Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/185868
NEWS BRIEFS LAW BANNING TEXTING WHILE DRIVING GOES INTO EFFECT The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and AAA are partnering to reduce distracted driving on Florida's roadways by working to educate the public about the new Florida law banning texting while driving. States," the release says, "it is important to remind drivers to Put It Down" — the slogan for AAA's anti-texting campaign. The law states that a person may not operate a motor vehicle while manually typing into The Texting While Driving Law went into a wireless communications device — an act effect on Oct. 1, an AAA news release notes. known as texting. Sending email and instant non-voice messages also are against the law, "Sending or receiving a text takes a driver's the release points out. eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, the equivalent of driving, at 55 mph, the Texting while a motorist is stopped at a red length of an entire football field, blind," the light is considered acceptable under the law, release points out. "With more than 6 billion according to a news release from the Sarasota text messages sent each day in the United County Sheriff's Office. A teen girl sends a text message, an act now illegal for drivers operating motor vehicles in Florida. Photo by Summer Skyes via Wikimedia Commons