Say goodbye to penalty-free holding your phone to your ear, and other uses of the phone as a distraction, while driving in Michigan starting June 30.
The Detroit News: Whitmer signs distracted driving laws: When they go into effect
While I tend to have a bit of a libertarian bent as far as phone use while driving goes, it is unfortunately and very readily apparent that most Michigan drivers cannot handle it.
Heck, I noticed years ago how just holding a phone and talking on it visibly degraded my driving performance, and have been hands-free (on the rare occasions I actually need to talk to someone while driving - most calls can wait until you're at your destination and can pay full attention to the call) for years and years now.
From driving under the speed limit (generally in the left lane) with a phone visibly pressed to their ears; to intermittent and uncalled for braking; to not going when the light turns green; or for some reason hitting the brakes before going through a green light; or much more dangerously going through a solid red, there's a lot of distracted drivers yaking, texting, or playing on their phones out there.
Yes, I have been hit by a distracted driver - a couple years ago, hit from behind while I was stopped at a red light, not a particularly pleasant experience and wholly avoidable had the moron been looking up at the road ahead instead of at their phone.
Since most cars today have easily usable hands-free options, this is pretty darn easy to comply with. It is unfortunately a needed law due to the sheer number of idiot drivers not paying attention to properly operating their vehicles out there.
When you're driving, your attention needs to be on your driving first, everything else is secondary to that. It shouldn't take a law to require this basic approach to vehicle operation, but it sadly seems that it does.
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