Kentucky is one of more than 40 states that have a statewide ban on texting while driving for all drivers. In the vast majority of those states, there is “primary enforcement” of the ban. This means police can stop someone for texting while driving even if there is no other violation.  The goal of enforcing texting bans is to reduce the number of car accidents and resulting serious injuries across the state of Kentucky.

But even with a primary enforcement law in place, it is quite another thing to enforce such a ban. It takes a considerable commitment in scarce law enforcement resources.
That is why Congress decided to offer grants to states to encourage better enforcement of laws that prohibit cellphone use behind the wheel.

The language Congress used in the transportation bill, however, was worded in such a way as to prevent many states that applied from getting the grants. Indeed, of the 38 states that applied, only seven states, plus the territory of Guam, got any federal money.

Kentucky was one of the states that originally lost out on the grant money. State officials had been seeking to get about $100,000 from the grant program. The money would have gone to the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety, an office that constantly struggles to maintain proper funding.

Why did Kentucky lose out on the money, despite having a statewide texting ban in place? Like many other states, Kentucky’s texting ban apparently did not meet the definition of texting while driving that Congress was using when it made the grant money available.

Congress used a very broad, rather counter-intuitive definition of “driving” that includes times when a motor vehicle is momentarily stopped. Kentucky’s anti-texting law, by contrast, prohibits texting while “a motor vehicle is in motion.”

In part two of this post, we will discuss further how Kentucky’s law enforcing texting bans while driving compares to other states.