You’ll see those dreaded flashing lights of a cop car if you keep texting and driving in Tucson. The Tucson City Council voted 4-1 last week to make fooling with your mobile phone while behind the wheel a primary offense, meaning the cops can pull you over if they spot you uploading that selfie to Facebook when you’re at a red light.
The new law goes into effect on Thursday, Feb. 1.
For the first 30 days, officers will be giving drivers warnings instead tickets to give drivers a bit of time to learn about the new law. Once March hits, it’s open season and police will start hitting texting drivers with tickets. For the first offense, drivers will receive a $50 fine. From then on, the fine will gradually go up.
Councilwoman Regina Romero voted against making it a primary offense, saying she thought it would give cops a pretext to pull over Latinos and other minorities. She pointed to statistics that show that men and women of color are morel likely to have their vehicles searched if they are pulled over.
This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2018.
Excuse me Miss Councilwoman; Do you have statistics that support your claims? As a “Caucasian”, it’s been my experience here in Tucson, that, “White” are pulled over for “no reasons” at all. Not only pulled over, but, harassed, placed on ground, called names, then, apologize for their behavior when they lie about it, however, retract when discovering “they were recorded” by the victim of such harassment. 3 of 4 times in less than a year. Just driving to and from work. Sounds like a different statistic. That is of course, unless you know that “white” is the minority, thus we should be aware of this form of “color of authority” by our own local police. With this said, not all of Tucson PD is this way. It’s the “new era” of cultured, indoctrinated, cop.
i disagree with this, i dont think making this more illegal is going to deter anyone. this is just being done to get more money from tickets
Regina Romero is a piece of work. Why make DUI illegal? I just gives officers more excuses to harass people of color, right?
Meh. You can still eat a burrito and put on your mascara and eyeliner while driving.
This is great news. But I don’t know what these women will do if they can’t be on their cellphones while driving. It’s going to be traumatic, for sure.