Mayor Mike Nutter of Philadelphia has signed off on the City Council’s ban on talking on handheld cell phones while driving.
The mayor did so under threats from state legislators. The Pennsylvania House on Monday approved an amendment that would prevent the state’s largest city from receiving $90 million in gas-tax and highway-repair funding if it went ahead with the ban. There is no state ban on handheld cell phones for all drivers.
“We are doing what we think is in our best interest,” he said Thursday while signing the cell phone legislation at a media set-up. ” If your hands aren’t on the wheel, you impair your ability to operate a vehicle.”
The mayor’s office has called the state DOT policy against individual city driving laws “highly ambiguous.”
On the same day Philadelphia enacted its cell phone law, a local driver who was talking on her phone allegedly caused a city bus to plow into parked cars and an above-ground subway pillar. Sixteen people, include a toddler, were injured, police reported.
The Philadephia prohibitions on handheld cell phones extend to bicyclists, motorcyclists, skaters and skateboarders. Fines for using handheld phones or text messaging begin at $150 ($75 if paid in 10 days) and top out at $300. Violations will not be considered moving offenses, meaning no points or insurance problems.
Background:
Pennsylvania House leans on Philly
Philadelphia Banishes Handheld Cell Phones
BRAVO! BRAVO! Nothing like another law that takes away more of our rights. Rather than concentrating energy on the corporate bastards that have robbed this country blind only after attacking our workers and sending our jobs oversees to the slave labor of Chimerica.
WAKE UP people! Stand up against this tyranny that is oppressing us with putting us all into debt with Draconian laws and overreaching, oppressive banking practices. Soon we will end up like the rest of the Americas with an oligarchy of super wealthy and the rest of us poor.
Unfair? Unfair is when someone ends up dead or maimed because you were too selfish and irresponsible to hang up your cell phone. I’m glad you were fined, but it probably wasn’t enough for you to learn.
I live in Bala Cynwyd and are allowed to speak on cell phones. I got pulled over in Phila as per Nutters orders and given a ticket for speaking on a cell phone. This seems so unfair that this corrupt city with so many real problems look for ways to defy the State and raise money with this unfair law. Sorry philly you lolst me forever!!! a onetime resident
P.S I never knew that this law existed until the Officer told me!!!!!