Smartphone use while driving is responsible for a whole slew of accidents each year, and if New York lawmakers have their way, law enforcement will soon be able to identify whether an accident was caused by texting and driving. The test, called the Textalyzer, would let law enforcement to ask for the phones of those involved reports The New York Times.
While the name is similar to the Breathalyzer, there is more in common as refusal to take the test will result in a suspended license, proposes the bipartisan bill, which is currently in the New York State Senate. The bill is an attempt to reduce the number of accidents caused by drivers operating vehicles while using their cells — in New York, 431,000 individuals were injured and 3,179 people were killed in distracted driving accidents.
“We need something on the books where people’s behavior can change,” said Democratic assemblyman Félix W. Ortiz, who sponsored the Textalyzer bill, to NYT, adding that the courtesy of the bill, “people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cellphone.”
For those worried about privacy, the Textalyzer test would not allow law enforcement to access contents in an individual’s iPhone. Rather, it would simply inform the officer when the device was last used. How the test will account for passengers in a vehicle swapping phones or verify when a driver is hiding their phone versus having left it at home is yet to be determined.
According to Candace Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and co-founder of the Partnership for Distraction-Free Driving , distracted driving “is not being treated as seriously as drunk driving, and it needs to be.” Lightner tells NYT: “It’s dangerous, devastating, crippling, and it’s a killer, and still socially acceptable.”
