Distracted Driving: A Bicycling Advocate’s Resource

street safety and targeted traffic enforcement (assistance for police department to do explicit pull overs and ticketing for distracted driving). These efforts should emphasize safety for all road users, including the most vulnerable, such as children, cyclists and pedestrians.

Furthermore, fines in school zones should be doubled and the money should go to a School Zone Safety Fund to support Safe Routes to Schools and infrastructure upgrades to increase safety for children. This would be similar to laws passed in several states that send fines from school zone speed violations to such a fund. See Appendix D for the Arizona law, and see the Washington State and Illinois school zone laws for other examples.

4. NHTSA must give distracted driving as much priority as it gives its drunken driving and seatbelt campaigns. Experience demonstrates that compliance with cell phone bans drops over time if there is not high‐profile enforcement. NHTSA should follow the guidelines outlined in its own online seatbelt campaign booklet, "Primary Enforcement Saves Lives: The Case For Upgrading Secondary Seatbelt Laws." The following suggestions from the document have been abbreviated and edited to remove reference to seatbelts:

Enact strong legislation – It is imperative to adopt primary enforcement laws and to close the gaps in safety laws in all states.

Build public‐private partnerships at the local, state and federal levels – The goal is too big for any one group or agency to accomplish alone. But working together, the nation can achieve higher use through stronger laws, visible enforcement, and public education and information.

Conduct active, high‐visibility enforcement – Without active and sustained high‐ visibility enforcement, [compliance] soon drops again.

Expand effective public education – It is critical to educate the public about the benefits of [the law].

These recommendations should be adapted for distracted driving legislation.

In addition, special efforts should be made to record and track the impact of distracted driving on bicyclists and pedestrians. The data on the distractions involved in auto crashes with bicyclists and pedestrians is insufficient.

Also note that these laws should apply to everyone — bicyclists, motorcyclists and drivers.

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