Lake Bluff Mulls Distracted Driving, Hand-held Cell Phone Ban Ordinance

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With Lake Forest slated to begin discussion in January on a possible ordinance to limit the use of cell phones in the car within the city’s borders, the Lake Bluff Village Board took up the topic at Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting.

While there was no consensus yet on whether an ordinance is needed, the Village Board did ask staff to draft a distracted driving ordinance which includes the use of cell phones, plus texting and other non-phone related distractions, as a discussion point for the next Committee of the Whole meeting at 6 p.m. Dec.12.

Get in Line

Five North Shore communities have already passed bans on hand-held cell phone use in the car, including Evanston, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park and the latest in Deerfield. If Lake Forest were to adopt a similar ban, Lake Bluff would be the next community in line.

“If Lake Forest were to implement it, then we would be part of a zone and I would think about it favorably,” said Trustee Brian Rener.

Lake Bluff Police Chief Bill Gallagher said if Lake Forest and Lake Bluff were to pass ordinances, it would help reduce the confusion for motorists over whether a town has a law or not.

“There clearly is no question that distractive driving is a major cause of traffic accidents,” Gallagher said. “Perhaps restrictive use of cell phones while driving would remove at least one of the distractions.”

Lake Forest Police Chief Joe Buerger said he will present two ordinances to the Lake Forest City Council in January – one which focuses strictly on cell phone use and one on distracted driving.

No Action from County, State

Currently, following the passage of a state law last year, cell phone use is prohibited in school and construction zones.

Gallagher indicated to the board that he would prefer a law banning hand-held cell phone use in a car come from the county or state level.

Trustee Kathy O’Hara would like to wait to follow Lake Forest’s lead, and expressed little faith that the county or state will act sooner.

“If you look at it right now, we would then become the only pocket that does not have a hands-free law,” O’Hara said. “I would not encourage this if Lake Forest was not going to go that route. This is the one time where I would let Lake Forest take the lead and not us. We do need to heighten awareness.”

Village President Christine Letchinger asked if awareness could be increased without an ordinance, and both O’Hara and Trustee Marina Carney said no.

“Lake Bluff being a village where kids are in the street, I think we’re increasing the chances of something going wrong if we don’t adopt this,” she said.

“It’s a pervasive problem,” noted Trustee Mark Dewart.

Trustee Steve Christensen agreed. “I am absolutely all for it,” he said. “To me it’s different than the seatbelt issue in that you are endangering someone else.”

Education vs. Tickets

However, if the Village Board were to adopt an ordinance, Gallagher said he would want to use it as an educational tool as the other communities have.

“The focus would be on education and not as a revenue producer,” Gallagher said.

As an example, Gallagher noted Winnetka, which has had a cell phone ordinance in place for five years, has issued 1,462 written warnings during that time and 587 citations.

“I was told that for the first year or so the direction provided to their patrolmen was to issue warning notices rather than citations,” Gallagher wrote in his memo to the board. “Highland Park and Deerfield have indicated that they use a similar protocol, but in all cases they do not take the discretion away from their officers. If the officer believes that a citation is warranted, they may issue one.”

Since the state law went into effect banning cell phone use in school and construction zones, Gallagher said Lake Bluff officers wrote 17 written warnings and one citation in 2010, and so far this year have issued 16 written warnings and one citation.

“Officers got out of the car and stood in the street and stopped people going to the schools, advising people verbally that this law is in effect,” Gallagher said. “They found it to be more effective than trying to write one warning citation.”