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Texting while driving, red-light cameras and party buses are among the targets of new driving-related laws that took effect in California Tuesday, Jan. 1.
Among the bills passed by the state Legislature and signed into law this year by Gov. Jerry Brown is a new law permitting drivers to text while driving provided they are not using their fingers, California Highway Patrol spokeswoman Fran Clader said. The law, Assembly Bill 1536, authored by Assemblyman Jeff Miller, R-Corona, amends the existing law that prohibits drivers from holding a cellphone in a car. It allows motorists to use voice-activated, hands-free devices to dictate, send or listen to text messages, Clader said.
State law already allowed hands-free verbal calling, but the new one makes it legal to use software applications to dictate texts or listen to incoming written texts that the device “reads” aloud, Clader said.
“This allows you to use any voice-activated device so you don’t have to type to text,” Clader said.
Drivers under 18 are still not permitted to use any type of cellphone in a vehicle, she said. Under the law, drivers will be allowed to touch their phones to activate or deactivate the hands-free functions.
Another new law, Senate Bill 1303, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, deals with cameras installed by local law enforcement agencies that take pictures of the license plates of cars running red lights, Clader said. The drivers later receive citations by mail.
Under the new rules, agencies using the red-light cameras have to put up signs within 200 feet of the intersections where they are located announcing the cameras’ presence, make a public statement about each camera, and issue only warnings to violators for the first 30 days after installation, Clader said.
“This is so the motorist is aware that there is a red light camera operating there,” Clader said.
Simitian, in a letter he sent this year and posted on his website urging Brown to sign the bill, complained that sometimes “cameras have clearly been installed to raise revenue, rather than protect public safety.”
AB 2020, by Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, will remove the right of people arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs to opt for a urine test, making only a blood test available to them, Clader said. Another law, AB 45 by Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, takes aim at charter-party vehicles such as limos and buses. It will require that the carrier have a chaperone age 25 or older in the vehicle if any passengers will be drinking to ensure that no minors are given alcohol. Both the chaperone and the carrier will be held responsible for any violations.
Hill has said that he drafted the bill back in 2010 in memory of Brett Studebaker, 19, of Burlingame, who died when he crashed his car earlier that year after being allowed to drink on a party bus even though he was underage. The issue of chartered party buses received additional attention last July when 25-year-old Santa Cruz resident Natasha Noland was killed on Highway 17 after apparently falling out of a party bus during a fight with another partygoer after consuming alcohol.
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If you can not put down the damn phone, stay away from the car. What’s so important that it can’t wait until you’re done driving? Gawd knows most of the idiots out there can use every bit of concentration they have to avoid smashing into something or someone.
This new law about red light cameras misses the point. The problem is not that drivers haven’t been sufficiently warned – they should always know they can be ticketed if driving unsafely. The real problem is that some of these greedy cities have recklessly lowered the yellow light timings to bring in more revenue. (Search for union city yellow light.) What we need is traffic engineers knowing that they’ll go to prison if their timings cause a collision, just as they would if their negligence causes a building to collapse. The repercussions against Union City were way too mild; if that didn’t violate criminal law, the law needs to be changed.
Independent verification of timings wouldn’t hurt, and it’s quite easy to do with a stopwatch. At a speed of 35 mph or higher, the yellow light must last at least 3.6 seconds. 40 mph, 3.9 seconds. 45 mph, 4.3 seconds. 25 mph or less, 3.0 seconds. That covers about all of Mountain View. If you see an intersection with less, raise hell!
Once again, I should read the actual source rather than trust the Mountain View Voice’s summary. That bill does a lot more than what the Voice said – and I’m happy to see it mentions that an authority in charge of cameras must create guidelines “overseeing the establishment or change of signal phases and the timing thereof.” I don’t think that’s strict enough, and I don’t think the portion about warning drivers is necessary at all, but the bill seems to be generally progress at least.
Remember.. if you think driving while using a cell phone (talking or texting) is so dangerous.. please explain why the police are exempt from this law.
We outfit their cars with radios and computers. Why the need to use a phone while driving their patrol cars?
Want a good fix? Use the GPS feature of phones and program it to disable communications while the phone is in motion and moving faster than 10 mph (or slower than 150 mph, which would allow airline passengers to use their phones where allowed). Nobody would be able to use hands-on phones while driving, even if they want to. 911-type emergency calls would still be allowed to go through of course.
As far as the complaint of non-driving passengers having their phones disabled too, all I can say is “Oh well”. Learn to live with it. You aren’t allowed to drink alcohol as a passenger in a car either, even though you have nada to do with it’s operation. It’s the price of saving lives….sounds like a good trade-off to me.
To Otto Maddox:
How come you didn’t point out communication devices of fire engines and ambulances too? If you called the police wanting them to arrive as soon as possible, wouldn’t you want the police station to be able to contact and instruct officers of such ASAP?
There’s a BIG difference between professionals with the role of protecting people’s lives and regular folk making a business or pleasure call. Night and day. Apples vs. oranges. There’s no comparison.
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