Cheap Vehicle Quote, Keep Your Hands on the Wheel
According to a CA court decision in 2012, the appellate court was faced with “an ambiguity” as to whether or not use of a cell phone for Google Maps was subject to the state’s distracted driving law barring use of hand-held devices, which states:
“A person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving.”
The takeaway for Judge W. Kent Hamlin: hands on the wheel.
“Our review of the statute’s plain language leads us to conclude that the primary evil sought to be avoided is the distraction the driver faces when using his or her hands to operate the phone,” Hamlin wrote. “That distraction would be present whether the wireless telephone was being used as a telephone, a GPS navigator, a clock or a device for sending and receiving text messages and emails.”
In Hamlin’s ruling, the judge said that the hands-free law targeted the use of hands that some devices require, leaving aside those devices’ other distraction-inducing uses like an actual phone conversation itself.
What was targeted, according to the ruling, is the “distraction a driver faces when using his hands to operate the phone”—or in other words—the “physical distraction” itself.