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Utah House defeats compromise distracted-driving bill after hours of debate
Summary
Lawmakers debated a compromise distracted-driving measure that listed phone use, grooming and other behaviors as secondary offenses; after multiple amendments the First Substitute to HB 67 failed 27–44, with critics saying the list was too broad and supporters arguing it would help save lives.
Salt Lake City — After nearly two hours of debate and a string of amendments, the Utah House on Feb. 4 rejected a compromise distracted-driving measure, First Substitute House Bill 67.
Representative Holdaway, the bill’s sponsor, framed the legislation as a limited, secondary-offense tool to address a growing road-safety problem. “That was the number of people that died as a result of distracted driving in 1997,” he said during his remarks, citing figures he offered while urging the chamber to act. The bill enumerated specific distractions — including use of a phone, grooming, eating or drinking, attending to a passenger and reading handheld material — and made a distracted-driving citation contingent on an underlying moving violation.
Opponents, including Representative Farrin and Representative Derr, argued lawmakers cannot legislate every in-car behavior and worried the list would be unworkable in practice. Farrin moved to remove eating, drinking and physically attending to a passenger from the bill; the body approved deleting those lines during the amendment process. Derr questioned whether the measure would criminalize ordinary conduct and urged caution: "How big is big? How little is little?" he asked, underscoring concerns about enforcement discretion.
Other members asked whether the measure’s enumerated items should include adjusting radios and CD players; proponents pointed to research distinguishing phone conversations from other activities and defended maintaining a set of specified behaviors to avoid void-for-vagueness constitutional problems.
The final roll call on the substitute produced 27 yes votes and 44 no votes; the substitute failed and the measure was filed. Supporters had argued the bill’s secondary-offense structure would allow officers to educate the public and target high-risk behavior without broadly criminalizing everyday activity.
Next steps: With the substitute failed, sponsors may return with revised language in a future session or pursue alternative approaches to distracted-driving enforcement.
