dialing phone numbers;
holding a device for a phone call.
The Hands-Free Ohio provisions call for a six-month warning period in which law enforcement would issue warnings instead of citations as part of an educational campaign to spread awareness about the strengthened laws. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) would also install road signs to alert drivers from other states to Ohio’s regulations.
“At ODOT we take distracted driving seriously because more than half of our workforce perform many of their job duties near live traffic,” said Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jack Marchbanks. “Drivers who are distracted by a device while driving through one of our work zones pose a real and present danger to the lives of the dedicated men and women who work for our agency. I applaud Governor DeWine for prioritizing this much-needed and common-sense law.”