Safeguarding roads or boosting police power?

State Senator Rosemary Brown says that Bill 37 still lets drivers use hands-free features like Bluetooth, but it would allow officers to write a ticket resulting in a $50 fine if they see a driver’s hands holding a cell phone, and not on the wheel. Residents in State College say they have mixed feelings about the bill.

"In many ways, it could be right, in many ways, it could be wrong," said State College resident Faisal Jaafar, "because a glance at a phone is just like sneezing, I mean you’re spending the same amount of time sneezing with your eyes shut or blowing a nose as you would when holding a phone," he continued.

According to the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration, distracted driving is a leading cause of car accidents.

“These are crashes and we say crashes because they can be prevented," said Senator Rosemary Brown.

Senator Brown says that she has been trying to get a hands-free cell phone bill passed in Pennsylvania for more than 10 years. She says the bill is also known as Paul Miller’s law, who died in a crash with a distracted driver in Monroe County in 2010.

“Drivers in Pennsylvania at this point really deserve this safety measure, it is out of control, it is a very strong safety concern for all drivers, innocent drivers, people doing everything right every day," said Senator Brown.

Senator Brown says the bill has bipartisan support, but there are still many groups in opposition. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, or the ACLU, says that they are in favor of trying to discourage distracted driving, but that this bill ‘would recklessly expand police power to engage in pretextual traffic stops.’

“We are worried that it is both unnecessary and could lead to additional reasons for police officers to pull people over based on just sort of discretionary decisions that would be incredibly difficult to prove," said ACLU legislative director Elizabeth Randol. "To convict someone of this offense we think it’s going to be nearly impossible to do," she continued.

The bill has already passed through both the state Senate and House of Representatives and Senator Brown says that since there were a few changes made, it now comes back to the Senate before going to the Governor’s desk. Pennsylvania currently has a no-texting law in place, but she described it as useless.

“There’s no way for the officer to understand if that’s happening and they would never take your phone and look through it, the only time that happens is when an accident has happened and there’s a fatality and so that’s too late," said Senator Brown.

The Senate resumes session at the end of April, which is also distracted driving awareness month.

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