NEW YORK-Dialing and talking while driving are getting a closer look in state capitols lately, as legislatures in at least three states-California, Illinois and New York-consider bills that would impose various restrictions on the practice.
The Illinois and California legislatures are considering versions of mandatory hands-free phone use while driving. In New York, legislation introduced last week would ban completely a driver’s use of a cellular phone, except for the first minute of an incoming call or at any time when the driver’s life or safety is in danger.
“Motorola’s national headquarters is 15 minutes from my house, but they’re not in my district, thank God,” said Illinois State Sen. Robert Bugielski, whose legislative district encompasses the northwest side of Chicago near O’Hare International Airport.
Bugielski has introduced a bill that would mandate hands-free cellular phone talking and listening for persons driving a motor vehicle. His draft legislation doesn’t specify penalties. A Senate colleague, within whose district Motorola Inc.’s headquarters are located, has withdrawn her co-sponsorship of the legislation, Bugielski said.
Many cellular telephone industry representatives were present March 5 when the Illinois Senate Executive Committee, of which Bugielski is a member, heard testimony, he said. The Executive Committee will vote this week whether to release the bill to the full Senate.
“I drive down to Springfield (the state capital) from Chicago on the expressway, and every time, I see people with a cellular phone crooked into their neck weaving back and forth in and out of my lane,” Bugielski said. “We had a bill like this four years ago, and it got so much pressure that it died; but I’m going forward with this.”
Bugielski said he is more optimistic this time about action, particularly because “every phone on the market today is adaptable to hands-free use.”
The Illinois state senator introduced his hands-free driving bill two weeks before the Feb. 13 publication of University of Toronto research results, which concluded that drivers face a four-fold risk of an injury-producing accident when using a cellular telephone.
On Feb. 28, two weeks after the study was published, California State Senator John Burton from San Francisco introduced legislation that also would mandate hands-free cellular phone use while driving. That bill hasn’t yet been assigned to a committee for consideration, a spokesman for Sen. Burton said March 6.
Burton’s legislative proposal states: “This bill would prohibit a person from driving a vehicle upon any highway while operating a cellular telephone if the operation of that telephone by the driver requires the driver to hold the telephone in his or her hand.” Burton’s bill would make violation of this law, if enacted, a crime.
In New York, companion bills were introduced in both houses of the state legislature March 4. Besides banning most cellular telephone conversations, the bills would require all cellular phones sold, leased or rented in New York State to carry labels warning that their use is prohibited while driving. They call for fines of $50 for the first offense, $100 for the second offense and at least $200 for the third offense if it occurs within 18 months of the prior offense.
“Several other countries, including Brazil, Israel and Switzerland, already have laws restricting drivers from using cellular phones,” said New York State Sen. Leonard P. Stavisky, of the New York City borough of Queens, in introducing the bill. “Here in New York, with my legislation, we have the chance to be the first state in the nation to put the brakes on telephone-related car crashes.”
Malaysia also mandated hands-free cellular phone use by drivers, according to published reports. Australia has imposed a ban on cellular phone use while driving, according to a member company of the Alliance of American Insurers, said Charles Schmidt, a spokesman for the industry association, based in Schaumburg, Ill. It has 260 member companies, including automobile insurers, and engages in lobbying and public policy development and promotion, including advocacy for seat belt laws.
“We don’t have a policy on the practice (of cellular phone use while driving),” Schmidt said. “Until now, there has been contradictory, anecdotal evidence. I could foresee that, in the future, we might try to get a handle on the situation, track the data, to determine if this (i.e., the accident correlation) is some kind of a trend.”
In Florida, the Metro-Dade County Commission, which governs the Miami area, adopted a resolution in December asking the state Department of Motor Vehicles to begin collecting data on accidents caused by cellular phone use. The resolution was sponsored by Barbara Carey, a county commissioner whose friend was killed during a traffic accident police said was caused by a distracted cellular telephone user. As of March 6, the Florida State Legislative Information Services office showed no record of any bill having yet been introduced this session related to cellular telephone use while driving.
In Nebraska, State Sen. LaVon Crosby’s bill to penalize drivers who cause an accident while using a cellular phone died in the Transportation Committee, Feb. 12. Sen. Crosby of Lincoln had proposed such drivers be charged with a Class III misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 and/or a three-month jail sentence.
