By Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger

    I don’t spend a lot of time texting, but my three daughters do.

    They can send, receive and read text messages from the back of a classroom and a teacher or professor would never know.

    Stealth texting is a learned habit, perhaps useful when whipping out a cell phone would be crass, inappropriate or just plain frowned upon.

    My thumbs are too big for the little keys on my maroon-and-silver electronic link from my pocket to the world, so I don’t even try.

    Texting in class may be rude and mildly inattentive in nature, but texting while driving can be deadly.

    Del. Jim Scott, D-Fairfax County, has introduced a bill that could save lives and keep cars from swerving into ditches or the paths of oncoming motorists.

    His House Bill 39 to prohibit text messaging while driving may be the best little safety bill in the upcoming General Assembly session, at least with a chance of passage. Lawmakers learn year after year how hard it is to keep drivers old enough to vote from using cell phones while driving. One year, a sponsor of such a bill told a story of a Northern Virginia teenager who died due to texting while driving.

    Scott’s bill, as summarized on Richmond Sunlight, http://www.richmondsunlight.com/bill/2008/hb39/ would prohibit “operation of a motor vehicle, bicycle, electric personal assistive mobility device, electric power-assisted bicycle, or moped on the highways in the Commonwealth while using any wireless telecommunications device for the purpose of sending, receiving, or reading any text message.“

    To the father of three daughters who presumably have enough sense not to do that, it still makes sense to outlaw a practice some in their generation already employ.