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A state ban on texting while driving crashed in Tallahassee today. The Senate was poised to discuss the legislation, but House leadership quickly put the breaks on the bill. As Whitney Ray tells us, with just a week left in the legislative session, texting while driving is likely to stay off the radar until next year.

The 2010 legislative session began with more than 15 lawmakers pushing their owe version of a texting while driving ban.

“It’s such a terrible dangerous activity,” Said Sen. Carey Baker.

Legislative leadership whittled the options down to one bill; Senator Nancy Detert’s,

“It is recognizable dangerous to be going 70 miles an hour and not looking at the road. You might as well be wearing a blindfold,” said Detert.

But before a vote could be taken on the bill, a message from the House was delivered by Representative Ellen Bogdanoff telling Detert not to bother.

Bogdanoff says if the legislature were to ban texting while driving, then other activities, like eating or flipping through a CD case should also be illegal.

“I don’t think we should be isolating one negative activity when we have many others,” said Bogdanoff.

But even without the legislation efforts are underway to warn people about the dangers of texting from behind the wheel.

Studies show people who send or read text messages are 23 times more likely to have a wreck. 19 states already ban the activity. A state ban on texting while driving may soon be moot because the federal government is considering taking action.