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Distracted Driving Laws: New Hampshire

The New Hampshire State Police estimate that up to 28 percent of New Hampshire’s fatal crashes are caused at least partially by distracted driving. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until 2015 that New Hampshire enacted legislation that finally prohibited all of the most dangerous uses of electronic devices while driving.

 

New Hampshire’s Distracted Driving Laws and Regulations

New Hampshire bans both texting and talking on hand-held cell phones and electronic devices. Minors under 18 are prohibited from using even hands-free models. Even holding a phone next to your ear is enough to get you cited, and it will be up to you to prove that you were not actually operating the cell phone if you want to beat the charge. You are not exempt from this law while stopped in traffic – you need to be out of traffic and stopped legally in order to be exempt.

Penalties

The penalty for distracted driving is $100 for the first offense. Fines increase to $250 and $500 for second and third offenses within two years, respectively. An unspecified “penalty assessment” is added to these fines.

In the Event of an Accident

If you cause an injury or death through distracted driving and are sued in a New Hampshire court, if the plaintiff can prove that you violated the distracted driving statute and that this violation was a substantial cause of the accident, he can shift the burden of proof to you to show that you were acting reasonably under the circumstances (and therefore not driving negligently). If you can’t meet this burden of proof, you will lose the lawsuit unless you can prove that the accident was mostly the plaintiff’s fault.

If more than one party was at fault for the accident, in principle each party will be entitled to the percentage of his own damages that is attributable to the other party’s fault. If the other party was 75 percent at fault, for example, you will be entitled to 75 percent of your damages from the other party. Any party who is at least 51 percent at fault, however, will be entitled to nothing, but his liability will still be reduced in proportion to the other party’s percentage of fault.

Possible Criminal Penalties

Although a civil lawsuit is problematic, a criminal trial is much worse. If your conduct under the circumstances of the accident was outrageous and caused serious injury or death, you might be charged with a crime.

To be guilty of a crime, your conduct (texting or using a cell phone while driving) under the circumstances must have amounted to at least “criminal recklessness”, which New Hampshire defines as “conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm” that represents a “gross deviation from reasonable conduct”.

Although the legal standard is vague (what is an “unjustifiable” risk, for example?), criminal recklessness might apply if, for example, you were texting while cruising downhill on an icy road in the vicinity of a school crossing zone. Conviction of crime involving criminal recklessness could result in years in prison.

– Updated through September 1, 2016

 

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