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Health & Fitness

Reminder: Texting Ban While Driving Goes into Effect on March 8

Do you text message while driving? The days of doing so legally are coming to an end.

In November 2011, the Pennsylvania legislature passed and the Governor signed a bill that bans drivers in Pennsylvania from text messaging while driving.  What kind of cell phone use in a car is now allowed and what is not?  

The drafters of the new law must define precisely what is and is not included in the ban.  And the devil, as always, is in the details.  So let’s take a look at those details.

First, what kind of devices are regulated? 

“Interactive Wireless Communications Devices”, that’s what. And here is the wordy definition of that phrase:

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“A wireless telephone, personal digital assistant, smart phone, portable or mobile computer or similar device which can be used for voice communication, texting, e-mailing, browsing the Internet or instant messaging.”

Devices that are specifically excluded from that definition include a device being used for global positioning or navigation; a system that is built in to the car; and a device attached to a mass transit vehicle or bus.  So, your GPS is exempt; and if you are using a GPS function in your iPhone, that appears to be exempt too.  

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Those are the devices that are covered; now what use of them is banned?

The new law provides that:

“No driver shall operate a motor vehicle on a highway or trafficway in this commonwealth while using an interactive wireless communications device to send, read or write a text-based communication while the vehicle is in motion.”

So the law just covers the driver in the car.  The actions covered include reading, writing and sending.  The car must be in motion.  And the car has to be on a highway or “trafficway.”  What do those terms mean?  The motor vehicle code defines them as follows:

Highway: The entire width between the boundary lines of every way publicly maintained when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. The term includes a roadway open to the use of the public for vehicular travel on grounds of a college or university or public or private school or public or historical park.

Trafficway: The entire width between property lines or other boundary lines of every way or place of which any part is open to the public for purposes of vehicular travel as a matter of right or custom.

So if you are the driver, “in motion,” whether on the road, in the breakdown lane, in the park, shopping center, church or school parking lot, then you are in the forbidden zone of the new law, and so better not be sending, reading or writing on your device. 

However, a person is not considered to be reading, writing or sending, when they are reading, selecting or entering a phone number for the purpose of making or hanging up from a cell phone call. 

What are the penalties?

If you are cited, you can be charged with a summary offense, like a parking ticket, and be fined $50.  And like a parking ticket, you can challenge the charge, and have your day in court.  Your device cannot be seized and forfeited if you violate the law (unless some other law permits those actions). 

However, presumably it can later be subpoenaed if it may contain evidence of the violation of the law.  Text messages of course leave electronic footprints of the date and time they were made, in the phone and with the carrier. 

If the police routinely seek those records in these cases, then the guilt or innocence will likely be obvious.  But for a $50 fine, will the police seek these records?  That remains to be seen. 

What if my town already bans cell phone usage in the car?

Some cities and towns already had some kind of cell phone ban in effect.  At one time the following Pennsylvania towns banned some form of cell phone usage:  Bensalem, Bethlehem, Conshohocken, Erie, Harrisburg, Lebanon, Philadelphia, West Conshohocken and Wilkes-Barre. The new law as originally proposed would also have banned use of handheld phones by the driver. 

That ban did not make it to the final version. The new law says that it “preempts all ordinances of any municipality with regard to the use of an interactive wireless communications device by the driver of a motor vehicle.”  

It appears from the broad language used that even though this new state-wide ban is only on text messaging, and not voice calls, it would strike down any local bans that seek the broader ban on all handheld cell phone use by the driver.

Is the ban a good idea?

When you are holding your device, you have either one or zero hands with a grip on a steering wheel built for two.  When you are reading from it, rather than watching the road, you are a bomb that can blow up at any moment.  If that zone of your stupidity only affected your health or welfare, then perhaps as a society we would allow you to make that choice. 

But of course when you are driving on a public road at 50 miles per hour with one or no hands on the wheel while you seek to type a message to your friends, you are a drunken cowboy or cowgirl, shooting up the bar, and recklessly endangering anyone unlucky enough to be in your path of destruction. 

The ban is a good idea. Distracted drivers are estimated to have caused 6,000 deaths and a half a million injuries every year. Not one more person should die because of a foolish driver text messaging when they should be driving.

Banning hand-held cell phone calls is a good idea as well. Nine states (including our neighbors New Jersey, Delaware, New York, according to the AAA site) have adopted state wide bans on hand held phone usage. 

And while Pennsylvania may bring up the rear, as it often does, in adopting the good ideas that other states get to first, I think it is only a matter of time.  But of course that time period will also be measured in more needless injuries and deaths, before the legislature sees the wisdom of taking cell phones out of the hands of reckless drivers.  

Not convinced? Go here to read about the lives routinely lost or shattered to do distrcated drivers.  And then go forth and text no more.  

©2012  Douglas P. Humes

Doug Humes has been a practicing attorney in Pennsylvania since 1980.  He has experience in real estate, community, corporate and small business law, and estate planning.  In 2003, he opened his private general practice at the Millridge Manor House in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.  Doug is also a Pennsylvania notary public and offers that service as an accommodation to clients and Millridge residents.  You can contact him at Suite 210,  Tel: 610-525-7150, or via email at).

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