How Brookline Police Enforced Hands-Free Law Amid Pandemic

BROOKLINE, MA — Holding your phone while driving, except for a quick tap, has been illegal in Massachusetts since last February. Although the state ramped up for a major crackdown leading up to the ban, local police say the pandemic cooled the number of tickets they handed out.

Based on crash and distracted driver data leading up to the ban, authorities expected the number of citations would be significant. Instead, Brookline officers issued 153 citations between Feb. 23 and the end of this January, according to the department.

In part that was because fewer people were on the road. Another part had to do with ensuring police didn't inadvertently spread the coronavirus.

And it wasn't just Brookline. Neighboring police departments also issued fewer citations than they might have in an ordinary year. Newton police issued 262 between Feb 23 and Dec. 31, according to state data. And Waltham officers issued 393 citations between Feb. 23 last year and Feb. 16 this year, they reported.

Citation data for all of 2020 is much lower than a normal year across the board, according to local police departments, which were concerned about the safety of their officers amid pandemic.

Between Feb. 16 last year and the end of January, police issued 2,327 citations for all violations.

The busiest month was March, during which police gave out 54 citations to violators of the hands-free law, and 328 citations total. In April and May police handed out zero citations for the new law. In September, police issued 10 citations and then the number dwindled and stayed low during the holidays, according to Brookline police data.

Across the commonwealth there were 30,738 hands-free related citations issued between Feb. 23 and Dec. 31, 2020, according to MassDOT data. This includes written warning citations issued by state police as well as local police. It also includes race, and sex of everyone cited.

The bulk - 95 percent - of citations issued were labeled as warnings, according to the state.

According to an exclusive Patch report, white drivers were punished less than Black, Asian and Hispanic drivers across the state.

Of the 153 citations issued by Brookline police, most were warnings, the department reported to the state that they issued five civil citations to drivers, only one of which was a woman of color. She was identified as Middle Eastern.

The state and Boston police issued another 22 citations to drivers in Brookline, six of which were issued to women, including one woman who was identified as Black and another who identified as Hispanic. State police also pulled over four other men identified as Hispanic.

Twenty other states and Washington, D.C., had handheld bans that extend beyond texting, at the time Massachusetts enacted its. The commonwealth held off on the ban because of concerns about racial profiling.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving was blamed for killing 2,841 people in 2018 alone.

Jenna Fisher is a news reporter for Patch. Got a tip? She can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna). Have a something you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how.