Hands-free law seen as lacking
Jun. 24—BOSTON — Police cited hundreds of thousands of drivers in the past year for violating the state's new hands-free law, according to newly released data.
The state Department of Transportation says police agencies issued at least 53,638 citations for drivers caught holding their mobile phone behind the wheel.
The mountain of tickets, averaging about 120 per day, were issued even with fewer cars on the roads amid the pandemic.
Acting Transportation Secretary Jamey Tesler said the data shows drivers are not following the year-old law, which can have "deadly consequences."
"Distracted drivers are a hazard on the road," Tesler said in a statement. "For your sake and the sake of others traveling on the roads, please put the phone away, drive sober, travel at or below the posted speed limit, and pay attention to what's going on around you while driving."
The hands-free law, which went into effect in February 2020, prohibits drivers from holding a phone while talking, inputting an address into a GPS, typing or reading text messages. It updated the state's 2010 texting while driving law, which police officials had said wasn't strong enough.
The new law exempts on-duty police officers as well as people acting in an emergency, such as reporting an accident or calling police.
The rules also make violations a primary enforcement offense, unlike the seatbelt law, which means drivers can be stopped solely for using their phone while driving.
Fines for violations range from $100 for a first offense up to $500 for repeated offenses. Drivers with multiple violations are subject to insurance surcharges.
But the data released by MassDOT shows a majority of the citations issued to date — 40,181 — only resulted in warnings, not fines.
Under the law motorists who rack up multiple violations are required to complete a program meant to prevent distracted driving. MassDOT data shows at least 160 people have been sent to the program, and 74 have completed it.
Distracted driving was blamed for killing 3,142 people in car crashes in the U.S. in 2019 — an average of nine deaths per day, according to the American Automobile Association. Twenty-three of those deaths were in Massachusetts.
Safe-driving advocates who lobbied for years to update the texting-while-driving rules say they are meant to prevent injuries and fatalities.
"We cannot be attentive and defensive drivers if we are distracted by our phones," said Emily Stein, president of the Safe Roads Alliance, who lost her father, Howard, to a distracted driver in 2011. "Hang up and drive for your own safety and for everyone else you share the road with."
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group's newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com
