Virginia will join the rest of the Washington region in banning handheld cell phone use while driving starting in January.

Gov. Ralph Northam held a ceremonial bill signing this morning. The law is technically in effect now, but police won’t enforce it for six months to allow time to educate the public.

When enforcement begins in January, it’ll be a primary offense, meaning police can pull you over if they see you on your phone. The penalty is a $125 fine for the first offense and $250 for the second, or if you were caught in a construction zone.

Sen. Scott Surovell of Fairfax sponsored the bill and said anyone driving on Virginia highways “knows this problem is an epidemic.”

“This bill will save lives,” said Del. Jeff Bourne of Richmond, who sponsored the House version.

More than 400,000 people were injured in crashes involving distracted driving in 2018, according to the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration. In Virginia, distracted driving accounts for more than 1,500 crashes and 7-10 fatalities a year.

Drive Smart Virginia, a group that advocates for not texting while driving, said distraction-related crashes are often underreported, so the statics can be misleading.

“Cell phone use is harder to prove than, for instance, DUI,” said Rich Jacobs of Drive Smart. “There’s no breathalyzer for cell phone use.”

Christina Dempsey, a paramedic in Fredericksburg has advocated for the law for years. She took part in the virtual bill signing. Her sister and niece were killed by a distracted driver. Dempsey said she often sees the consequences of distracted driving in her job.

“So many of these crashes could be avoided if not for distraction,” she said. “Laws will now be able to hold people accountable for their actions.”

Distracted driving from cell phones is dangerous because it encompasses three types of distraction: visual, where drivers take their eyes off the road; manual, when drivers are typing or using their hands to adjust something; and cognitive, where drivers’ minds are on what’s happening on the phone, not on the road.

Drivers can still use voice commands like “Siri” on iPhone or “Google Assistant” on Android for navigation, choosing music and more.

Virginia legislators have long tried to strengthen its driver safety laws.

In 2007, the state banned texting while driving. Five years later, it became a primary offense instead of a secondary one. As a secondary offense, a person would have to be pulled over for some other reason to get ticketed for texting.

From 2017-2019, lawmakers got close to passing full hands-free bills but they were scuttled for various reasons. Last year, the General Assembly passed a law for hands-free cell phone use in work zones and finally the full hands-free bill passed earlier this year.

“Change is incremental,” Surovell said. “We’ve been aiming at it for 13 years.”

The District enacted its hands-free law in 2004. Maryland did so in 2010. They join 23 other states with similar laws.

In Virginia, Legislative Black Caucus members were concerned the law could lead to over-policing of Black drivers. So as part of the law, police departments will undergo implicit bias training and release statistics on demographics.

It’s unclear from relevant research if laws banning hand-held phone use or texting while driving reduces crashes. A 2009 analysis compared rates of claims for crash damage in three states and the District of Columbia before and after hand-held phone use bans went into effect. The study found no significant change in claim rates for two jurisdictions relative to other states. It also found a small, but significant, increase in claim rates in the other two jurisdictions, according to IIHS.

Meanwhile in Georgia last year, traffic fatalities and collision insurance claims have declined since a cell phone law took effect, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report.

Janet Brooking of Drive Smart Virginia said the determination of victims’ families brought the law to fruition.

“It’s been one of the most rewarding, one of the most difficult things that I’ve had to do, because there are so many stories and there’s so much courage demonstrated in these families coming forward and being able to tell their story,” she said.