Frank,
Thank you for sharing the news about this bill. Robin's death was a tragedy and came among a string of other distracted driving crashes in the area resulting in fatalities and serious injuries.
I appreciate Ryan's analysis of some of the details of the proposed bill. Research has proven that law enforcement officers, as a subgroup of emergency service personnel, are more prone to distracted driving and, despite their professional driving training, not immune to its negative effects on their driving performance. Basically, no one is effectively able to deal with high competing mental loads, and driving requires full attention (especially in urban areas). See the first half of this paper for an illustrative look at distracted driving in police from and insider's POV:
Unfortunately, because that verbiage is already included, I do not know if this bill will survive without its continued inclusion given the incredible defensiveness of all involved when critically analyzing these issues.
I do wonder if punitive justice is the best way to address distracted driving.