New powers granted to police to stop negligent and distracted driving will not impede civil rights, according to law enforcement officials and driver advocacy groups.
House Bill 652, in effect as of Jan. 1 after its passage by the State Senate in July, declares that a person driving negligently "or in a manner that endangers or is likely to endanger any person or property shall be guilty of a violation."
Those cited by police for violating the new law will have to pay a fine.
According to Captain Ray Burke of the New Hampshire State Police, lawmakers initially intended the law to resemble a New York ban on the use of phones while driving.
Political pressure from the cell phone industry forced lawmakers to broaden the language of the bill to include all negligent driving, and New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen does not plan to propose any ban specific to cell phones, Pamela Walsh, press secretary for the governor, said.
The law, by not specifying exactly what negligence is, aims "to make sure that officers use their discretion," Captain Chris O'Connor of the Hanover Police Department said.
Answering critics of the new law, Burke said police will not use this discretion to stop people without cause and violate civil rights.
"You can't just be charged with distracted driving. Something else had to take place," said Nicholas Wallner, spokesperson for the American Automobile Association in New Hampshire.
"You have to look at the bigger picture of what distracted driving entails, its not just talking on a cell phone," Wallner continued. "It's anything that takes your focus away from driving."
Cell phones are an important issue, he added, because someone in an animated conversation is more likely to be distracted than, for example, someone eating a sandwich.
Burke does not believe that cell phones are inherently dangerous if people follow the rules of the road.
However, he said that many people are distracted by other things, and noted that such drivers would not be stopped if they were behaving safely.
In fact, officers will be on their routine patrols and will not specifically seek out distracted drivers, Burke said. If, while investigating erratic driving, an officer finds that the driver was distracted, then a charge of negligence would be brought.
Penalties for negligent driving can vary, though they do not carry the mandatory loss of license that was included in the original proposed legislation.
The older standard of reckless operation "is very hard to prove," O'Connor said. The new law remedies some of those problems, he said.
Burke pointed out that in addition to proving a moving violation, a prosecutor must "prove a culpable state of mind" to convict a driver of reckless driving.
Laws similar to that recently enacted in New Hampshire regarding negligence are already in force in Vermont, O'Connor said.
"I think the fact that now the state of New Hampshire is trying to address the issue of distracted driving is a subtle way of instructing the public" about driver safety, he said.
Wallner wondered, however, whether such laws are practical since it would be difficult to effectively mandate road safety.
"How do you legislate something like that?" he asked.
