Starting October 1st, Maryland motor vehicle drivers may be ticketed if they are operating their vehicles while talking on a hand-held cellphone. May be, that is.
In April 2010, Maryland became the seventh state in the U.S. to sign into law restrictions on cellphone use by drivers. However, unlike Mid Atlantic neighbors New Jersey, New York and the District of Columbia, Maryland drivers, with only two exceptions, will not be cited unless they are stopped by officers for some other reason, such as a traffic or equipment violation, making the law the weakest in the nation.
Exceptions to the citation as a secondary charge are for school bus drivers with passengers and in motion and those with learners' permits or provisional licenses who are 18 years old or older. Those drivers may be stopped and cited for the cellphone violation alone.
Hand-held cellphone use is allowed if the driver is using his phone to call 911, a hospital, an ambulance, fire department, law enforcement agency or first aid squad. Police and fire department officials are also allowed to use hand-held cellphones while driving, so long as it is done so within the scope of their official duties.
Fines for illegal cellphone use while driving are $40 for the first violation and $100 for the second and subsequent violations.
Police and Firmen are specially trained to use the device and are therefore excluded from the statue which applies to the little people.
ReplyDeletePolice and Firemen are also specially trained to fly down the road at 100 mph so they can catch the rest of us going 65 in a 55 zone.
They are afterall, qualitatively better people than the little people.
How about this instead:
ReplyDeleteIf a person uses a cell phone while driving and hurts another person, or damages property, then the driver is responsible for making it right.
How about them apples?
It is called Common Law and it has a jurisdiction under the United States Constitution
No need for more "statutes" issued by the King to be obeyed by us little people
Looks like the state of Maryland is about to make a lot of money off this!
ReplyDeleteI'm am just glad that I can still smoke a cigarette, drink my coffee, eat a bagel and apply make-up all at the same time while I'm driving and not get a ticket....those people with cellphones are dangerous.
ReplyDeleteThey will not enforce this law. There are too many "parimeters" to it and they'll be afraid they'll lose if someone charged decides to fight the ticket.
ReplyDeleteIt needs to be a "blanket" law and pertain to ALL with no special rules for Exceptions to the citation as a secondary charge are for school bus drivers with passengers and in motion and those with learners' permits or provisional licenses who are 18 years old or older.
It's too confusing and too hard to enforce.
I also feel the first offense should be 400.00 instead of 40.00.
At least then, the amount of the fine MIGHT be a deterrent.
How would LEO know a person has a provisional license or learner's permit until after they have been stopped? Remember though, there has to be another reason for the stop other than just the phone in the first place. Sounds like DUI checkpoints, stop everybody then decide who and what to charge them with.
ReplyDeleteamen 1017
ReplyDeleteno one is allowed to sing with the radio. no one is allowed to talk to their passenegers - after all, that like talking on the phone.
i speak the truth - i saw a woman CUTTING COUPONS while driving!
Get rid of the "have to be stopped for something else" factor.
ReplyDeleteIt's either illegal or it's not.
This is just another law written to appease those people they don't want to tick off and to protect their "friends".
I still almost daily see children riding in cars not in seatbelts but because they wrote the seatbelt laws in the same fashion, these children are at risk and the parents obviously don't care!
I'm not for having government involved in every aspect of my life but stop wasting time passing laws which will never be enforced!
Keep doing it and most will stop paying attention to the laws all together. Then what will we have?
1126am
ReplyDeletethats called darwin's law. if they die or get injured, so be it.
I am very happy that I can still read my newspaper while driving.
ReplyDeleteLeave it to MD to be the weak, unorganized state as usual.
ReplyDeleteremember folks when the seatbelt law came out it was secondary as well then was changed.
ReplyDeleteAt least in the car you arent overhearing everything they say.It is annoying to be in a grocery store or restaurant or doctors office and have someone talking very loudly on their cellphone the entire time.They are indiscreet and I have heard it all.Especially eye-opening is when you overhear a drug deal by an idiot who doesnt think anyone can hear him,even when he is yelling into the phone.
ReplyDeleteI will have NO pity on you if you're on your phone when you crash into me! If you want to keep talking instead of concentrating on driving, you'll suffer the consequences of your actions.
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