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:

https://www.cji.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/distracteddrivingandthepoliceofficer.pdf

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.

On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 9:41 AM 'Christiaan Abildso' via Mon Bike Club <monbikeclub@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I'm not sure if any of our local delegates is on this list, but if you all want to send a quick email of thanks to the sponsors, here are their email addresses:

evan.hansen@wvhouse.gov,barbaraf@wvhouse.gov,johndoyle@wvhouse.gov,john.williams@wvhouse.gov,danielle.walker@wvhouse.gov

On Thursday, March 4, 2021, 09:09:16 PM EST, Frank Gmeindl <fgmeindl@gmail.com> wrote:

Yesterday, Evan Hansen introduced HB 2904 Robin W. Ames Memorial Act,

https://www.wvlegislature.gov/bill_status/bills_history.cfm?INPUT=2904&year=2021&sessiontype=RS

The penalties for texting or using other hands-on devices while driving are minimal but if this bill becomes law, killing somebody or causing serious bodily injury could put the offender in state prison for years and revoke his or her driving license for 5 years to Life.

4ank

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J.D. Gatlin