Back in November, I made note of an upgrade to NJ's cell-phoning-while-driving law. Driving and using a handheld cell phone would become a primary offense on March 1 2008, and it would be beefed with an anti-text-messaging ban as well.
The results are in.
In February 2008, the last month of the previous rules, NJ courts handled 1300 cell-phone tickets. In March 2008, add another zero - thirteen thousand. In fact, that's almost as many as the preceding 12 months (16,000 from March 2007 to February 2008).
State and local police departments in NJ are not allowing a grace period to get used to the new tougher rules... they want to break drivers of the habit once and for all.
More on the story here... Associated Press/WCBS880.com
Sylvia, one of my partners in crime here at Edmunds, posted in her blog Driving Miss Crazy about texting while driving. New Jersey has addressed this issue this past week... Governor Corzine signed into law an upgraded measure regarding the use of cell phones. Previously, hand-held cell phones were not allowed while driving, but it was a secondary offense, meaning a police officer had to pull you over for another moving violation before adding a summons for using a hand-held cell phone while driving.
The new law in NJ now makes hand-held cell phone use a primary offense, with a fine of $250 for talking or $100 for texting. The revised law takes effect March 1 2008. The only other states with a primary-offense cell phone law are California, Connecticut, and New York, along with Washington DC. Washington state was the first state to ban texting.
Let's face it... do you really need to be that reachable all the time? I will not answer my cell phone while I'm behind the wheel... no matter who it is. They can leave a message and I will get back to them when I get where I'm going. And the avid texters will claim they know their phone's controls and keys so well that they don't have to look at the screen. That's an excuse not to focus on operating 2 tons of machinery at high speed amongst the otherwise unsuspecting public? There are enough people out there who don't drive properly when the only thing going on in their car is the air conditioning fan. Let's keep the distraction of trying to make/take a phone call or send a message to someone out of the equation so we're on a level playing field.
"Drop the phone, kick it over here... I SAID DROP IT!" That might not be a joke in the near future.
