MA Hands-Free Law One Year Later: Waltham Statistics

WALTHAM, 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 that the number of citations would be significant. Instead, Waltham officers issued 393 citations between Feb. 23 last year and Feb. 16 this year.

That tracks with neighboring police departments. Newton police issued 262 between Feb 23 and Dec. 31, according to state data. And Brookline police issued 153 citations between Feb. 23 and the end of this January, according to that department.

Traffic citation data for all of 2020 is much lower than a normal year across the board, according to Sgt. William Gallant of the Waltham Police Department.

"COVID seriously impacted our enforcement efforts this past year," Gallant said. "Officers were given the discretion to issue a written citation or a verbal warning depending on their comfort level with exposure to people. "

The department didn't track verbal warning violation data in its records, but Gallant said he guessed there were at least as many verbal warning during the past year as there were written violations and warnings.

Between Feb. 16 last year and Feb. 16 this year, 2,078 citations were written for all violations. During the same time frame the year before, police wrote 10,300 citations, which is similar to a normal year.

The busiest month was May, during which police gave out 87 citations for violating the new law. In April, police handed out zero. In September, police issued 49 citations. Then the number dwindled during the holidays until January, when police gave out 46 tickets, according to Waltham police data.

Across the commonwealth, 30,738 citations for the new law were issued between Feb. 23 and Dec. 31, 2020, according to MassDOT data. They included written warning citations issued by state police as well as local police. The data included the race and sex of everyone cited.

In Waltham, of the 302 citations issued last year, 43 of them were to people identified as Black, 19 were listed as Hispanic, 11 as Asian and nine unknown. The rest were cataloged as white. About a third of those issued citations were women. The oldest person given a citation was 77 years old, the youngest 19, according to state data.

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

Twenty other states and Washington, D.C., had handheld bans that extend beyond texting, at the time Massachusetts enacted its on Feb. 23. The commonwealth held off on the ban because of concerns about racial profiling. Drivers can face anywhere from $100 to $500 fines for violating the ban.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving was blamed for killing 2,841 people in 2018 alone. Among those killed: 1,730 drivers, 605 passengers, 400 pedestrians and 77 bicyclists, according to the NHTSA.

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.