Starting on Thursday, those drivers will start getting pulled over by police and handed $124 tickets.
Common sense says it's dangerous to have one hand on the wheel and one hand on your cell phone. Research backs that up: here in Washington state, hundreds of people are maimed or killed, every year, because people were using cell phones while driving.
The numbers don't lie: in 2007, drivers using cell phones caused 481 crashes that caused injuries or deaths.A driver talking on a cell is as distracted and impaired as a drunk with a .08 blood-alcohol level. A person texting while driving is as dangerous on the roads as somebody who blows a 1.6 blood-alcohol level.
(For the policy wonks out there, here's your numbers fix from the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission.)
The state Legislature responded to this new trend with a law making it a secondary offense to drive while using a cell phone without a hands-free device.
That law did help: in 2008, drivers on cell phones caused 334 crashes resulting in injuries or deaths.
In the 2010 session, lawmakers made that law stronger. Now it's a primary offense, which means state troopers and police don't have to wait for a driver with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the phone to start speeding or blowing through stop signs before pulling them over.
For teenagers -- who are much more likely to get hurt or killed the first few years they're on the road, as they're still learning to drive -- the penalties are more severe. Teenagers aren't allowed to use cell phones at all, hands-free or not, except in emergencies.
Also, every new teenager driver has an intermediate drivers license their first six months, which means they can't have passengers except immediate family or drive between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. If they get cited under this new law, they don't graduate beyond an intermediate license until they turn 18.
(Photo by Brian A. Sayrs)
