In Singapore, drivers text while they are behind the wheels, be it waiting for the lights or halfway through along the expressways. The act of doing so, makes it extremely difficult to focus on the road causing possible road accidents as well as road hogging if one slows down inevitably to answer a text message. Interestingly, New York has developed a really brilliant initiative to curb this problem for drivers. They decided to come up with the idea of creating ‘text stops’ along the roads. There are currently plans to roll out 91 ‘Texting Zones’ along state highways, all in the effort to recommend drivers to pull over to a safe zone and do their texting before continuing. There are signs like “Text Stop” or “It can wait” that has a note on how far away is the nearest texting zone, rest stop as well as parking area. This provides drivers with higher tendency to take a break there and complete their texting ‘duties’.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has lately signed legislation to increase point penalty as well as license suspension and revocation for texting while driving.
“New York State is continuing to use every tool at its disposal to combat texting-while-driving,” Governor Cuomo says in a statement. “We are sending a clear message to drivers that there is no excuse to take your hands off the wheel and eyes off the road because your text can wait until the next Texting Zone.”
When will Singapore come out with an interesting policy like this? I’m guessing it might not be in due time as we are sacred on land and over crowded with enormous amount of vehicles on the road. Meanwhile, drive safe people.
Zack Chia 