States Experiment With Sending Distracted Drivers to Jail

Alongside the rise in popularity of smartphones, most states have put distracted driving laws on the books over the past decade. Getting defenseless calling or texting behind the wheel can cost drivers from $20 in California for a outset criminal offense to a whopping $10,000 in Alaska.

Opinions Just if you look around in traffic on any given 24-hour interval, you know that fines are not enough to stop some people from checking incoming text messages or Facebook condition updates while driving. So several states add jailtime as an even stronger deterrent, including Oregon, where I live and bulldoze.

An Oregon law that went into upshot July ane raises the penalties for distracted driving with each offense, culminating in possible jailtime. A first offense that doesn't contribute to a crash carries a fine of upwards to $1,000, while the fine for a second offense or first offense contributing to a crash tin can exist as high equally $2,000.

"If information technology's not enough encouragement to think y'all might contribute to a crash, the dollars can add up," Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) spokesperson Shelley Snow told Oregon's Hermiston Herald. And then does the pain of potential penalties, since a third offense within ten years comes with a fine of up to $2,500, a criminal tape, and the possibility of upwardly to six months in jail.

The new police gives Oregon the second harshest distracted driving penalties in the country involving jailtime. In Utah, if texting while driving results in an accident, the driver who acquired the accident tin face a license suspension and 90 days in jail. In addition to having the highest monetary penalties, Alaska tin can put drivers away for a year for texting using a handheld device while behind the wheel of a moving vehicle.

Carnage Caused by Distracted Driving

But fifty-fifty with the threat of fines and time in the slammer—and hands-complimentary alternatives such as automaker infotainment systems, Apple tree CarPlay, and Android Automobile—US drivers' addiction to mobile devices continues unabated. And so does the carnage caused past distracted driving.

Over the past two years there's been a 14 percentage rise in roadway fatalities in the US, and the largest dorsum-to-back increase in motor vehicle–related decease rates per mile driven in more than fifty years.

While statistics from the US Section of Transportation attributes only almost 9 pct of traffic deaths to distracted driving in general and even less specifically to phone use, AAA'due south Traffic Condom Civilization Index institute that 88 percent of drivers believe distracted driving is on the ascension, and that it beats out other risky behaviors such as ambitious driving (68 percentage) and drunkard (43 percent) or drugged driving (53 percent).

At the same time, the AAA survey plant that the percentage of drivers who say they talk on a phone regularly or fairly ofttimes while behind the wheel jumped 46 percentage since 2022, and nearly 35 per centum acknowledge sending a text or email while driving. Another recent study from AAA revealed that drivers talking on a handheld telephone are up to four times as likely to crash and those who text are up to viii times every bit likely to be involved in a crash.

ODOT'due south unofficial tally of accidents so far in 2022 shows that the state has had 172 traffic fatalities—up 17.8 percent from this time concluding year—while 10,814 crashes occurred in Oregon between 2022 and 2022 involving a distracted commuter, including seventy fatalities. "Everyone using the transportation system—drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians alike—should put away the distractions when traveling to help eliminate these tragedies," commented Troy East. Costales, ODOT's Transportation Safe Division administrator.

"Distracted driving is an epidemic in Oregon and the consequences can exist deadly," he added. Hopefully the threat of higher fines and possibly spending half-dozen months in jail will be more than of a deterrent to continue Oregon drivers from reaching for their phones.

Information technology'southward a pocket-sized price to pay for saving lives, and I applaud my home state for getting tougher on distracted driving.

About Doug Newcomb

Doug Newcomb

Doug Newcomb is a recognized expert on the subject of car engineering within the automobile industry and amongst the automotive and general media, and a frequent speaker at automotive and consumer electronics industry events. Doug began his career in 1988 at the machine stereo trade publication Mobile Electronics, earlier serving every bit editor of the leading consumer magazines covering the topic, Motorcar Audio and Electronics and Car Stereo Review/Mobile Amusement/Route & Track Road Gear, from 1989 to 2005. In 2005 Doug started his own visitor, Newcomb Communications & Consulting, to provide content to such outlets as Road & Track, Popular Mechanics, MSN Autos, SEMA News, and many others. In 2008, he …