Q&A: Behind the scenes of the new hands-free law in Colorado
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GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — This year, Colorado joins 29 other states in banning the use of handheld electronic devices (e.g., cellphones) while driving. The law is punishable by fines and points against a driver’s license.
Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat from Englewood, sponsored the bill in the state legislature that requires drivers to use a hands-free system for GPS or phone calls in 2025.
The fines are important, Froelich said, but she believes a public education campaign funded as part of the bill could make a real difference. The Colorado Department of Transportation found that states with similar laws had a decrease in distracted driving crashes.
Rocky Mountain PBS recently spoke with Rep. Froelich about the new law.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Rocky Mountain PBS: Can you give me an overview of the idea behind this bill?
Rep. Meg Froelich: We have these new powerful devices in our lives, taking our attention, and just the statistics that showed terrible outcomes on the road.
I think further impetus comes, at least from my side of the equation, as we are trying to get people out of their cars and into bicycling or walking, and the whole concept of we really need to protect those folks, those vulnerable road users. So both of those, we had felt it was long overdue.
RMPBS: Can you kind of give me the rundown of what exactly the bill does as far as changing the law?
MF: It designates that it is against the law to use a handheld device while driving. So, distracted driving, and it's the handheld piece that is specifically called out. Using a device is not necessarily against the law, if you can figure out how to do it without holding it in your hand.
We know it's dangerous, new drivers aren't allowed to talk on their phone. It's established that it's something that's dangerous and has adverse outcomes. What we really want to see now is the downtick in accidents and particularly serious accidents involving pedestrians and bicyclists.
RMPBS: Is this a big accomplishment for you and the transportation committee?
MF: Yes I think anything we could do, I'd like to rework things in [infrastructure] planning so that they're not car-centric. We're trying as best we can to change our infrastructure to meet our climate goals and to increase road safety. So, things like this, we hope to do both.
[We’re] trying to get more people into [public] transit — how are you getting to the station? Are you riding your bike? Are you walking? You should be safe no matter what way you're getting around town.
RMPBS: Was this a popular bipartisan bill as it was going through the process?
MF: There's just a pretty universal understanding that accidents occur when people are distracted and that talking on your phone is not the best way to drive. I think that was not a tough sell, to sell that concept.
We have avid cyclists across the political spectrum, so the real unanimity came when we were able to reach an agreement with the ACLU folks and our affinity caucuses and make sure that this wasn't going to adversely affect people in terms of justice impacts. That idea of not opening up people to being targeted by law enforcement.
It is not a primary offense. So, you're not going to be pulled over for talking on the phone. You have to be doing something else. Then if you're speeding and you were talking on your phone or you're in an accident and you were talking on your phone then the police officer can cite you for talking on your phone.
A well done committee hearing with good testimony is what really moves your bill. And you don't have to hear from that many people who've been disastrously impacted by a distracted driver hitting them, especially vulnerable folks. So we have youth killed on their bicycles, and there's been a lot of attention to construction workers on the road who've been hit by people. Those folks came to the committee and said, I lost my kid over this or I lost my legs over this. It's pretty hard to then vote no.
RMPBS: What did you learn from other states that have hands-free laws?
MF: The public information campaign is absolutely the real way that we're going to affect change in behavior. We know from other states that information launch causes a change of behavior, and it's immediate and evident. So that's the outcome we're hoping for.
One of the big proponents in Colorado was Bicycle Colorado, and this was top of their [legislative] wish list.
And I think, you know, our reliance on technology has increased, but also the technological fixes for this have gotten easier. So plenty of people are now able to plug in their Bluetooth into their car, and the device that holds your phone that would allow you to comply with the law, can be had for $12.
I think the cost of compliance has gone down probably at the same rate that the reliance on our devices has gone up. A lot of people have in-dash navigation, [so they’re] less reliant on their phone for that. All of those pieces hopefully come together to just make people slow down and keep their eyes on the road.
The Colorado Department of Transportation has used electronic message boards along Interstate 70 to alert drivers about the new law. Photo: Joshua Vorse, Rocky Mountain PBS
RMPBS: What was the input from law enforcement on the bill?
MF: They're the ones who proposed the solution, there were some folks in the coalition who really wanted to push for primary offense and law enforcement were the one who said, we think we can make a dent in these numbers if it's a secondary offense and we can address these concerns.
They were with us from the get go. And of course, we can't do it unless they're going to actually implement it. So we had a pretty close working relationship with them and they want to see their accident numbers go down. As you can imagine, any accident takes law enforcement forever to go to the scene and do all the paperwork, so they're very in favor of reducing accidents.
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