TOLEDO, Ohio — From the moment a state trooper starts a shift to when they end it eight hours later, the primary goal is to ensure every driver gets home safe.
"We're out there looking for distracted drivers, people on their cell phones holding it on speaker phone in front of their face, maybe texting while they are driving, dialing a phone number, which are all an illegal use of a cell phone now," said Ohio State Highway Patrol Sgt. Ryan Purpura.
The distracted driving law was passed in January 2023 and went into effect in April. Enforcement began Thursday after a six-month grace period.
Troopers have trained their eye to see drivers traveling over 70 miles an hour violating the offense. Since the law went into effect, Ohio has seen nearly 1,200 fewer distracted driving-related crashes in comparison to the same time frame in 2022, according to OSHP.
Since the law became enforceable on Oct. 5, troopers across the state have issued 94 citations in 24 hours for violations of the new distracted driving law. That does not include other law enforcement agencies from across the state.
"You cannot use your phone at a stop sign, but you can use it at a red light outside of a traffic way if you're stopped on an interstate backed up in traffic," Purpura said. "You cannot have your phone on speaker in front of your face and you can't hold support the phone on any part of your body, but you can use the phone for a single swipe, single touch action to answer or hang up the call and hold it up to your ear during that time."
Now that the law will be enforced just as strongly as driving impaired or speeding, Purpura hopes the risk of accidents continues to decline.
"It could be the couple seconds that a child runs out in front of your vehicle or traffic stops ahead of you and you end up in a crash and we don't want people looking back and wishing they could take those few seconds back," he said.
Purpura said in the time it takes to read a text or look down at your phone while on the highway, you have driven the length of a football field essentially blindfolded.