The Florida House of Representatives passed a distracted driving bill Tuesday, co-sponsored by Tampa representative Jackie Toledo.
House Bill 107 makes texting while driving a primary offense. Currently in Florida, texting while driving is a secondary offense, meaning drivers cannot be pulled over for that alone.
Much of the legislative push to end distracted driving in Florida is inspired by the Scherer family, formerly of Riverview. Their 9 year old son Logan died in 2016 when the family’s SUV was rear-ended by a driver using his phone on I-75 south of Brooksville.
“You just don’t think it will happen to you, and then it does,” Brooke Scherer said.
Since their son’s untimely death, Brooke and Jordan Scherer have dedicated their lives to ending distracted driving through the Living for Logan Foundation. The Scherers played a pivotal role in both Toledo’s distracted driving bill, as well as a companion bill still being weighed in the Senate.
Senate Bill 76, if passed, doesn’t just elevate texting while driving to a primary offense. It would also mandate all hands-free phone use while behind the wheel.
The Scherers support any crackdown on distracted driving, and say they fully support Rep. Toledo’s efforts, but fear the bill passed by the House Tuesday may have enforceability issues due to watered down language.
“If you’re law enforcement, and you go to pull over one of those people for ‘texting and driving,’ you’re going to have absolutely no way to tell, no way of knowing what any of those people were actually doing,” Jordan Scherer said Tuesday in reaction to the bill’s passing.
The Scherers would like to see Florida go completely hands-free, as the Senate version of the bill aims to do. They hope the Senate bill will pass, and that lawmakers will then reconcile both bills to make hands-free the law of the land.
As they move forward in their fight for a hands-free Florida, the Scherers are also moving forward in their lives. They’re expecting a baby girl this August, a gift they believe was sent to them by their son.
“I think he’d be a huge champion of what we’re trying to do,” Jordan Scherer said. “The mission we ultimately feel he has left us.”
The Florida Senate is expected to take up its distracted driving bill on Wednesday.
