Supervisors Seek to Limit Cellphone Use While Driving

Cleanup after a single-vehicle crash on E. Mason St. File photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Milwaukee County supervisors favor requiring Wisconsin drivers to use a hands-free device when using a cellphone and operating a car at the same time.

The county board unanimously passed a resolution sponsored by Sup. Sky Capriolo Thursday calling on the state to prohibit using a cellphone while driving without employing a hands-free device.

“This resolution would encourage the state to adopt a hands-free cellphone policy, meaning that both hands are on the wheel, not one hand on your phone,” Capriolo told her colleagues during the board meeting Thursday.

The resolution specifically calls on the state to reintroduce and pass legislation from 2021 that prohibited cellphone use without a hands-free device. The bill, which was introduced in both the state Assembly and Senate, had bipartisan support. However, it was not passed before the legislative session ended.

Capriolo noted that the state already has laws in place prohibiting cellphone use while driving through a construction zone, and against texting and driving.

“So, I don’t really think this is a huge leap to say, ‘Hey, let’s just be hands free on cellphones everywhere in the state’,” Capriolo said.

As Capriolo noted in her resolution, thousands of vehicle crashes in Wisconsin involve distracted driving each year, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation; and the Governors Highway Safety Association recommends hands-free cellphone use laws as a means for curbing distracted driving.

The resolution also included an amendment communicating the board’s desire that any hands-free driving laws would not be used as a pretext to ask drivers about their citizenship status.

Sup. Steve Taylor expressed doubt the state legislators would react to the county board’s resolution. “The intention is great, but at the end of the day they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do in Madison.”

Other board members though, expressed support for letting the state Legislature know where the county board stands on the issue. Sup. Shawn Rolland noted that hands-free driving laws appear to be a bipartisan issue when reviewing the states — both red and blue — that have them on the books.

Sup. Caroline Gómez-Tom, who sits on the Wisconsin Counties Association board, noted that other counties may be interested in the resolution or pushing the government to pass such a law. “So I hope that more of you consider issues that impact our constituents and bring them to the Intergovernmental Relations Committee, so that we are able to talk to the state more about the issues that really concern us,” Gómez-Tom said.

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