Projo Politics Blog

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- With a text-messaging ban and a new drunken-driving law under their belts, key lawmakers are promising to renew their efforts to win passage of bills to allow the police to stop and tag people for driving without seatbelts, and ban the use of handheld cell phones on the road.

House Majority Whip Peter Kilmartin, D-Pawtucket, and Rep. Douglas Gablinske, D-Bristol, made those promises at a somber news conference, where an often choked up Gablinske talked about the personal tragedy that led him to pursue passage, despite years of failed efforts by others, of the new legislation -- signed into law by Governor Carcieri Wednesday -- to allow the police to compel drivers involved in crashes resulting in death or serious bodily injury to undergo blood-alcohol testing.

In 1971, when Gablinske was 18, his father was struck and killed by a motorcyclist on the street in front of their home. The elder Gablinske had stepped out into the road to scold a motorcyclist for racing down the residential street. He was mowed down by the biker, who was high on drugs.

Before the new alcohol testing bill finally cleared the General Assembly during its two-day special session, police and prosecutors had for close to nine years been making an annual pilgrimage to the State House to try to convince lawmakers to remove obstacles to the prosecution of such crimes.

When the time came to evaluate the fate of this year's bill, House Majority Leader Gordon Fox said he also had in his mind's eye the image of Desiree Mesolella, the 19-year-old daughter of former state Rep. Vincent Mesolella who was killed in June 2008 in a car crash on Long Island.

She had been a passenger in a car driven by an alleged drunken-driver, who was arrested at the hospital and charged with second-degree manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, driving while intoxicated, reckless driving and the aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.

When asked after the news conference whether he could commit as majority leader -- and House Speaker William J. Murphy's chosen successor -- to passage of the long-thwarted seatbelt and cell phone bills, Fox, D-Providence, said: "I think those are important.''

With respect to seatbelt legislation, he said he is committed to, at the very least, "sitting down'' with lawmakers on both sides of the issue, but "again it is going to be a balancing of rights. Obviously with the seatbelt law, the issue has always been in terms of racial profiling and whether it is a tool for bad police officers to harass people.''

On the years-long drive to ban hand-held cell phone use by drivers, Fox said, the challenge has been "keeping up with the technology,'' but "I am committed to actually doing something real with that as well.''

 

 Tags  Bristol RI Douglas Gablinske Gordon Fox Pawtucket RI Peter Kilmartin Providence RI

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