There’s no way of knowing for certain whether fewer drivers are using handheld cell phones while they’re behind the wheel in Delaware since a new state law took effect on Jan. 2, but police issued nearly 8,000 citations for illegal cell phone use or texting in the first nine months of the year.
“It’s hard to say. There are no statistics to compare it with,” said Master Cpl. Jeffrey Hale, a public information officer for Delaware State Police.
With or without statistics, there’s little doubt that the law will be beneficial, said Jim Lardear, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. “Anything that reduces distractions in cars makes the roads safer for everybody,” he said.
But, Lardear added, banning the use of handheld devices while permitting hands-free calling might not make a big difference in overall safety. “It’s the conversation that distracts the driver, not the device,” he said.
According to Jana Simpler, director of the state Office of Highway Safety, there were 7,742 citations issued for cell phone and texting violations through Sept. 30, including 852 in September. In addition, she said, since separate laws took effect in 2006, bus drivers have been ticketed 27 times for illegal cell phone use and drivers with learner’s permits have been cited nine times.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Delaware's Office of Highway Safety reports nearly 8,000 drivers have been cited for illegal cell phone use or texting so far in 2011 while nearly 11,000 have been cited for failure to wear a seat belt."]
The new law requires drivers to use a hands-free device to talk while driving and also prohibits text messaging, sending or reading e-mails or browsing websites while the vehicle is in motion. Drivers are permitted to punch in the phone number or activate the hands-free device, but then cannot have the phone in their hands. A first offense carries a civil penalty of $50; a fine of $100 to $200 may be levied on repeat offenders. Violators do not accumulate any points on their licenses. Delaware is the eighth state to restrict cell phone use while driving and the 30th to prohibit texting while driving.
Current and previous usage of cell phones by drivers in Delaware can’t be compared because no surveys were taken before the law took effect, Simpler said.
But, Hale added, the number of violators is likely higher than the 7,742 cited so far this year because officers who suspect a driver of illegal cell phone usage but aren’t absolutely certain after they make the stop sometimes issue a warning — or they could issue a ticket for inattentive driving. (For drivers, there’s a painful irony attached to officers using their discretion in this manner: An inattentive driving ticket adds two points to the driver’s record; illegal cell phone usage is officially a civil violation, with no points charged.)
To charge a driver with talking on a cell phone, “you have to be able to see the phone itself,” Hale said. Texting violations aren’t as easy to confirm because drivers who are texting most often keep their handheld device below window level, Hale said. Erratic or inattentive driving patterns will give an officer a clue, especially if the driver is looking downward instead of out the front window, he said. “Sometimes, it’s food in the lap,” he said, adding that, whether the driver is eating or texting, if it causes unsafe operation of the vehicle, there’s reason to issue a ticket for inattentive driving.
Police will check into whether cell phone use is a factor in collisions, Hale said. In a rear-end collision, “we’ll ask whether the driver was following too closely or not paying attention,” he said. If a handheld device is visible, the officer may ask the driver for permission to inspect it, “but if he says no, we’re not going to do it,” Hale said.
If on-the-scene evidence of cell phone use is inconclusive, police aren’t likely to press the matter unless the accident resulted in serious injuries or loss of life, he said.
How long will it take for the state to have conclusive data on the value of the cell phone law?
“Delaware is so small, and has fewer crashes than larger states, so drawing conclusions [from small samples] can be dangerous,” Simpler said. “I would want three years of data, and optimally, five years.”
To document the impact of its mandatory seat belt law, the state has plenty of statistics. The most recent, compiled in June during the semi-annual “Click It or Ticket” safety campaign, showed that 90.3 percent of about 29,000 drivers and front-seat passengers sampled were wearing their seat belts, down slightly from 90.7 percent in June 2010, but still above the national rate of 85 percent, the Office of Highway Safety reported.
The survey was taken by Office of Highway Safety staff, who viewed passing traffic at 82 locations statewide during a two-week period in June, according to Alison Kirk, a spokesman for the office. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 5 percent, she said.
Simpler said the dip in seat belt usage, although not statistically significant, may have been caused in part by reduced spending on billboards and radio and TV ads to promote this year’s “Click It or Ticket” campaign because of a delay in receiving the federal funds used to purchase the ads.
Figures for the first nine months of this year show that 9,772 motorists were ticketed for not wearing seat belts and another 1,173 were given “assessments,” the term used when the seat belt charge is added to other charges made at a traffic stop, Kirk said. Those figures represent a significant reduction from the same period in 2010—13,258 tickets and 1,592 assessments. “We would hope those numbers mean more people are wearing seat belts,” Kirk said.
States like Delaware that make not wearing a seat belt a primary violation — meaning that motorists can be charged even if no other traffic offense is observed — have higher usage rates, AAA’s Lardear said.
Still, in 2009, the most recent year for which state by state seat belt use rates are available, Delaware (88.4 percent) trailed neighboring Maryland (94 percent) and New Jersey (92.7 percent) while rating only slightly better than Pennsylvania (87.9 percent).
Simpler said her goal is to bring seat belt usage into the 93 to 95 percent range, but the problem, Lardear said, is that “you’re bumping against the diehards right now.”
“We’ve had the primary seat belt law for years [since 2003].They know the law, and they’re just thumbing their nose at it,” Simpler said. “Some consider it a government intrusion. No one is going to tell them what to do, and nothing is going to change their minds.”
For this group, not even a fine of $80 to $100 is working as a deterrent. “Some people are willing to pay out of pocket for the ‘benefit’ of going unbelted,” she said.
To reach that 10 percent who still won’t buckle up, Simpler has no grand strategy. She just intends to keep delivering the cold, hard facts.
In Delaware, through the end of September, 60 percent of the drivers and passengers killed in auto accidents this year were not wearing seat belts, she said. And, she added, national figures show that drivers and passengers who buckle up are 53 percent less likely to be injured in an accident.
Lardear thinks the next big increase in seat belt usage will come not from convincing the diehards but from the passage of time.
“I’m 44, and grew up in the ’70s and ’80s. You didn’t buckle up in the car. You were climbing over the seats, all that good stuff,” he said. “But my children have always been buckled in, and they won’t even let me back out of the driveway if they’re not buckled. This coming generation of drivers is going to be more used to it because they’ve used seat belts forever.”