RICHMOND – Sending a text message, updating Facebook, or reading an email will behind the wheel could get you pulled over and fined $250 under a bill on its way to the House floor.

House Bill 1907, which combines several texting-and-driving bills, makes reading or sending text while driving a primary offense punishable by a $250 fine for the first offense. Any subsequent violations would bring a $500 fine.

The House Courts of Justice Committee this afternoon unanimously approved the proposal, a much stricter version of the existing texting-and-driving ban.

That law, passed by the General Assembly four years ago, imposes a $20 fine and requires that a driver also be breaking another traffic law in order to be pulled over and ticketed.

Efforts to change the law in past legislative sessions have failed. A Senate committee this morning delayed to Monday taking up a similar bill.

- Kathy Adams, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot