Fines will be $50. Enforcement is primary, which allows police to pull over drivers for that infraction alone.

“No text message is worth a human life,” Corbett said during the bill-signing event. “The message of this legislation is drive now and text later.”

(This content first posted on Nov. 1 and updated on Nov. 9.)

Pennsylvania has become the 35th state to outlaw texting while behind the wheel. The state’s long-running drama over distracted driving legislation will continue, however.

A provision in Senate Bill 314 that would have banned use of handheld cell phones while driving was removed by the House’s Republican leadership and the Senate went along, in order to get some kind of distracted driving law on the books.

The Senate voted Nov. 1 to approve the bill, a day after the House voted in favor of the measure.

The Senate already approved the bill earlier in the year, when it included a ban on use of handheld cell phones while driving. The House removed the mobile phone provision in mid-October and the Senate signed off on that change Nov. 1.

SB 314 sponsor Sen. Tommy Tomlinson, R-Bucks (pictured), said after the vote against texting & driving: “It’s one of the most important things we can do to prevent needless tragedies. Texting is one of the most dangerous distracted driving activities that motorists engage in. … The consequences can be deadly.”

House majority leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, indicated that legislation that would ban the cell phones remained under consideration. That’s good news for police, who under the new law will have to determine if a driver is texting or simply punching in a phone number.

Numerous distracted driving measures were submitted for the 2011 legislative session, as in past years.

• Read the Pennsylvania texting law’s specifics
• Read the Pennsylvania distracted driving news page

(Update: The City Council approved the ban on drivers using handheld cell phones April 16 and Mayor Michael Nutter has promised to sign it into law. The vote was unanimous.)

Pennsylvania’s legislature has several cell phone and texting bills to consider, but none appear to have any heat. A spokesman for the Philly cops said he hopes the local ordinance’s passage would “send a strong message to Harrisburg that the time has come.”

New York’s swarm of local legislation against text messaging while driving and the use of handheld phones usually is credited to a similar lack of urgency in Albany. At least something happened today: Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky’s call for police to report on cell phone-related accidents cleared the Senate and is now in the House Transportation Committee.