Texting ban depends on public awareness
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Experts agree that the success of Pennsylvania's impending ban on texting while driving will depend to a great degree on how much funding is available to support it.
Money is necessary not only to fund law enforcement crackdowns on illegal cell phone use, but also to create public awareness campaigns regarding the change in the law.
PG VIDEO"You want this to be high-visibility enforcement," said Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman with the Governors Highway Safety Association. "It is a resource issue, and it takes money to let people know you have these laws."
After Gov. Tom Corbett signs the bill into law, Pennsylvania will become the 35th state in the nation to ban texting while driving. It will be punishable by a $50 fine.
Nine states ban all handheld cell phone use.
"It's not going to be a magic bullet," Mr. Adkins said of the new law. "Much like drunk driving and seat belt laws, it takes a while to perfect the enforcement techniques."
Pam Fischer was the director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety from 2007 to 2010. During that time, the Legislature passed a ban on handheld cell phone use and on texting while driving. They used a slogan to get the word out, "Hang up. Just drive."
"There was a tremendous amount of awareness," Ms. Fischer said.
A number of communities received funding to do cell-phone patrols and to create checkpoints. During her tenure, law enforcement in New Jersey was averaging 10,000 tickets per month.
There, the fine for a violation was $100 plus costs.
But the revenues for the tickets do not go toward any public education campaign, Ms. Fischer said.
"It gets harder and harder to do these kinds of programs," she said. "It's expensive to do this stuff."
Christopher Wagner, the police chief in Denville, N.J., in late 2008 started a concerted effort to battle illegal cell-phone use in his community.
"Quite honestly, it became frustrating to me," he said. "I realized we weren't doing a very good job enforcing it."
In September 2009, the chief got a flashing message sign board that announced the prohibited cell phone use and placed it on the highway in front of the police department.
"Hang up or pay up," it said.
Then on a specified day, he dispatched 14 officers to do a cell-phone crackdown for two hours in the morning and another two hours in the afternoon.
One man was stopped twice in the same day. He got two tickets.
"It's kind of crazy," Chief Wagner said. "People just don't pay attention."
First Published November 3, 2011 12:00 am
