Federal employees banned from texting while driving

Federal employees will not be allowed to text while driving, according to an executive order from President Obama.

The order, signed late Wednesday, covers federal employees when they are using government-provided cars or cellphones and when they are using their own phones and cars to conduct government business.

Separately, the federal government plans to ban text messaging by bus drivers and truckers who travel across state lines, and may preclude them from using cellphones while driving, except in emergencies.

Ray LaHood, the Transportation secretary, announced those and other measures Thursday, aimed at curbing what he called a deadly epidemic of distracted driving.

He made his announcement at a conference in Washington that included 300 academics, law-enforcement officials, legislators, telecommunications and automobile-industry representatives, and families of people killed by motorists who were talking on cellphones or text messaging.

LaHood said the order to restrict text messaging by federal employees behind the wheel "sends a very clear signal to the American public that distracted driving is dangerous and unacceptable."

A spokeswoman for the Transportation Department said the order took effect immediately and involved 4.5 million federal employees, including military personnel.

According to the National Safety Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, several hundred companies have banned employees from using their cellphones while driving. That group says such bans improve safety and help limit the liability of employers when accidents do occur.

The rules affecting interstate truckers and bus drivers will take longer to put in place.

LaHood said the rule would "ban text messaging altogether" by such drivers. But Rose McMurray, acting administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates the trucking industry, said there would first need to be a definition of text messaging.

The question facing the trucking industry in particular is what will become of the computers that thousands of long-haul truckers use in their cabs to communicate with dispatchers and do other work.

Some people were concerned the conference emphasized texting bans over risks posed by drivers talking on cellphones.

Banning texting "makes people feel good and makes it look like you're doing something, but you're not tackling the more difficult problem," said David Strayer, a professor at the University of Utah who studies distracted driving. "It misses the larger point."