Bill urges hands-free cell-phone use in cars

OLYMPIA – We’ve all seen them: drivers who creep along at 15 miles under the speed limit, who sit at a stoplight long after it’s turned green, or who weave back and forth in their lane.

No, not drunken drivers.

Cell-phone talkers.

“I’ve seen a lot of distracted driving,” said Spokane mechanical engineer Jake Laete, who commutes 24 miles a day by bike when the weather’s warm. “Normally, it’s because the person has their left hand up to their ear.”

Some Washington lawmakers – and an increasing number of their counterparts in other states – say it’s time to put down the phone. Washington’s Senate Bill 5160 would make it a traffic infraction to hold a mobile phone to your ear, starting in 2007.

The bill’s prime sponsor, Sen. Tracey Eide, D-Federal Way, said she doesn’t want to ban the phones – or even ban people from talking while driving. But they should use a hands-free phone, she said.

“We need to step up and say you need to at least be aware of what’s around you,” she said, citing a study that suggested that cell phones increase the risk of an accident by 400 percent. She held up an American Automobile Association pamphlet reading “Drive Safer. Talk Later.”

“You can’t tell me there isn’t a problem,” she said.

The bill’s other sponsor, Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, said he signed on because a local logging truck driver crashed his rig and died while eating a sandwich and talking on a cell phone.

As with previous versions, the bill is opposed by some wireless phone companies, who have competing studies suggesting that cell phones aren’t so distracting.

A lobbyist for Sprint said the company “opposes any legislation that would single out wireless phones as a distraction.” Drivers, she said, must take responsibility for their behavior while driving.

Cingular Wireless is neutral on the bill, said lobbyist Steve Gano. The company had opposed previous versions. A key concession, Gano said, was that Eide agreed to make hands-on phoning a “secondary” offense, meaning that the driver can’t be cited for it unless they also break some other driving rule.

Bills like SB 5160 are increasingly common, according to Matt Sundeen, a transportation expert at the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures. New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C., have all passed bills similar to what Washington’s considering, he said. Fourteen other states have passed more modest restrictions, such as banning cell-phone use by new drivers or people driving school buses.

“When we first started tracking these, the bills were pretty much dead on arrival,” he said. They have a much better chance of passing now, he said.

And it’s not just phones, Sundeen said. California passed a law restricting DVD players in cars. Other states regulate where TV screens can be placed in cars. In Tennessee, lawmakers found it necessary to pass a law banning driving while playing pornography in one’s car.

“They call it ‘porn while driving,’ ” Sundeen said.

On Tuesday, several people drove a long way to put in their two cents on Eide’s bill. Among them was John C. Casper, who drove up from Vancouver on a stretch of road where the speed limit is 70 miles an hour. En route, he said, he passed a woman driving about 45 miles an hour in the fast lane.

“I glanced over and sure enough, she was using a cell phone,” he said.