A really long day in the House meant that half an hour after adjournment turned out to be 4:20 p.m. for the House Courts Sub Comm 1 to begin, so it was about 5 when they got to SB1341 the Senate version of the bill banning the use of hand held Cell Phones by drivers.
With the House version of this bill already being familiar to the SubComm members, there was a question confirming whether this bill was indeed identical to HB1811. When it was noted that it was, there was an immediate “Move to Report” followed by passage by a 6-1 vote, without any further discussion or testimony, with only Del. Gilbert in opposition. The entire process taking only about a minute, the bill now moves on to the full House Courts Committee, which should be Wednesday, half an hour after adjournment, where I expect it to get similar treatment as it sails on to the House floor.
The last bill on today’s docket, SB1768 increasing the penalty for using a handheld personal communication device in a work zone to a class 1 misdemeanor, was not heard until about 6 p.m. With the patron not present, after a little discussion, it was passed by for the day, which means that it should be heard by this SubComm on Wednesday, shortly after adjournment of the House.
Now, tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. we have two bills on the docket in House Trans Sub 1, SB1154, Sen. Black’s bill to require a driver to give his full attention to the operation of his vehicle and exercise due care and decrease speed as necessary to avoid a collision with any person, vehicle or other conveyance and making it a traffic infraction for failure to do so.
A somewhat similar bill, Sen Surovell’s SB1550, is also a due care and vulnerable road user bill, and we will watch with interest to see how both of them do in a SubComm that has not been particularly friendly to our cause.
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