Drivers reminded to Park Their Phones While Driving or Risk Getting a Ticket

The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, Georgia State Patrol, and local law enforcement agencies are asking drivers to go “Hands Free for Safety” or risk being handed a ticket for violating Georgia’s hands-free law.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has designated April as National Distracted Driving Awareness Month with April 8th designated as the  “Connect2Disconnect’ national enforcement day.  GOHS and its 16 regional traffic enforcement networks will be conducting distracted driving enforcement operations throughout Georgia during the entire month, with the goal to save lives and reduce crashes.  According to NHTSA, the number of traffic crash deaths linked to driver distraction accounted for almost nine percent of all fatalities in the United States in 2019.  Drivers in the 15-19 age group had the largest proportion of drivers who were distracted at the time of fatal crashes at nine percent.  Even though overall traffic fatalities in the United States dropped from 2018 to 2019, distraction-related fatalities increased by ten percent from 2018 to 2019.  While the number of distracted driving fatalities has increased nationally, the trend in Georgia is going in the opposite direction and the state’s hands-free law is likely one of the reasons for the decrease in traffic deaths in crashes involving a distracted driver.   Georgia’s hands-free law took effect on July 1, 2018, and prohibits drivers from holding a phone or supporting a phone with their body when they are on the road.  According to data from NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the number of fatalities involving a distracted driver in Georgia decreased by 27 percent from 59 people in 2018 to 43 people in 2019.