Challenges of enforcing cell phone laws

In an earlier blog, I spoke about my ride along with Syracuse police enforcing the final wave of the "Phone in one hand, Ticket in the other" distracted driving campaign. As I was perched on a hill looking at traffic driving by, I became very aware of the challenges with enforcing these kinds of laws.

New York is just one of eight states that have a ban on handheld cell phones, also joined by California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington State, and Washington, D.C. All are primary bans, except for Maryland where a few weeks ago lawmakers turned down a bill to strengthen the law from secondary to primary—meaning that the police can pull over a car for just that offense.

Thirty states have texting bans, and the majority are primary, but New York, Iowa, Nebraska, and Virginia have secondary texting laws. The difference between primary laws and secondary laws is significant for enforcement. For secondary laws, police need to see drivers committing another offense for them to ticket.

If police do ticket someone for texting and another infraction, the penalties could be costly. A ticket for just cell phone or just texting is $150 and 2 points on your license in New York State, but the texting ticket comes with another ticket for whatever other violation you committed, which can really add up. However, secondary offenses are harder to enforce.

Studies have shown that texting has a much higher risk for an accident than handheld cell phone use, although both are dangerous; they take your hands off the wheel and mental focus off driving. A few times in our ride along with Syracuse police, we saw people texting, and we pulled out to follow them, but if they were doing everything else right, we couldn't give them a ticket. Studies have shown that with other secondary laws, such as seat belt use, people don't respect the law as they would if it were primary.

Police we spoke with in Syracuse are supportive of moving the secondary law to primary. Just last week, a new advocacy and awareness group called Families Against Texting While Driving was launched to try to advocate strengthening the texting laws in New York State. There is currently open legislation to do this and the organization is hoping the public effort and support will help push it into law.

As more states move the law from secondary to primary—and with a fair amount of public service announcements—it's possible that motorists will think again about distracted driving. And those that don't will pay the price.

See our special section on distracted driving.

—Liza Barth