Chief: Texting While Driving Ban Could Be Difficult To Enforce

Melrose Police Chief Mike Lyle foresees challenges in enforcing the texting-while-driving ban included in legislation currently on Gov. Deval Patrick's desk and awaiting the governor's signature.

The compromise bill, approved by both chambers of the Legislature, prohibits any driver, regardless of age, from text messaging on a cell phone while behind the wheel of a car. Massachusetts would join 28 other states and the District of Columbia that currently ban all forms of texting and handheld use.

It also makes texting violations a primary offense, meaning that a police officer can pull over a driver solely for texting while driving, in contrast to a secondary offense such as not wearing a seat belt, which a police officer can only enforce after first pulling over a driver for another violation, such as running a red light.

Those caught texting while driving would face a $100 fine for a first offense, $250 for a second offense and a $500 fine for all subsequent offenses under the proposed law.

If texting while driving remains a primary violation, Lyle said he envisions challenges to officers' discretion in enforcing the ban.

"Someone can say, 'Oh, my cell phone fell off the visor and I was only putting it back," he said. "At nighttime, cell phones do generally illuminate when calling or texting and that could help for enforcement purposes, but you never know ... it seems to me it'd be a tough one to have as a primary offense."

Despite those potential challenges, Lyle said the problem of increasing cell phone use by drivers "clearly" should be addressed.

"To keep one eye on your cell phone and one eye on the road is virtually impossible," he said.

Between 4,000 and 8,000 crashes occur in the United States each year because of distracted drivers, according to studies by AAA. The U.S. Department of Transportation on its website about distracted driving, distraction.gov, states that nearly 6,000 fatalities occurred in 2008 in accidents related to distraction and that driving while talking on a cell phone has been proven to reduce brain activity by 37 percent. In addition to cell phones, driving distractions include eating; reading a map; attending to children; dealing with pets in the vehicle; and using a GPS system, amongst others.

Lyle offered anecdotal evidence of the problem with cell phones in plain view of any driver or pedestrian. He said when stopped at a red light or walking near a red light, to look inside the cars and see how many drivers have cell phones in their hands.

"It's astonishing," he said. "It goes from the new driver all the way up to the seasoned driver ... it's surprising the number of people who are using cell phones (while driving) and a lot use them for text. Folks use them very widely."