Don’t drive distracted. That’s the message the Ohio State Highway Patrol is putting out during April being the recognition month.
New Philadelphia Post Sgt. Bill Bower says with Ohio’s distracted driving law, it gives law enforcement the authority to conduct a traffic stop if they witness a driver using a cellphone or other electronic device.
“Still after this law’s been in effect for a couple of years people still don’t know Ohio is hands free so we kind of tend to educate these people of that.”
Many things can contribute to a driver not paying attention to the roadway. Bower says this includes manual, visual, and cognitive.
“Visual distraction is anything that causes the driver to look away from the road. For manual it would be any action requiring the driver to take their hands off the steering wheel. Cognitive distraction which is a mental distraction that takes the drivers focus off the task.”
For Tuscarawas County, Bower says troopers encounter all three categories.
“When are troopers are going out to crashes you don’t see one more than the other, but you do see a variety of all three. It’s become common to do a hundred other things inside the car and to be alert about other traffic and sharing the roads with such things like motorcyclists and bicyclists.”
In Ohio, from 2021-2025, OSP data recorded over 48,000 crashes involving one or more distracted drivers. From that, 158 were fatal and resulted in 170 deaths.
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