E.T. phone home? 👽📞 Listen, little alien pal. Are you footing the bill for those insane long distance charges? And no, you can’t pay in SpaceCoin.
According to recent updates to Ohio law, drivers can use their cellphones while driving…but only in specific cases. 🚙 Wondering what they are? You know where this is going.
Here’s Five Fast Facts about cellphones and driving in Ohio:
- 🚗 Your Attention, Please - Distracted driving is a major cause of crashes everywhere, and Ohio’s no exception. Since 2020, over 55,000 distracted driving crashes have been reported across the state. Out of those, over 1,600 crashes were either fatal or resulted in serious injuries.
- 📱 Talk To Me - It’s illegal to use your cellphone while driving around Ohio, but there are a few exceptions. You can use your phone if you hold it to your ear while talking and only if the call can be started or stopped with a single swipe or touch. You can also use your phone in your car if you’re stopped at a light or parked on a road or highway, but only during an emergency or road closure.
- 🚑 Rescue 911 - If you need to report an emergency to law enforcement or other emergency response provider (i.e. hospital, fire department), you can use your phone while driving. If you’re a first responder, you can also use your devices as part of the job.
- 🦺 In A Day’s Work - Speaking of jobs, utility workers can use their phones while operating utility vehicles in an emergency or outage. Commercial truck drivers can use a mobile data terminal and license operators can use an amateur radio.
- 🔞 Adults Only - If you’re over 18, you can make and take all the calls you want, as long as they’re hands-free. That means you can use the speakerphone feature, an earpiece or wireless headset, a smartwatch, or your car’s phone connection. If you’re under 18, even hands-free calls are off limits, unless it’s an emergency.
🔥Bottom line: Remember kids, safety always comes first. No shame in pulling the car over to take that call or shoot that text. Speaking of safety, it literally pays to set up alerts on your credit report. Without them, a scammer could pull a fast one on your finances. For more on how to get it done, check out this article.
Do you do hands free calls when you’re on the road?
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