The Traffic Attorney - Cell Phone Laws

You may have noticed that a lot of states are passing laws pertaining to driving while using cell phones or other mobile devices. As a Maryland traffic ticket attorney and Maryland DUI attorney, I know that the Maryland law banning talking without a hands free device goes into effect in October, 2010. Virginia is also passing a similar law, to go into effect in 2011. DC was a pioneering jurisdiction and already has one in effect. In a lot of states, these cell phone violations are actually secondary violations, meaning you can't get pulled over unless you are doing something wrong.

The question is whether these laws do what they are intended to do - increase driver safety. The answer is we don't know. Look, I am all for banning texting, emailing, etc. while driving, because that type of multi-tasking really is dangerous. But the reason why these things are dangerous is because drivers who text while driving are actually taking their eyes off the road multiple times for extended periods of time in order to push the buttons on their phone. Also, it can take two hands to text and drive.

On the other hand, there just isn't any empirical evidence that holding a phone up to your ear and talking, while keeping your eyes on the road, actually makes you less capable of driving your vehicle. I understand that rational, and there are good arguments for the law, I'm just interested to see if it actually makes our streets safer.

So we'll see. I'll post more on this at a later date.

The Traffic Attorney - Red Light Camera Tickets

Last week, I was in court for a protective order hearing and sat in on the traffic docket. You may not believe this, but the Traffic Attorney am more than just a Maryland traffic ticket attorney. The first cases called were the red light camera tickets. In case you don't know, the State of Maryland has authorized the use of cameras at intersections, and these cameras have a sensor. When the sensor sees that a person is running a red light, the camera takes a photo of the car. A few weeks later, that person receives a Maryland traffic ticket in the mail for running the red light.

It seems pretty airtight - I mean, there is a photograph of the car in the middle of the intersection while the light is red. The picture captures the license plate, which is how Maryland knows to send a ticket to the person who owns the car. I have never represented someone with a red light traffic ticket (it is a fairly recent thing). In fact, I've never watched the red light camera docket, but I was still surprised to see how many people were found "not guilty" of the infraction. One lady told the Judge that the car wasn't hers, and pulled out a picture of her car. The Judge took one look at it and dismissed the case. I mean, really?? What if she owned two cars? Or she took a photo of someone else's car and showed it to the Judge? I'm all for speeding through the docket (pun intended), and cases being dismissed (I am a defense attorney after all), but this was bizarre.

Then we moved onto the payable offenses docket and I saw some teenager make up some ridiculous excuse about why he was going 67 in a 35 mph zone. The Judge threw the book at him. Ahh, now this was the normal traffic docket that I knew.