Legislation

 

FocusDriven applauds those introducing legislation to ban cell phone use while driving. We often speak with legislators to educate them about why such laws are necessary. At FocusDriven, we believe laws, strongly enforced, will help keep our roadways safe. FocusDriven appreciates the support of the National Safety Council which provided the following content.

Cell Phone & Texting Laws

Laws plus visible enforcement are effective at reducing crashes and saving lives, making our roads safer for all. Each legislative season, there is a lot of activity regarding cell phones and driving. Check the resources here for current status of state bills being debated and laws enacted.
 
 
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety maintains updated information about state cell phone and text messaging laws. U.S. maps show at-a-glance information about state laws.
 
 

 

 

The Governors Highway Safety Association
maintains current information about state laws in an easy-to-compare table format.
 


 
The National Conference of State Legislatures
(NCSL) maintains a current database of bills not passed into law including status, authors and legislative history. Visit the NSCL database  and choose "Distracted Driving" as the topic.
 
NCSL also tracks cell phone laws on a chart including whether the state collects cell phone crash data.



Legislative Summaries

Cell Phones and Highway Safety: 2006 State Legislative Report
Matt Sundeen, National Conference of State Legislatures (2007)

Legislative summary : Cell phones and other driving distractions (Canada)
William Glenn. Workplace Environment Health & Safety Reporter (2008)



Public Opinion

Recent surveys have measured public support for hands-free, handheld and texting bans. According to these surveys, the public supports banning hands-free and handheld phones more than legislators and employers may think they do. Visit the Public Opinion Surveys section in Key Research for links to survey results.



Enforcement

"Phone in One Hand. Ticket in the Other." NHTSA pilots enforcement of cell phone laws in Syracuse, New York and Hartford, Connecticut. It applies the Click It or Ticket high-visibility enforcement strategy to cell phones.


Evaluation

Several short- and longer-term evaluations of laws have been published. Visit the Evaluations of Laws section in Key Research.