By Jeff Lipton
Police officers assigned to the Fourth Precinct, which covers East Rockaway, have written the most tickets in the county, a whopping 136, since the cell phone law became effective on Dec. 1. The Fourth Precinct also covers the Five Towns, Atlantic Beach, Oceanside, Island Park, Lido Beach and Point Lookout.
From Dec. 1, when state law allowed police to begin writing $100 tickets to motorists who use hand-held cell phones, until Feb. 7, Nassau County police issued a total of 754 tickets. Fourth Precinct police led the ticket blitz with 136 during the first 70-day period. The Sixth Precinct was next with 133, followed by the Seventh Precinct with 86 and the Third Precinct with 68. Police in the Second Precinct wrote 42 tickets, the First Precinct 34, the Fifth Precinct 24 and the Eight Precinct only handed out 12.
The Nassau County Highway Patrol issued 218 summonses and the Internal Affairs Bureau wrote one ticket of its own.
Police officials said they are still not sure how to interpret the results since they have nothing to compare them to since the state law is in its infancy. But they maintain that police officers on patrol are constantly on the lookout for violators of the cell phone law and take it very seriously, listing it as a priority among driving violations and putting it up there with drunk driving.
Capt. David Salmon of the State Police Traffic Services Section said state police handed out 303 tickets in the month of December alone.
The restrictions on the use of hand-held cell phones by drivers were signed into law by Gov. Pataki on June 28, 2001, making New York the first state to enact such a law. It was designed to cut down on the number of accidents caused by the hand-held cell phones, which have been cited as a major distraction to drivers. Before the state law went into effect, Nassau County had passed a local law of its own banning hand-held cell phone use by drivers, but the state law has preempted the local law.
We've been leading for a long time, even before the state law was enacted, and it was a county law, said Lt. Larry Feffer of the Fourth Precinct. In our efforts to reduce accidents, we have strictly enforced [hand-held] cell phone usage.
It's a chronic problem, until they get a summons, said Det. Tom Mazur, a county police spokesperson. After they get a summons and it costs them X amount of dollars, they tend to wise up.
The law actually went into effect on Nov. 1, but drivers received a 30-day grace period and received only a warning if they were caught driving while they held a cell phone to their ear.
Up until March 1 2002, drivers who are caught can still receive a waiver of their fines from the courts if they can prove that they have purchased a hands-free telephone or a device that enables a hand-held telephone to be operated hands-free. The waiver applies only to a first offense.
Although Mazur said police are not bound by a quota system to issue tickets, he called cell-phone violations a high priority. But police do not set up checkpoints to catch violators of the cell phone law, as they have set up checkpoints to catch violators of the seatbelt law.
Police attributed the large number of cell phone tickets issued countywide to motorists still becoming familiar with the law. But they acknowledge that many who are fully aware of the restrictions still openly flout the law.
Drivers will get used to the new restrictions, said Joe Picchi, a spokesperson for the State Department of Motor Vehicles. Picchi said that in 1984 when the state enacted a seatbelt law only 11 percent of the motorists were using seatbelts. Today, there is more than 80 percent compliance.
Sometimes it takes awhile, Picchi said. He added that police may have written even more tickets for cell phone use if they were not preoccupied with the events of Sept. 11.
Picchi said police are just as aggressive in their pursuit of cell phone law abusers as they are with speeders or drivers who go through a stop sign. I think they are watching out for them as much as for other traffic infractions, Picchi said. They will begin to realize that they don't have to hold a cell phone to their ear, but there are other ways of dealing with that business, such as a hands-free device.
We found that using cell phones causes a major distraction on the roads, Picchi said. Cell phone usage was causing a lot of accidents and certainly was responsible for erratic driving.
I think there are still some people who feel they can still get away with it and there are some who are not familiar with the law, he added. We are trying hard to get the word out...After March 1 there are no more excuses.
Nassau County Police Department Lt. Kevin Smith said the Fourth Precinct, and the Sixth Precinct, covering such areas as Great Neck, where the greatest number of summonses were being written, contained more affluent neighborhoods, indicating that residents in those areas could absorb a $100 hit.
But he could not say why the number in the Eight Precinct, which covers Farmingdale and Wantagh, was so low. He added that the police officers in the Fifth Precinct, which encompasses Valley Stream, cover a vast area and receive a large number of calls for service and may be too busy to see all the cell phone violators.
It's a priority for police officers, Smith said. Officers on patrol are looking for all violators of the vehicle and traffic law. I think it's a very important law and so far a lot of tickets have been written.
