The trucking industry says these devices can be used safely, posing less of a distraction than BlackBerrys, iPhones and similar gadgets, and therefore should be exempted from legislation that would ban texting while driving.
“We think that’s overkill,” Clayton Boyce, spokesman for the American Trucking Associations, said of a federal bill that would force states to ban texting while driving if they want to keep receiving federal highway money.
Ninety percent of adults say sending a text message while driving should be illegal, and only 8 percent disagree.
There is no difference in support based on region of the country, party identification, marital status or whether the respondent owns a cellphone, the poll found.
More than 80 percent of every demographic group say sending text messages while driving should be illegal, but some are more adamant about such a prohibition than others.