial drivers license that we should just defer it and wait and have our discussion on the texting ban in general,” says Tieszen.
Opponents of the bill say distracted driving laws are difficult to enforce. Tieszen says the State stands to lose federal highway money unless texting while driving is banned.