It won’t be hard to enforce the new statewide distracted driving law, according to both the Ohio State Highway Patrol and Columbus police.
In the city of Columbus, it’s been illegal to send or receive a text message while driving since 2010. The offense is an enforceable minor misdemeanor, which can carry a fine of $150.
Just one Columbus police officer, Keith Connor, has issued more than 1,000 citations and four times as many warnings for texting and driving in the last five years.
“People are so concentrated on the phone and so thinking about what they're doing,” Connor said. “They literally will be driving down High Street and not notice a marked big city cruiser that says Columbus Police right on it, right next to them.”
Connor catches people while driving or by sitting on corners and watching the passing cars much the same way police watch for speeding.
Other police agencies have also been enforcing distracted driving for years, just as a secondary offense. Police could not stop someone just for texting, but they could add a citation for texting when stopping a driver for breaking another law.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol has issued more than 41,000 distracted driving citations since 2018, their distracted driving dashboard shows.
“People are so concentrated on the phone and so thinking about what they're doing. They literally will be driving down High Street and not notice a marked big city cruiser that says Columbus Police right on it, right next to them.”
Ohio State Highway Patrol Sgt. Tyler Ross said that during the six-month grace period allowed by the new state law, patrolmen will be stopping distracted drivers to give information about the dangers. Starting Oct. 5, drivers will be cited.
Ross said people underestimate how serious distracted driving can be.
“I don't think people understand how big of an area of concern that it is and how prevalent it is, not just the crashes, but how many people do it,” Ross said.
Since 2018, there have been more than 1,800 serious injury or fatal crashes in the state attributed to distracted driving, according to OSHP.
Ross said an average text takes 4 seconds to read or send. A car traveling 55 miles an hour will cover a football field in that amount of time and a lot can change.
“We just encourage the public to pay attention to the road around you, pay attention to your vehicle. It can wait. You can wait. You can send that text message (later),” Ross said.
Connor said he became a top enforcer of distracted driving in Ohio because a close friend lost a loved one in a distracted driving crash.
“If you're not paying attention to the actual road, you're basically driving a 5,000-pound weapon,” Connor said. “And that's the way I look at it, because, you know, it just takes us a moment to look down and you could take out that kid on the crosswalk.”
Ross encourages everyone to familiarize themselves with the new law. It has some exceptions, like calling emergency personnel and sending a message while stopped at a traffic light.
However, texting at a stop light is not allowed in Columbus, according to city law.
