I heard of one scam in Alberta - the local squeegee kids complained because the police went undercover (Edmonton, IIRC) and ran them off their usual corner. In the guise of asking people to clean their windshield, they would check who had seatbelts on and radio ahead for offenders to be ticketed.
Would not surprise me if they start pulling the same scan for cellphones, especically if all you have to do is be handling the phone. Sitting at a red light is considered “driving” in most places.
Illinois, which just enacted an anti-texting law, allows talking on the cell phone while driving. I forget if the “must use hands-free device for phone while driving” law is for the whole state or for Cook County/the City of Chicago only.
One stated purpose for passing the law, IIRC, was that people figure they’re not actually really “distracted” while texting, because they’re just that skilled. So this was done as a way to make people think about it and hopefully knock it off.
Or it might be the combination of studies showing that texting is far more dangerous than even talking and high support for bans revealed by polls. Sometimes the legislature follows public opinion, especially since the cellphone companies don’t lobby against this law.
Most people I’ve seen on the phone or texting (I can tell in heavy traffic) are alone, so this excuse won’t work.
If you hit a tree. If you hit someone else, that person will not have any incentive to lie for you (and quite a bit not to.)
California, which has a strict seatbelt law, also has one of the highest seatbelt usage rates in the country. I’m not discounting social pressures, though. It is not scientific, but in my experience the number of people holding phones decreased significantly after the law went into effect here. The texting law just went in. I believe that I read in the traffic column that the police wrote a lot of tickets for phone use only after the law took effect, and do more enforcement at times after that.
Here’s a copy of the NC texting law that went in effect on December 1st, 2009.
The law is called “Ban Texting While Driving” but as you can see, it actually applies to much more than that:
As for how the offense is worded:
Of course, by using “operating” - it covers more than if they said “driving” - so you can be sitting in your car at a light or in your car on the side of the road while it’s running and still be “operating.”
And by saying “public vehicular area” it can mean anywhere - like the shopping plaza, parking lot, etc.
And I know some have mentioned that using a phone’s GPS may be okay - but this does not indicate that at all.
Are we talking about laws that only ban “texting” or the more common laws that prohibit any kind of driving while distracted and simply include texting as an example?
When dealing with laws that vary from state to state, we need to know exactly which laws/states we are talking about to produce a valid answer.
But the simple OP question, how do they know, has been answered.
They issue a ticket if they think you’ve been texting. (Officer saw you pressing buttons on your phone is all the evidence they need.). It’s then up to you to get your records to show that you had no text messages sent or recieved in the time frame of the ticket.
Heard about this one on the radio today.
I’m waiting for someone to build a car with text messaging built into the dashboard, turning your car into a text messaging device, thus making it unlawful to operate your car while operating your car.
Makes me wonder if some sort of speech to text message service is on the horizon, if it doesn’t already exist. There are surely people out there who would pay for such a thing.
(This coming from a guy who averages maybe 5 text messages… per month)
I’d be really surprised if the software folks (everyone from Nokia to Microsoft to RIM to Apple) weren’t working on it. The obvious problem then is that the laws that ban use of text messaging devices doesn’t take their user interaction method into consideration, so even if someone could develop a user interface that is magically as safe as carrying on a conversation with the person sitting next to you, it would probably still technically be illegal in most places that have these laws until the laws were updated to allow it.
Huh. I’ve never seen anyone text while driving except at a red light, and I honestly can’t see why that would be a problem. But if they’re actually doing it while moving, I can get behind a ban.
I still don’t get how the “distracted while driving” laws work. Merely being in the car with another human being is distracting. Using the radio is distracting.
Finally, I’m much more for punishing poeple for being stupid after the fact. There are far more people with bad driving habits than there are people who actually cause an accident. I know very few people that don’t regularly break traffic laws of some kind. I think people would take the laws more seriously if there weren’t already so many laws that don’t seem that dangerous (like speeding.)
As of Friday, New Hampshire for one. I’m mad that a stricter law that would have banned cell phone use in cars all together (similar to Maine’s law) was pushed aside and the new no-text law put into play instead. :mad:
bolding mine
Is this a guilty until proven innocent thing?
As has been said, in many states, it is perfectly legal to dial a cell phone to make a call. So, how could the officer have probable cause to pull you over if he sees you pressing buttons on your phone?
So, if my phone is in the back seat in its case, and I am unlucky enough for someone to send me a text message, I get a ticket for that?
So, TWO FULL MINUTES after his text message? And the other driver had been drinking? How in the hell can a text message from two minutes prior even remotely relate to the accident?
This seems to be a bad example as it only serves the hysteria. Even the judge said, “You didn’t do anything to cause this accident, but what the hell, jail anyways”.