Wednesday, November 1, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
25
Cop on new phone law: ‘That thing is hot lava now’ Governor
By Chelsea Defenbacher
The Register-Guard
S P RI N G FI ELD (AP)
— In the three years that
Springfield police officer
Mike Massey has been a
motorcycle traffic enforce-
ment officer, he’s seen it all
when it comes to cellphone
use and driving.
In addition to witnessing
drivers talking or texting on
their cellphones while driv-
ing, he’s seen them writing
Facebook comments, using
Snapchat to take selfies —
even watching pornography.
Massey has pulled over
such drivers, lectured them
and sometimes written them
up for it.
But the 2017 Legislature
passed House Bill 2597 this
past summer, which broad-
ened and clarified what con-
stitutes distracted driving and
increased the penalties for it.
Before the law went into
effect October 1, drivers
already were not permitted to
text or call from a cellphone
while driving.
But the new law is a vir-
tual hands-off policy when it
comes to cellphone use now,
making it illegal to hold or
touch a cellphone for any
reason, including listening
to music or using apps for
navigation.
“That thing is hot lava
now. Don’t touch it,” Massey
said. “I don’t care what
you’re doing with it. I don’t
care if you’re scratching your
face with it. You can’t do it.”
Hands-free cellphone use
still is permitted.
Cellphones cradled in a
dashboard mount are con-
sidered hands-free and are
acceptable, but only if the
functions in use require just a
single touch or swipe to acti-
vate or deactivate.
Planning to make a quick
call or answer a text at a
red light? That, too, is ille-
gal. The car must be safely
parked before a cellphone
can legally be used.
The first violation of the
new cellphone law is a $260
fine; a second violation — or
if the first violation involves
a wreck — is a $435 fine. A
conviction for a third offense
can result in six months in
jail or up to a $2,500 fine.
Drivers younger than age
18 cannot use any device
while driving, even if it’s
hands-free.
“I’m glad they changed
the law because I’ve heard all
the excuses,” Massey said.
“‘I was changing my music.’
‘I was checking my clock.’
I’m tired of the excuses;
you were using your phone.
Period.”
Massey, who has been
with Springfield police for
13 years, has been working
in a team of three on traf-
fic enforcement for the past
three years. Officers Tom
Speldrich and Matt Bohman
also work the motorcycle
patrol.
Massey and Speldrich
were working one recent
morning on Main Street and
then on Gateway Street, stop-
ping drivers spotted with a
phone in hand.
“We could literally write
tickets all day long. But
we’ve seen an improve-
ment since the law went into
effect,” Massey said. “I’m
sure once the surprise and
newness wears off, people
will go back to using them.
“Some people have
upgraded to hands-free
devices but then, there are
people who still do it,”
Massey added. “They’re still
holding their phones, holding
them down real low to hold
them out of the way, thinking
they’re real sneaky.”
Massey shared some of
his tricks for how he spots
the drivers who think they’re
being too sneaky to catch.
“If I see one hand up on
the wheel, where’s the other
hand? That’s my first thing;
find the other hand,” Massey
said. The motorcycle officers
also observe drivers from
places that have a little eleva-
tion, he said, to give them a
good vantage point for see-
ing into someone’s car.
When he spots a violator,
he pulls them over.
But not everyone is issued
a ticket.
The man watching porn
earlier this month on his
lunch hour while driving,
for instance, was stopped at
a red light, with the sound of
the graphic material he was
watching audible through
the car’s bluetooth speaker
system.
While using your phone
at a red light is still consid-
ered illegal under the new
law, “I figured that was a
good enough embarrassment
and education opportunity.”
So, he didn’t give the man a
ticket.
Massey recalled a male
driver recently who was tak-
ing a selfie — only to realize
when he checked the photo
afterward that the officer was
photographed in the back-
ground, riding alongside him
and watching what he was
doing.
He’s also seen drivers
with their iPads wedged up
in the windshield, watching a
movie while they are driving.
During a recent shift,
a number of people were
pulled over for illegal cell-
phone use, but most received
a warning.
“I was talking on my
phone,” Gwen Moede, 20,
of Medford readily admitted
when she was stopped in
her Mini Cooper outside the
Gateway post office. “I’m
not from here, so I was call-
ing my friend to ask how to
get to her apartment.”
Moede said she does not
have Bluetooth connection in
her car and likely won’t get
a hands-free device, because
she seldom speaks on her
phone in the car.
“I used to text and drive
all the time, but I just stopped
because I didn’t want any-
thing bad to happen. So I
stopped, myself. I don’t do it
anymore,” she said. Massey,
she added, “could have given
me a ticket, but he was really
nice and told me I shouldn’t
use it, obviously.”
Massey then gave her
directions to her friend’s
apartment.
Jim Gimarelli also was
stopped on Gateway Street.
He was more than forthcom-
ing with Massey.
“My fault, my fault,” he
said with his hands in the air.
“I shouldn’t have done it. I
was talking on my phone.”
Gimarelli said he was
on his lunch break from
his job as the dental direc-
tor of PacificSource when
he answered a work-related
phone call.
He said he has a Bluetooth
system in his car, but he
doesn’t believe his phone
— an older-style flip phone
— would connect to it. Now,
he says, he’ll look into it and
won’t talk on his cellphone
again while driving.
Gimarelli also was let go
with just a warning.
But not everyone is as
forthcoming.
Jodie Bloxham, 35, of
Fall Creek was pulled over
on Main Street after Massey
said he spotted her holding
her phone and touching it
repeatedly with her finger.
Bloxham at first denied
that she was using her phone.
But after Massey spotted
it on the floorboard, she
admitted she was, but said
it was just to check the time.
However, a clock was visible
in her dashboard.
“I didn’t know about the
cellphone law,” she finally
admitted. “I was running late
to my appointment, and I was
just looking at the time.”
Before, when he worked
as a detective, Massey
said he could regularly get
criminals to confess to felo-
nies. But in this position,
he said, he’s dealing with
people who aren’t necessar-
ily accustomed to having
their daily habits corrected,
and their automatic instinct
is to deny any wrongdoing,
perhaps because they are
uncomfortable.
“I’ve seen people launch
their phones out of their cars,
catapult them somewhere
else inside the car,” Massey
said. “I’ve had people tell me
they weren’t on their phones;
they don’t even have their
phones with them. That’s
when I get dispatch to call
them, and sure enough it’s
ringing inside the car.”
Massey said he’s most
bothered about people lying
to his face about their cell-
phone use when children are
in the car.
“Oh, I tell them, ‘You just
put me in a really awkward
position ’cause you’re lying
to police in front of your
kids,’” Massey said.
Now that the new law
is in effect, Massey said
Springfield police are treat-
ing everyone as if they have
a clean slate, meaning that
if a driver had two previous
distracted driving tickets for
cellphone use before Oct. 1,
those do not count in the tally
of three tickets equal possible
jail time.
“Just don’t do it,” Massey
said. “There’s no excuse for
it. They haven’t invented an
app to drive your car yet.”
The Locals’
Choice for
Service with
a Smile!
The Hair Caché
Brown wants
to cancel
water swap
plans for
Nestle
PORTLAND (AP) —
Gov. Kate Brown has asked
a state agency to cancel plans
for a water swap that would
have allowed Nestle to access
the valuable spring water it
wants.
Oregon
Public
Broadcasting reports the
water transfer is a key part of
Nestle’s plans to build a $50
million water bottling plant in
Cascade Locks.
Hood River County voted
in May 2016 to ban com-
mercial water bottling. Most
voters in the city of Cascade
Locks, however, favored
letting Nestle in and city
leaders have been pursu-
ing a water rights transfer
with the state Department
of Fish and Wildlife that
would allow it to sell water
from Oxbow Springs to
Nestle.
Brown on Friday asked
the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife to withdraw
its application for the water
exchange.
The governor wrote
the agency’s director, Curt
Melcher, saying the ballot
measure makes the goal of
the water exchange uncer-
tain. Brown says she is also
worried about spending addi-
tional state money for an
uncertain outcome.
Your Barber
Shop!
152 E. Main Ave. / 541-549-8771
Jeff, Theresa, Ann, Jamie, Shiela, Terri, Shanntyl, Brittany