In Ohio, about 80 percent of road accidents are caused at least in part by distracted driving. That is an incredible statistic.
Texting and driving, in particular, has become the nation’s leading cause of death for teenagers, surpassing even drunk driving. Ohio has responded to this carnage by passing legislation designed to discourage this behavior.
Distracted Driving Restrictions
In Ohio, texting while driving – including composing, sending and reading — is banned for all drivers, with the exception of true emergencies and for the receipt of safety information or information related to the operation of your vehicle. You cannot even text while stopped in traffic. All cell phone use, even operating hands-free models, is prohibited for drivers under 18 who are using learner’s permits and for motorists of any age who are driving on probationary driver’s licenses.
Texting while driving is a secondary offense – the officer must pull you over for another infraction before citing you for distracted driving. Illegal use of a cell phone, by contrast, is not a secondary offense. Individual localities are permitted to pass local ordinances that are stricter than the state statute, but they cannot lessen state penalties or permit what state law forbids.
Penalties
The penalty for texting while driving is up to $150, while the first-offense penalty for illegal cell phone use is $150 plus a 60-days driver’s license suspension. If you have been designated a “delinquent child” or a “juvenile traffic offender” (for a previous violation of the cell phone law), you will be fined $300 and lose your driver’s license for one year.
If you are involved in a Motor Vehicle Accident
An accident can be far more expensive than a traffic ticket, particularly if someone is injured or killed, and distracted driving can be used against you in a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit. Ohio recognizes the legal doctrine of “negligence per se”, which will result in an automatic finding of negligence if you are proven to have caused the accident by violating the state distracted driving statute.
Even if the activity that caused the accident was legal (for example, you are a 20-year-old driver who was legally talking on a cell phone at the time of the accident), the party suing you can still try to prove that your actions were negligent under the circumstances.
Even if you are the one filing the lawsuit, a defendant can reduce the amount of damages he has to pay by showing that your distracted driving was partly to blame for the accident. If you were 10 percent to blame for the accident, for example, he can ask the court to reduce the amount of damages he has to pay you by 10 percent. If the court finds that you were at least 51 percent to blame, you will receive nothing, and you may even have to pay damages to the other party
Possible Criminal Penalties
If someone was seriously injured or killed in the accident, and if the degree of your negligence was so extreme that it represented a “substantial lapse from due care”, you could end up going to prison (although this is relatively uncommon).
– Updated through September 1, 2016