Look ma! No (phone in my) hands!
By: Brantley Tyndall, Bike Walk RVA Director of Outreach
It is exciting to be writing to you from the brand new year of 2021. Happy New Year, and I am happy to be bringing you some good news for our safety while out walking, biking, and, frankly, also driving.
If you’ve been a regular reader, you know that we have written about Distracted Driving a number of times. We partnered with Drive Smart Virginia who led the initiative to change the law in Virginia to prohibit driving while distracted by a smart phone, whether texting, email, scrolling, or calling. If you’re like me, you’ve been on the receiving end of several, if not many, near crashes because of a distracted driver. This is such a big step for our safety.
Their efforts finally paid off in March of 2020 and the law was changed, carried by Delegate Bourne from Richmond and Senator Surovell from Fairfax. It takes effect TODAY – January 1, 2021!
Henceforth, drivers are prohibited from holding a phone (that pretty much takes care of most distracting behaviors in a way that is enforceable and is easy to understand and communicate) while driving. You can still text, call, and send that quick email while lawfully stopped, though!
Check out this article for more information, and happy attentive driving to Virginians starting now.
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