Handling a cell phone while driving will soon be illegal in Iowa.
The Iowa House has overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill to ban the use of electronic devices while driving, unless the device is in “hands free” or “voice activated” mode. The Senate passed the bill last week and today’s 89-11 vote in the House sends the bill to the governor.
In January, Governor Kim Reynolds used the annual “Condition of the State” address to call on lawmakers to take action. “Let’s finally pass legislation that requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road and away from the phones,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds met a woman in Spencer who discussed the issue with the governor. “Two years ago, Roland Taylor was killed by a distracted driver. Of the nine minutes the driver was in his car that evening, he spent seven on his phone,” Reynolds said in her January speedh. “I met Roland’s wife, Gwen, and daughters Angie and Lisa, last summer. They shared with me that they don’t want another family to go through what they’ve been through.”
A few days later, the governor told Radio Iowa meeting that family is what prompted her to make this issue one of the top priorities in her annual speech to legislators. “I said it’s time for me just to stand up there are and really challenge the legislature to get this done,” Reynolds said, “and get this across the finish line.”
The Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau began calling for this law in 2015 when Terry Branstad was Iowa’s governor. Branstad repeatedly said the state’s ban on texting while driving wasn’t sufficient. “If all we do is say: ‘You can’t text and drive,’ how do you prove that somebody was texting?” Branstad asked in 2017. “They could be looking at this device in their hands and say: ‘Well, I wasn’t texting,’ and so you can’t get a conviction.”
Over the past decade, law enforcement, bicyclists and other advocates have repeatedly called on lawmakers to crack down on distracted driving. Senator Mark Lofgren, a Republican from Muscatine, has talked about seeing drivers distracted by their smart phones while he’s out for a run. “It’s dangerous out there,” Lofgren said during senate debate in 2019. “The last few years, as I run through intersections and everything, you have to be really careful.”
Lofgren led debate in 2023 as the senate passed the so-called “hands free” bill, only to have it stall in the House. Republican Representative Ann Meyer of Fort Dodge led House debate today.
“Thanks to everyone who’s worked on this bill over the years, especially thanks to the families,” Meyer said. “Telling your story is very difficult, but it has made a difference. I do believe this legislation will save lives.”
Berta Pearson of Mount Pleasant is one of the people who drove to the Iowa Capitol earlier this year to urge legislators to act. In 2022, her 20 year old grandson was setting up a construction zone on the Mississippi River bridge at Burlington when he was hit and killed by a driver checking the Snapchat app on her cell phone.
“We have to do something,” she said. “We can’t let more kids die just because somebody thought they needed to be on that silly phone.”
In December, over two-dozen organizations formed an “End Distracted Driving” coalition. According to the executive director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition, the 30 states that have adopted so-called “hands free” laws have seen a significant drop in accidents and fatalities caused by distracted drivers. Iowa DOT records show distracted driving crashes have increased by 43% over the past decade.