AMARILLO, TEXAS -- A crowd of people arrived at City Hall to hear Commissioners discuss whether or not to ban the use of cell phones while driving.
As predicted ,many concerned citizens left with a recognizable divide.
There are nearly 6,000 deaths caused by distracted drivers every year, officials said.
Some believe a new law will limit an individual's right and feel that education is the answer.
A citizen against the ban, Cherie Sanders said, "Instead of imposing another law on citizens, we should do an education awareness program joined with the city and private citizens to educate our citizens so that they can be informed of the dangers of texting while driving and using your hand held phone and driving."
However, others insisted that enforcing the law is essential to saving lives. Many argued that humans lack the cognitive, visual and reaction time to deal with distractions.
A citizen for the ban, Jennifer Walters, mentioned that driving isn't designed for interruptions.
"All of the roads and highways that have been engineered by traffic engineers, they were not built with distracted driving in mind," said Walters.
Controversial data has left many people confused and a topic like this is sometimes difficult to prove.
"I’ve studied and statistics out there show that the laws put in place do not help reduce the crashes," said Sanders.
Although they may not agree, one thing is for certain, distractions while driving is increasingly dangerous.
