Two bills that ban texting while driving across the state are still alive in the legislature. House Bill 1177 and Senate Bill 179 are similar, but have a few differences. As SDPB’s Cassie Bartlett reports, lawmakers will have compromise to get a final version passed.
Representative Brian Gosch is the prime sponsor of House Bill 1177 and says it seems like legislators are waiting to see who blinks first before compromise.
House Bill 1177 gives the state ban authority over any city ordinances, and the offense fee is $25. That’s $75 less than the Senate version. Senate Bill 179 allows municipalities to have harsher bans.
Senate Minority Leader Jason Frerichs says the texting ban is one of the biggest issues a conference committee will sort through this session.
“I think there’s broad agreement that it should be more of a secondary offense—I think we’ve gotten beyond the point that it needs to be a primary offense. As far as what level the fine will be, and then obviously, the big elephant in the room as far as how much local control will still be allowed on that issue in the future,” Frerichs says.
Frerichs says as Speaker of the House, Gosch has the ability to choose who sits on the conference committee from the House, and that could play a part in the final outcome.
Governor Dennis Daugaard says legislators need to keep the driver in mind and not make the problem more confusing.
“If all are essentially prohibitions so the driver knows how to behave, knows the expected behavior, and there’s variance just driven by levels of fine, or whether it’s primary or secondary, I think that gives the driver enough understanding of what is expected that they could be in compliance without knowing the particulars of ‘Does this city have this rule, or this city have that rule,’” Daugaard says.
Both bills made it through their original chamber with little opposition, but neither has been scheduled for hearing in current committees.