Distracted driving is one of the biggest concerns of police and lawmakers on the roads. Along with speeding-related injuries and fatalities, distracted driving accounts for a significant number of accidents on the road. A major contributor to distracted driving is cell phone usage while driving a moving vehicle. To address this problem, this state is allowing for stricter interpretations of their cell phone usage laws while driving– making it illegal to even be holding your phone in the car.
Distracted driving is a major public concern
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), distracted driving was the cause of death for over 3,000 individuals in 2023 in road traffic accidents. When sending a text, having your eyes off the road to just look at your phone, even for five seconds, is as if you drove the length of a football field with your eyes closed while driving at 55/mph.
Texting while driving poses a significant risk not only to your own life but for others around you. As a responsible driver, you need to ensure that you can guarantee the safety of your fellow road users, and cell phone usage while behind the wheel cannot do that. As such, states have implemented various rules and regulations to prevent cell phone usage while driving.
Complete ban on cell phones in vehicles in this state
In the state of California, it is illegal to use your cellphone while driving. While this has usually been assumed to just be referring to texting or calling, a court ruled earlier this month that the law can also be applied even when looking at your phone while driving or holding it in your hand, even if you were using it for navigation guidance. The new appeal is part of an effort to crack down on cell phone usage in the state.
“[Legislators adopted the current state law] to reduce distracted driving resulting from advancements in modern phones and to encourage drivers to keep their eyes on the road,” the court of appeals ruled.
While you can still mount your phone on your dashboard in order to assist you with navigation or to answer the phone while on speaker, you can no longer be holding your phone while driving, without risking being pulled over and receiving a ticket for the violation, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety. The new ruling comes at an interesting time when the state is seeing companies testing self-driving vehicles with no person behind the wheel at all.
Other states crack down on road legislation
Other states have also recently been coming down hard on drivers in order to prevent road accidents from occurring. Many of these efforts have been focused particularly on reducing speeding, which accounts for approximately one-third of road-accident-related injuries and fatalities. To address this, many states are implementing automated speeding and red-light camera technology to deter drivers from breaking the law.
Other states have also begun to introduce harsher penalties if you are caught driving significantly over the speed limit. Washington State recently decided to approve legislation that would allow law enforcement to install a speed-limiting device into a driver’s vehicle if they are caught driving over the speed limit, as opposed to having their licenses suspended.
In a surprising turn of events, some states have even raised the speed limit in certain circumstances to stop road-accident injuries and fatalities related to speeding. While speeding is generally much more dangerous than slower driving, it can be effective to prevent accidents if the speed limit is raised if it becomes evident that there is a large difference in speed between drivers on certain roads, which can cause a bottleneck of traffic as well as cause drivers to make more reckless decisions to avoid the slower driver.
