Alaskans are already forbidden from texting while driving, and on Wednesday, Gov. Bill Walker signed legislation that could keep them from driving and talking on the phone, too.<\/p>\n
In a ceremony at Anchorage’s Bowman Elementary School, the governor approved House Bill 333 by Rep. Chris Birch, R-Anchorage.<\/p>\n
The bill allows boroughs and cities to prohibit drivers from using their cellphones in school zones. The ban doesn’t become effective unless a borough passes an ordinance implementing the ban.<\/p>\n
“It’s basically an opt-in. It requires local government engagement to implement,” Birch said by phone on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
The bill doesn’t have broad implications — Birch said lawmakers were trying to pass something that wouldn’t garner a great deal of opposition, as a larger ban on driving while talking might have done.<\/p>\n
The idea behind the bill comes from Anchorage school crosswalk guard David Wight, who proposed the idea to Sen. Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, in 2014<\/a>. Meyer’s version of the ban<\/a> passed the Senate but never got a hearing in the House.<\/p>\n It wasn’t revived in the 2015-2016 Legislature, but it returned in February this year under Birch, who represents one of two House districts in Meyer’s Senate district.<\/p>\n Birch said the bill is intended to meet the request of Wight, a constituent. Birch added that he thinks answering constituent needs is like “filling potholes,” and this bill is in that vein.<\/p>\n By phone, Birch said he attempted to pass such an ordinance while he served on the Anchorage Assembly but was told that wasn’t legal without Legislative action.<\/p>\n The bill passed the Legislature with wide support. It was approved unanimously in the Senate, and only Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, voted against it<\/a> in the House.<\/p>\n Ordinarily, Alaska law prohibits boroughs and cities<\/a> from approving ordinances that change traffic laws. HB 333 carves out an exemption from that law for cellphone bans in school zones.<\/p>\n The exemption doesn’t allow boroughs and cities to prohibit hands-free cellphone use, and it only covers someone driving a car. A borough or city can’t penalize you for talking on your cellphone while your car is parked, for example.<\/p>\n The bill was supported by the Anchorage School District<\/a> and the American Automobile Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n With the governor’s signature, HB 333 becomes effective immediately. Any prohibition against talking and driving will await the decision of local municipalities.<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at jbrooks@juneauempire.com or 523-2258.<\/b><\/p>\n Alaskans are already forbidden from texting while driving, and on Wednesday, Gov. Bill Walker signed legislation that could keep them from driving and talking on the phone, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":34877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[34,351,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-34876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-cellphones","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34876"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=34876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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