How about we jail morons without any common sense, huh? I think that will work lovely. Do we really need more laws? Seriously? We need a law to tell these idiots that they can text while driving 75 mph on the freeway? Why don't we make up another legislation for ladies? I almost got hit by a witch who was putting her make up on while she was driving. But we won't, will we? And those freeway cops will never catch those ignorant drivers until they end up in an accident. What a lovely society we live in. Millions of laws and idiots who have no idea how to even practice them.

What about talking on a CB radio and driving? Or typing on a computer while driving? Are those distractions? Can we be trained in a driving course to be better at these things? If that cannot be taught, then why should we allow public servants to do these things? I understand that they have a job to do and we give them some authority to bend the rules in favor of "safer streets," but if these are true distractions that can't be overcame, then what is stopping a public servant from crashing while on the job? Should we be gambling with public safety?

I am all for the ALERT bill. People just don't stop doing stupid things unless they are fined. Yes, it is sad that we have to enact such laws against stupidity, but that is the fact of our modern selfish society. Not one more person should suffer except the morons that put us in jeopardy.

I am 100% against texting while driving.

It is important to think broadly about tackling distracted driving beyond cell phone use and texting. Most distractions are caused by these and other factors, including kids asking questions from the backseat, music on the radio, road signs, reaching for a toll fare, and many other distractions inside and outside of the car.

We won't be able to legislate, restrict via technology, or remove all of the distractions that cause distracted driving so we need to go right to the root cause--the driver's inability to focus and react quickly enough. Research about how the brain works and its impact in driving situations makes it clear that brain performance is the biggest factor in driving safely.

We have found a way to directly affect a driver's ability to focus and react through brain performance training. Posit Science commercialized this technology in DriveSharp, a brain fitness software product endorsed by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

To make a dent in distracted driving, let's reward drivers and provide incentives from fleet operators, insurance carriers, car manufacturers, and DMV's for those who take the steps to improve their driving overall.

Eighty percent of all rear end collisions (the most frequent vehicle accident) are caused by driver inattention, following too closely, external distraction (talking on cell phones, shaving, applying makeup, fiddling with the radio or CD player, kids, texting, etc.) and poor judgment.

There's not much you can do about a rear end collision, so I went out and got one of these sparebumpers.

Just say no to ALERT. Viva la texting while driving!

Just say, "Hey, drivers, don't text while driving--you will get caught, stupid." They will probably stop.

Many states--more than a third of them--already have laws on the books against it. But what's really surprising is how dangerous texting and driving is. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute did a study on it revealing that it significantly raises the chance of a crash.

For info can be found here: http://blogs.journalism.cuny.edu/interactive2010/2009/10/09/texting-and-driving/

I'm sure we all want safer roadways. However, from a purely practical standpoint, this issue would be better addressed by better enforcement of existing laws against reckless driving and other dangerous driving habits that can occur due to a myriad of distractions (not just texting).

The more laws we have on the books the more complicated it gets for even well-meaning citizens to comply. Meanwhile, law enforcement offers pay attention to symptoms (cell phone use, texting, etc.) rather than whether or not someone is driving in an unsafe manner.

Regardless of the merits of a law like this, I am against extortion, especially when the federal government does it.

Don't text while driving. I'm against it.

I agree that this is not the right economic climate to take away federal highway money. Those funds are needed to stimulate the economy. How about offering states more money if they require education about distracted driving as part of driver training?

I have a question: Will the penalty actually be 25% of all highway funds, or will this be a repeat of the debacle over raising the drinking age to 21, where everyone "knows" that any state that didn't raise the drinking age to 21 would lose "all their Federal highway money" when in reality it was 8% of one matching funding program that was threatened?

I agree that you'll never eliminate all distracted driving, and it would be impossible to ban things like eating while driving.

But that's not a reason not to ban texting while driving. If you have the law on the books, it makes it easier to cite a driver who's caught doing that specific act instead of the more amorphous, harder-to-define "reckless driving."

If someone gets into an accident, the law might provide a way for states to subpoena cell phone records and prove that a driver was texting or talking at the time.

People forget that 30 to 40 years ago, drunk driving and driving without seatbelts were both pretty common activities. It took a combination of laws and public information campaigns to change that, but these days the vast majority of Americans wear seat belts and are much more aware of the dangers of drunk driving.

Texting should be treated the same way. We need a combination of a major public information campaign, and tough penalties, to change American's mindset. Right now texting is even more dangerous than drinking in some ways, because drunk drivers know they're impaired but texting drivers think they're fine.

I am a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst studying driver performance and training. I have seen firsthand the dangers of texting and driving. In a nutshell, any in-vehicle device that takes your eyes away from the road for 2 seconds or more within a 6 second period (i.e., a single 2 second glance or a series of shorter glances adding up to 2 seconds) increases your likelihood of being in a crash tenfold if a hazard should materialize while you're engaged in the task. Texting is by far the most dangerous of all in-vehicle distractions.

Vernon Betkey says, "In fact, this is a terrible time to consider reducing highway funding given the economic necessity of these dollars in the states."

Nobody is talking about using this as a MEANS of reducing highway funding. The bottom line is, if the states are proactive and do what should be done for the public welfare (Banning texting ... and why stop there? States should include hand-held cell phone use, eating, applying makeup, and looking for songs on I-Pods while they're at it.) then they stand to lose nothing in terms of highway funds. So, using "this is a bad time to reduce highway funds" as an argument against this bill is misguided and misleading.

This is so serious. I live in LA. There is not a time when I leave my home that I am not surrounded with people eating, putting make up on, holding phones and texting. I'm worried about the fact that people are going to die because of this. I am prepared to go to Washington and get involved politically. E-mail appropriate information. I will be there. People are glib. It's shocking.

We already have a law against "careless driving," so why not use that?

We aren't enforcing the laws on the books, and we need another one?

We don't need this law.