You are right texting is not against the law. Butttt I am sure you have heard many times that a vehicle is considered a deadly weapon in the right circumstances. The combinaion of a 3500 lb vehicle and someone texting should be enough to prove up the above. It always depends on the officers involved. I have worked around 1000 accidents and I am telling you that if my investigation showed someone was texting and ran over a pedestrian or cyclist I would file the above. All you have to ask yourself is does it fit. It fits perfectly. All the elements of the offense are met. I ran this idea by a few others in my department and we all agreed it is anough to send it up. I absolutly hate people that drive and talk on cell phones. We can also prove up how it limits your range of movement, and focus on what you are doing. Peoples comparison of eating and listening to the radio are a joke. You know we got along for many many years with out having phones in the cars. Nothing is that important. Not to mention if it is that important you can pull off the road. You know things change all the time and so do the laws. It wasnt so long ago in Dallas a woman hit and drug a kid two blocks while talking on her cell. The only reason she stopped was people were chasing her to get her to stop.

Quote from goatstick on Oct 7^th, 2009, 5:23pm:

We were told that a group of cyclists who work for the co. prosecutor's office was going after this guy. Apparently the effort died. SOP for our crooked co prosecutor.

Yeah. If it's a wide rideable shoulder I'll usually ride to the left side of it, otherwise I take the lane. I learned that the hard way riding across the se usa and back. The old symmetry rule - motor vehicles tend to give you as much room to your left as you give yourself on the right, even if you hear a lot of horns complaining.
 
With txdot intentionally destroying shoulders to try to force cyclists off of roads, it's becoming a requirement to take the lane though. It's really problematic when there is what looks like a wide shoulder but isn't rideable. That's when things get a bit iffy. Either give me a wide *rideable* shoulder or none at all. The stretch of Hwy 16 where the couple was mowed down is like that now. Used to be a lot of cyclists riding the shoulders all the time as it was the primary cycling route around here for several decades. The only ones riding it anymore are us three commuters that have to ride in the lane now.  Talk about honking horns... :^) It's almost continuous. The Airzounds on the trike gets a lot of use now as a result, so that's kinda fun.
 
It's is a good example of what txdot wants to do and will be successful at if we don't begin to fight back. Riding across Texas last year and this, we saw first-hand the rideable roads quickly disappearing. At the rate txdot is going, it wouldn't take more than a few years for them to put an end to pretty much all distance cycling in the state.
 
As to phones, on the trips, especially in affluent areas, we would watch cars approaching us from often over a mile away. They wouldn't change lanes as they approached, they would just start slowing down in our lane even when there was no traffic preventing them from changing lanes. Baffled me until we realized they were on their cell phones... Not enough brain power to talk/text and look to see if they needed to change lanes to pass us. At least they saw us though.