Des Moines, Iowa (RI) — 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 Wednesday’s 89-to-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.
Reynolds met a woman in Spencer last summer who discussed the issue with the governor.
The governor told Radio Iowa that family is what prompted her to make this issue one of the top priorities in her annual speech to legislators.
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.
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 smartphones while he’s out for a run.
Lofgren led the debate in 2023 as the Senate passed the bill, only to have it stall in the House. Republican Representative Ann Meyer of Fort Dodge led House debate on Wednesday.
Berta Pearson of Mount Pleasant is one of the people who drove to the Iowa Capitol 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.
In December, over two dozen organizations formed an “End Distracted Driving” coalition. The executive director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition says 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 percent over the past decade.
Representatives Skyler Wheeler of Hull and John Wills of Spirit Lake were among those voting “no.”
KIWA Staff Photo
