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Cellphone driving ban proposals to be aired at State House

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 9, 2009 02:03 PM

By Globe Staff

More than a dozen bills limiting the use of cellphones while driving will be aired at a State House hearing this week, as questions grow about whether using such devices can be a deadly distraction.

The Legislature's Transportation Committee has slated a hearing for 11 a.m. Thursday in Room 222 on 15 bills that would impose bans on texting or bans on both texting and cellphone calls, according to the office of Representative Joseph Wagner, House chairman of the committee.

The latest boost for the bills came after Aiden Quinn, a 24-year-old MBTA Green Line trolley operator, told authorities last month that he was sending his girlfriend a text message when he missed a red light and slammed his trolley into another stopped trolley near Government Center Station. The crash destroyed three trolleys and injured nearly 50 people.

The Senate recently voted for a budget amendment that would ban texting while driving. A House-Senate conference committee has been working to hammer out a compromise budget. But other proposals are pending in the Legislature as stand-alone bills.

Wagner said last month he supported legislation that goes further, banning both texting and cellphone use without a hands-free device.