LIHU‘E — A ban on the use of handheld electronic devices while driving seemed destined for passage out of committee Wednesday before being deferred at the final moment amid safety concerns.
A proposed amendment introduced by Kaua‘i County Councilman Daryl Kaneshiro would have carved out an exception for drivers with Commercial Drivers Licenses who use two-way radios because those drivers often need to communicate in the course of their work and because it would be hazardous for them to pull their “big rigs” to the side of the road, he said.
A preliminary version of the bill provided by Public Safety/Energy/Intergovernmental Relations Committee Chair Derek Kawakami in October already contained language exempting drivers using two-way radios for work-related duties, but Kaneshiro’s amendment would go further to protect the business community.
Councilman Dickie Chang said the amendment should not be interpreted as “carte blanche” for CDL drivers to “talk story” on their cell phones, and Kaneshiro agreed that drivers should not take advantage.
Kaua‘i Police Department Patrol Services Bureau Acting Capt. Mark Scribner said large vehicles like 18-wheelers should be held to a higher safety standard and drivers of those vehicles need to be “more responsive and more attentive” than others because a crash with a large truck could involve more vehicles, more damage and more serious injuries than collisions among smaller cars.
Scribner also warned such a provision would likely be abused and would prove difficult to enforce because it would be hard for police to differentiate between legal and illegal uses, and said next-generation phones with push-to-talk technology can be used as both two-way radios for work purposes and traditional cell phones for personal calls.
While KPD Chief Darryl Perry had responded in the affirmative when asked if he supported Bill No. 2336 as originally written, no councilmembers asked Perry or Scribner if they supported the amendment.
Both confirmed in interviews following the meeting that they were opposed to the amendment.
Following Scribner’s testimony, the council moved to vote on the amendment, and Kawakami, who had originally introduced the bill at the behest and with the blessing of KPD, briefly declared the motion had passed with support from Kaneshiro and himself and committee member Jay Furfaro out of the room.
However, Chang and Councilwoman Lani Kawahara spoke up, with Chang saying he had not considered the impacts on safety before Scribner’s testimony but now had concerns and was uncomfortable. At Kawakami’s suggestion, Chang asked for and was granted a deferral.
The bill will be heard on Jan. 13, the next time council committees are scheduled to meet, Kawakami said.
Discrimination
against the deaf?
Earlier, deaf Kaua‘i man Larry Littleton testified that inattentiveness — including the application of makeup or eating food — is what causes accidents, not electronic devices. He said the bill, if passed, would force people to repeatedly pull over to the side of the road and then merge back into traffic, behaviors he described as unsafe.
He suggested that instead of an island-wide ban, the county create mobile-free zones near schools or hospitals but allow use in other areas.
Electronic devices like text messages have proven to be a boon for the hearing-impaired as it has allowed them an important means of communication, but county Americans with Disabilities Act Coordinator Christina Pilkington testified that she was unaware of any other states or Hawai‘i counties that have determined bans on electronics to be discriminatory.
After interjecting that the question for Pilkington was a legal mater, County Attorney Al Castillo told the council that the equal protection clause in the U.S. Constitution has been raised in other jurisdictions and has been denied.
“Because of the safety issue, the constitutional challenge did not survive in the cases we’re aware of,” Castillo said, arguing that the bill can proceed because it is in the “best interest of safety, health and welfare of our community.”
Enforcement and rationale
Perry said the bill would filter its way through the community like seatbelt laws enacted in recent years — at first, drivers will be aware of the new legislation through reports in the media and compliance rates will be very high, but drivers will eventually lapse and enforcement will be needed.
“It wouldn’t be difficult to enforce the law,” Perry said, adding he had seen a number of drivers on cell phones on his way to the Historic County Building. “Not at all.”
He said existing legislation — Section 291-12 of the Hawai‘i Revised Statutes is titled “inattention to driving” — punishes only those who cause a collision due to electronics use and cannot be enforced as a preventative measure.
He said “the jury is still out” on studies that suggest it is the divided attention due to conversation — be it on hand-held or hands-free phones — that causes crashes. He added that while KPD has not been tracking local statistics for how many collisions on Kaua‘i are attributable to cell phone use, “I’m pretty sure with my years of experience” that electronics contribute to crashes.
Kawakami said references in the legislation to hands-free devices were removed because he did not want the bill to be used as an endorsement for a technology that may or may not be less dangerous than hand-held electronic devices.
The bill provided in October defines “mobile electronic device” to include cell phones, text messaging devices, pagers, digital assistants, laptop computers, video games and cameras, but does not include audio equipment or navigation systems, or any video systems for passengers in the rear seats.
The original bill called for a maximum fine of $50 for offenders.
