An Automobile Club of Southern California sampling of 4,000 vehicles
in Orange County found 2.7 percent of the drivers were texting–which is twice the rate that was observed in January 2009, when the
state texting-while-driving ban went into effect.
Of course, it's common knowledge that we continue ignoring the law due to the example set by the original texting driver, Hunter S. Thompson.
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Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp Art Linson, Bill Murray and the late, great Peter Boyle proved this in 1983's 1980's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Where the Buffalo Roam, and everyone knows if it was in a Hollywood movie it has to be true.
But the Auto Club survey found gonzo journalists are not the most likely to be texting behind the wheel, young women are. The percentage of young women texting was 4.3 percent, compared to 2.1 percent of young men.
Drivers caught texting face a $20 fine for their first offense and no points on their driving records. The buzzkilling Auto Club, which is headquartered in Costa Mesa, says its survey proves those penalties must be increased and law enforcement must do a better job of enforcing the no-texting law.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.
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