Cellphone crackdown: 113 tickets and counting

When Trooper Keith Leary pulled alongside a woman using her cellphone on Interstate 5 one recent morning, it was pretty clear she knew she could be in trouble.

"She literally threw that phone across her car like it was a hot potato," Leary said. "She got rid of it pretty quick."

In the first half-month of the state's ban on using handheld cellphones while driving, Washington State Patrol troopers stopped nearly 300 drivers, ticketing 113. An untold number of others ditched their phones as fast as possible when police vehicles approached.

Under the law, Leary couldn't stop the woman he saw on Interstate 5 near Lynnwood, because she hadn't committed any other offense.

"But she saw me, and I think that was enough to get the point across. I'm not sure if she might have busted her phone."

Despite the stops, troopers say, Washington drivers generally seem to be heeding the law that bans the use of handheld phones — but allows hands-free phones — while driving.

Trooper Cliff Pratt, spokesman for the patrol division that covers King County, said he and other troopers, when driving their own personal cars, are noticing fewer people holding cellphones to their ears.

Those informal observations, Pratt says, are probably more telling than what troopers see from behind the wheel of their patrol cars. "Obviously, if you see us, you're going to drive straight as an arrow."

In King County, troopers stopped 37 cellphone users from July 1 through 15, issuing 13 tickets and 24 warnings. To the north, troopers stopped 34 drivers and wrote seven tickets in the district that includes Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom, Island and San Juan counties. Those figures don't include stops by local police agencies.

"We want to educate people more than we want to ticket people," Leary said.

The most common "primary" offenses troopers have been using to pull over cellphone violators include drifting across lane lines and speeding, Pratt said. Troopers have also stopped people for not using seat belts, driving on the shoulder, following too closely and having defective headlights or taillights.

Even when a motorist is stopped, it's up to the officer whether to issue a $124 ticket or simply a warning. Pratt said troopers typically base that decision on how dangerous the person's driving is.

"We're still getting the word out," Pratt said. "It's going to take a few months to a year for everyone to get the message."

So far this month, cellphone use has been listed as a factor in two collisions investigated by the State Patrol.

Washington joined five other states and the District of Columbia banning handheld-cellphones use by drivers. But in most of those states, a violation is a primary infraction, meaning a police officer can stop a driver for that alone.

In California, where a cellphone-driving ban took effect July 1 making offenses a primary infraction, more than 4,000 tickets have already been written by the California Highway Patrol alone. The "base fine" is $20 for a first offense, but motorists actually pay more than three times that amount once local assessments, which vary from county to county, are added.

Sen. Tracey Eide, D-Federal Way, the prime sponsor of Washington's law, said she, too, has noticed fewer drivers holding cellphones. But not everyone's complying: On a drive home from Eastern Washington on Sunday, Eide noticed several motorists using handheld phones, including drivers of two tractor-trailer rigs.

Eide said she would like the law eventually changed to make violations a primary infraction, similar to the way the state's seat-belt law was implemented as a secondary offense in 1986 and became a primary offense in 2002.

But she has no plans to push for the move in the next Legislative session, adding: "It took me seven years just to get this."

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com