Reports Suggest Hands-Free Law Is Working
Thursday, April 3rd, 2025
The CMT web page with the report.
Two recent reports suggest that Colorado’s law forbidding use of a cellphone while driving, except in hands-free mode, is having an effect.
The more significant of the two is from the Colorado State Patrol, which, according to an article in The Denver Post on April 1, said that distracted driving citations have increased in 2025 by 135% over the previous year.
As far as I can tell, it’s playing out exactly as I said it would. Driving with your phone in your hand is now illegal, but it is only a secondary offense, meaning you can’t be stopped just for that. So what will happen is that the cops will stop you for something else and then tack on the citation for using your phone, while perhaps being “nice” to you by not citing you for what they “actually” stopped you for. Or maybe they’ll cite you for that, too.
And the point, really, is that if they see you engaged in careless or reckless driving they could stop you for that before. It’s just that now, with the emphasis on getting people to be aware of and obey this new law they are apparently focusing more on stops for careless/reckless driving.
Either way, I’ll take it.
Meanwhile, a report from Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) says that the data “reveal a 3.3% reduction in phone motion distraction statewide, an improvement that CMT estimates to have prevented 88 crashes, 49 injuries, and $3.5 million in economic damages since the law began.”
CMT uses data drawn from cellphone tracking. Just in case you wondered if your moves are being tracked, presumably anonymously, be assured that they are. According to the report, “CMT defines phone motion distraction as when a phone moves with its screen on while a vehicle is in motion. The study analyzed over 3.8 million trips in Colorado between December 1, 2024, and February 11, 2025, measuring changes in distraction before and after the law took effect.”
Mind you, the improvement is measured in seconds, but all it takes is about one or two seconds of inattentive driving for you to totally change your life or the life of someone else.
One question here that I wonder about is how they distinguish between phone use by a driver vs. by a passenger. I would guess they can’t, so the figures are overall. Still, considering how much of the time people are alone in their cars, sussing out how much of the phone use is passenger vs. driver is not of overriding consequence. If the amount of time is declining that’s a good thing.
Still, let’s not fool ourselves. Just in the last week I’ve been behind a car that repeatedly wandered over into the next lane and when I was able to shoot past the guy he was looking at his phone. In another instance I was behind a guy who had his phone on a mount on the dashboard. I watched as he repeatedly reached up and tapped it, scrolled it, and pretty much constantly interacted with it. That is not hands-free. We’ve got a long way to go to fix this problem but at least we’re making a start.
