That’s when talking on the phone while driving can put you at risk of getting a $124 traffic ticket – unless you’re using a hands-free device. Then, it’s perfectly OK for you to keep on talkin’ and truckin’.

Three other states – New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – already have statewide bans that restrict drivers to hands-free devices. California will have a statewide law the same day that Washington’s takes effect. There are bans in other parts of the country, but they’re limited to specific cities or counties.

Don’t expect Washington’s highways, roads or streets to get

much safer when the new cell phone law takes effect. In fact, according to some highway safety experts, it might make matters worse.

“The public gets the message that as long as you’re hands-free, you’re safe,” said Jonathan Adkins, spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association, a national organization that pushes for seat-belt enforcement and other safety measures.

Drivers aren’t any safer, Adkins said.

Research has shown that drivers who were talking on the phone were four times more likely to be involved in a crash than those who weren’t, regardless of whether they were holding a cell phone or using a hands-free device. That was the conclusion of a 2005 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va., a national research group funded by the automotive insurance industry. That finding is cited repeatedly by other highway safety advocates.

“The science says whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, you’re distracted,” said Pam Fischer, director of the New Jersey division of highway traffic safety. “It’s not the holding of the device. It’s the conversation coming into your ear, and the fact that your eyes are no longer scanning the road. You’re staring at one fixed point ahead of you.”

A WEAKER LAW

As laws go, Washington’s ban on using hand-held cell phones is pretty wimpy compared to those on the East Coast, safety advocates say.

In each of those states, a cell phone violation is considered a primary offense, which means a police officer can write a $100 ticket if a driver is spotted holding a cell phone while driving.

Washington’s law will make a cell phone violation a secondary offense. That is, you’d have to get caught doing something else wrong before you could be ticketed for holding a phone to your ear while driving.

“Any highway safety law that’s secondary doesn’t have any significant impact,” Adkins said.

Fischer said New Jersey’s experience bears that out.

New Jersey’s original 2003 cell phone law was like Washington’s “watered-down” version, she said. It made a violation a secondary offense. During the first five years it was on the books, only 1,400 tickets were written statewide, she said.

It wasn’t until March that it became a primary offense. The revised law also made text messaging while driving a primary offense. In the first month the law took effect, officers wrote more than 13,000 tickets, she said.

“Having a primary ban on hand-held cell phones calls more attention to the issue of distraction,” Fischer said. “It says. ‘The state is serious about this issue. The state doesn’t want me to do this.’

“Any secondary law is weak because people don’t really stand up and take notice,” she said. “With a secondary law, you don’t get compliance.”

FORCED TO COMPROMISE

State Sen. Tracy Eide, D-Federal Way, has championed restricting cell phone usage in vehicles for seven years. Her original bill would have made holding a cell phone a primary offense, she said.

But the cell phone industry argued that it was being unfairly singled out. Talking on a cell phone is no more distracting than eating, talking to a passenger, putting on makeup, filing nails, shaving, or changing a compact disc or a radio station, industry representatives said. Those arguments held sway with some House leaders, who repeatedly killed Eide’s bill after it passed the Senate, Eide said.

Eide said she remembers being taken to lunch during the 2007 legislative session by the chief executive officer of a national cell phone company. The company’s local lobbyist was driving them to the restaurant, and talking on a cell phone, she said.

“He damn near runs a stop sign and he had to slam on his brakes,” Eide recalled in an interview last week. “I looked at the CEO and I said, ‘Need I say more?’”

The bill passed that year in the current watered-down form. The implementation date was delayed 14 months to give drivers a chance to buy hands-free devices.

Washington’s ban on text messaging while driving, on the other hand, took effect in January. That violation is also a secondary offense.

NO ‘PRETEXT’ STOPS, PATROL SAYS

Although there’s no formal grace period for enforcement of the new cell phone restrictions, troopers always have some discretion on whether to issue a warning or write a ticket with a fine, said Washington State Patrol spokesman Robert Calkins.

Troopers will use each contact with the public as an opportunity to educate, but they won’t be looking for excuses to pull over people just because they are talking on their cell phones, he said.

“We’re not going to do ‘pretext’ stops,” Calkins said. “We’re not going to say, ‘someone weaved here.’ Most likely, if a trooper clocks someone for speeding and also sees they are on their cell phone, then they’ll get a ticket for the cell phone, too.”

Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said the effectiveness of Washington’s cell phone law depends on enforcement.

“We know from other traffic safety laws that enforcement is the key,” Rader said. “You have to do it visibly and vigorously. Otherwise, people don’t expect they are likely to be caught or are likely to be ticketed.”

In New York, only 2,380 tickets were written for cell phone violation in 2001, when that state’s hands-free requirement took effect, said Nick Cantiello, spokesman for the New York Department of Motor Vehicles. In 2006, the most recent period for full-year statistics, the number of tickets increased to 285,684, he said.

“Cell phones are fabulous safety devices,” New Jersey’s Fischer said. “In an accident, or if you are profoundly lost, it is a wonderful tool to help you.”

But when you’re driving, you should be concentrating on the task at hand, she said.

“We’re overloading drivers because of technology in the car,” said Lowell Porter, director of the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

OTHER DISTRACTIONS?

Compact disc players. Satellite radio. IPods. MP3 players. PDAs. E-mail. Voice commands. Navigation devices. Each adds to driver distraction, Porter said.

AAA Washington, which has 960,000 members, also doubts the new cell phone law will do much good.

“We are somewhat concerned that the new law doesn’t really get at the heart of the traffic safety concern,” said AAA spokeswoman Janet Ray. “It’s the intensity of the conversation. Whether on a hands-free or hand-held phone, we still have that same distraction.

“We believe that it’s probably not going to do a lot to enhance traffic safety to just move to a hands-free device,” Ray said. “We will continue to recommend that people not talk on a cell phone unless they are parked.”

Sen. Eide said she was disappointed by the compromises that had to be made to get a law on the books, but said that at least it brings some awareness to the problem.

Adkins said Washington’s experience with its seat-belt law is evidence of how important enforcement is. At 96 percent, Washington has the highest compliance rate in the nation. That’s due largely to the repeated and vigorous use of its “Click It or Ticket” campaigns, he said.

That didn’t happen right away. Washington’s seat belt law was only a secondary offense when it was first enacted in 1986. It wasn’t until 2002, 16 years later, that it became a primary offense.

Adkins said it might take a complete ban on cell phones while driving to produce substantially safer highways. But even that might not work.

North Carolina banned any use of cell phones by 16- and 17-year-old drivers in December 2006. Five months later, an Insurance Institute study found that cell phone use actually had increased among teen drivers, Rader said.

“It’s very difficult to get people to put down their phones behind the wheel, whether they are teens or whether they are adults,” Rader said.

Joseph Turner: 253-597-8436

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