Page 33 - The Peorian Vol 3 Issue 1 Winter
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33
thePeorian.com
The Present
The state of Illinois could have
done more to inform people
about the law, said Pacotti, who
did not know about the law until
contacted for an interview. He
thinks many around his age will
be in a similar boat, but won’t
care about not being informed
until they get a ticket for it.
For those concerned about
a large portion of people
getting fines when they might
be ignorant of the law, Peoria
County Sheriff Mike McCoy
said there will not only be big
headlines in the newspapers
about it before the law goes into
effect but there will also be a
grace period.
“It’s a thing you want to ease
into,” McCoy said. “I don’t think
we’re going to take such a hard
stand where we’re going to have
roadblocks or spy on people with
binoculars to see who’s talking
on their phone. We’re not gonna
do that.”
McCoy was excited about the
law when he first heard about it.
“The reason being, I think all
indications are that cell phone
use and texting are the cause of a
lot of major accidents, and if we
can do something to cut down
the accident rates and save some
lives, it’s a good deal,” McCoy
said.
Some will resist the law at first,
the sheriff says. He is confident,
however, 50 percent will follow
the law all the time, another 35
percent will follow it sometimes,
and around 15 percent will
ignore the law and talk on hand-
held devices anyway.
Once fines start being levied
and drivers see the repercussions
of using hand-held devices,
McCoy is confident more people
will start complying with the
law. There will always be that
15 percent, though, that will
disobey and hope they will not
get caught.
Police are exempt from the law,
but McCoy does not like police
being excused from following
laws. For this particular one,
McCoy says police are no better
at driving than anyone else;
they can still get as distracted
by talking on a cell phone as the
average pedestrian driver.
The sheriff’s department
is currently considering a
multitude of options, such as
installing OnStar or Bluetooth
in department vehicles, having
deputies use headsets connected
to their phones, etc. McCoy
thinks hands-free devices will
distract, as well, but not nearly as
much as handheld devices.
McCoy hopes a decision will
be made before January. Until
then, cell phone use by sheriff’s
deputies driving a vehicle will be
limited to business calls only.
People have become so used to
instantaneous communication,
McCoy said. The biggest negative
he can see coming out of this
law will be people being out of
contact with others for a time or
people, if they do not have any
hands-free devices, having to
find new ways to communicate
without talking in the car.
“As society has got more
technological, along with it comes
some negatives,” McCoy said.
“Cell phone use is great, texting
is great, emailing is great [but]
doing it while you’re driving is
bad. So, I think as we get more
technological as a society, there
are certain regulations that are
gonna be placed on all that type
of use.”
Continued on page 34
