For many years, police throughout Virginia had ticketed drivers for reckless driving if they observed them texting while driving. However, in 2013 the Virginia legislature enacted a new driving while texting law. Under the law, texting while driving was a separate traffic infraction, punishable by a $125 fine for the first offense. It was also changed to be a primary offense, meaning officers could stop a vehicle solely on suspicion of texting while driving.
The Virginia pilot newspaper talked to the Virginia DMV and was able to learn that in the six months since the statute was enacted a total of 725 individuals had been convicted under the new law. That number reflects convictions not total tickets. (under the law, guilt may be difficult to prove. The police have the burden of showing that you were actually texting. Using a GPS or starting a phone call are not illegal. Many cases may have been found not guilty or had the charges reduced.)
Of the 725 tickets across the Commonwealth, 168 were in Fairfax County. According to a spokesman from the Fairafx County Police who spoke to the newspaper, Fairfax Police were responsible for 83 of those convictions. The remaining convictions were likely tickets written by other law enforcement officials throughout the County. These would include Airport Authority police, George Mason police, as well as the police in towns like Herndon, Vienna and Fairfax City. The spokesman did mention that the law doesn’t make it illegal to hold a cell phone and that it is often difficult for officer’s to determine whether someone is using the phone to text or for some other purpose that doesn’t violate the law.
The article also quotes a spokesman with the Virginia State Police who observed that driver distraction accounts for 20 percent of all fatal accidents in Virginia in 2013. That is 131 preventable deaths across the state.
