Cell phone law could have
benefited from research

A statewide ban on the use of hand-held cell phones by operators of motor vehicles will officially go into effect in New Jersey today, and will replace the laws enacted by officials in several municipalities that have heretofore addressed the issue.

With nearby Marlboro Township leading the way on the issue in 2001, police officers in that town, and others such as Jamesburg and Carteret in Middlesex County, have been able to stop motorists and ticket them for the act of using a hand-held cell phone. The local laws made the use a primary offense.

The state Legislature — unwilling to go that far — made the use of a hand-held cell phone by the operator of a motor vehicle a secondary offense. That means a motorist can only be cited for the offense if he has been stopped by a police officer for another moving violation. The penalty for using a hand-held cell phone ranges from $100 to $250, but no points will be placed on the driver’s license.

New Jersey’s law will leave it up to the discretion of a police officer when the operator of a motor vehicle is observed to be using a hand-held phone. The officer will have to determine whether any other violations are being committed before pulling over the driver and writing tickets for both offenses (the primary violation as well as the secondary violation — the use of the hand-held cell phone).

Marlboro Councilman Barry Denkensohn, who pushed hard for his governing body to enact a ban, is a realist when he notes that the law making the violation a secondary offense "really is a ban with no teeth in it."

The AAA New Jersey Auto-mobile Club did not support the state legislation, and cautions motorists against assuming that hands-free phones are safer than hand-held phones. A AAA spokeswoman said research shows that it’s conversation, and not the device used for it, that distracts a driver.

Information about the effect of using a hand-held phone while driving — which the state Legislature reportedly did not have when it passed the law — is what is needed most to determine if the violation deserves to be made a primary offense or taken off the books.