<p>Just don’t ever do it while driving. You could make a mistake you will never get over.</p>
<p>[Woman</a> accused of texting while driving in crash that killed UW student](<a href=“http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/article_7bbdd7ca-8657-11e0-a028-001cc4c002e0.html]Woman”>Woman accused of texting while driving in crash that killed UW student)</p>
<p>I do it at red lights, along with change CDs or anything else that needs to be done.</p>
<p>Good call. Make the road safer for all of us.</p>
<p>I hope people aren’t complaining about this. People who are stupid enough to text and drive and end up killing someone deserve to be charged with murder.</p>
<p>^^ I disagree, but not because I don’t think it’s a big deal. If you text and drive, you are taking a risk with someone else’s life. This is true for anyone who texts & drives. There is nothing morally worse about the person who gets unlucky and causes a fatal accident, than the person who texts and drives, and gets lucky. In my opinion, what ought to be done (and similarly, but more severely for drinking and driving) is that there should be severe consequences (though not as severe as for murder) for anyone who texts and drives, but not consequences orders of magnitude higher for the people that actually end up causing accidents, because they’re not committing a different crime, they’re just having different luck.</p>
<p>^I think it’s the same thing as driving while impaired. It’s homicide because of negligence and should be treated as such. I know I sound harsh, but I don’t think people that kill other people should be charged with anything other than homicide.</p>
<p>^ There is a difference between negligent homicide and murder.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s equivalent to driving impaired (at least in principle, if perhaps not in degree). What do you think should be the penalty for texting while driving, but not getting in an accident?</p>
<p>^ Personally, I think there should only be a penalty if people are driving recklessly (which is ALREADY a crime). Like it or not, there ARE people who can safely text and drive. Honestly, in Michigan (especially where I live near Detroit), the texting-while-driving laws just give cops a reason to pull more and more people over without any just cause (it’s really hard to prove someone was texting especially with phones that now have GPS- which is still legal to operate while driving). They were doing it before (especially to minorities in mostly white areas) and this new law just gives them more ammunition. If you want to make it so that you’re pulled over for reckless driving and then given a bigger fine because you’re texting then that’s fine with me, but I honestly don’t think texting and driving in and of itself should be a crime. </p>
<p>With that said, this woman absolutely deserves to be charged with homicide by negligent driving. She was neglectful with her driving and unintentionally caused a death.</p>
<p>I don’t care how “skilled” you think you are, you shouldn’t text and drive</p>
<p>^ There are lots of things people “shouldn’t” do that are perfectly legal.</p>
<p>
Generally murder requires an attempt to harm the victim. Unless someone can prove that the driver of the car was texting while driving with the intention of being distracted so as to cause harm to someone, I don’t see how this is murder. However, the charges in this case are homicide by negligent driving which usually requires proof that person A directly killed person B, while driving negligently.</p>