Members of the Virginia General Assembly are trying to stay on top of the latest social media trends.
Unsafe at any speed. That's what Delegate Joshua Cole, a Democrat from Fredericksburg, says about live streaming while driving. He says the TikTok videos of drivers chasing clout are part of a trend that needs to drop off the grid.
"Whether they're doing these trends called the ghost driving where the car is still moving and they jump out of the car and dance while the car is moving or they are speeding down the highway trying to see how fast they can go, and they're livestreaming that, right? And this has produced accidents," Cole says. "It’s produced deaths, and things are happening and we want to make sure we’re proactive in Virginia instead of being reactionary."
His bill passed the House. But then when it was under consideration in the Senate it ran into a buzzsaw of questions.
"As it was drafted, you could arguably interpret it or a court could interpret it as preventing people from being on a Zoom call without video while they’re in the car," says Republican Senator Glen Sturtevant, a Republican from Colonial Heights. "And that's something that many of us do in the age of Zoom is you'll be on a Zoom meeting while you’re driving. You're not using the video; you're using the audio through your Bluetooth in your car."
The Republican senator worked with the Democratic delegate to amend the bill, and now it’s likely on its way to the governor's desk later this week.
