N.Y Imposes Tougher Penalties on Violators of Texting While Driving

Anyone caught texting while driving in N.Y will now be faced with tougher penalties.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last Saturday that violators will receive five points on driver violation count effective the same day. Violators will now have to pay $150 for the fine plus $85 for the mandatory surcharge fees and carry five points instead of three on his driver violation record. It takes 11 points of violation within 18 months before someone's license gets suspended.

His next move now is to file a proposal to impose tougher penalties as well for younger drivers which can be a 60-day suspension of license if they got caught texting while driving. This penalty has the same weight of over speeding. This proposal will need to be approved by the N.Y Legislate department.

Each state has in the U.S has its own guideline and penalty when it comes to driving while texting as such scenario has become a trend not only for teenagers but for adults too. Even if some claim that they can confidently drive with one of their hand on their mobile phone, the reported cases and statistics about the fatality of such act speaks reality.

According to the National Safety Council, almost 1.6 million of accidents are related to driving while texting with 330,000 injured each year. Meanwhile, the Institute for Highway Safety revealed that 11 teens die every day. A study conducted by Cohen Children's Medical Centre in New Hyde Park on Long Island even said that death related to texting while driving has exceeded the cases of drunk driving related deaths by 10 percent.

The N.Y State Police have been instructed by the governor to put up more checkpoints in the city and do more patrols to ensure everyone's compliance.