Traffic Charges & License Suspensions in Pennsylvania Explained

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are back. And this week, guys

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on the Now We Defend podcast. We are going to get right back into traffic stuff. Traffic violations. Last week we touched a lot on driving under suspension. And guys we got a ton of feedback from you.

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Comments on our socials, TikTok specifically, but also on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook. And I have been responding, I think, to every single one of those questions. We’ve also gotten a number of calls here at the law firm as it relates to driving under suspension. I love that keep that coming. We’re trying to help everybody that calls in so we can get the word out there and make sure that people situations can get solved as best as they can.

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The way we’re going to start this week is I want to jump slightly back into driving under suspension just to codify kind of one thing, one part of it, and that is when you’re dealing with driving under suspension, there’s really three main ways you can be driving under suspension. I don’t think we were completely clear about this in our last episode, so I do want to just highlight it real quickly, and then we have a whole bunch of other things related to traffic that we need to go over.

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So first of all, you can be driving under suspension, what we call just regular driving under suspension. That would be under section 1543 a under title 75 in Pennsylvania. That’s essentially if you’re driving under suspension for any reason, you’re suspended other than a DUI. Okay. So if your suspensions in relation to a ticket that you got for reckless driving or a school bus violation or an insurance violation, or you failed to pay a ticket and you have an indefinite suspension, which we touched on last week.

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All of those would be section 1543 a driving under suspension regular. Now, guys, that one does come with mandatory jail time once you get to a sixth or subsequent one. Furthermore, every one of these driving under suspensions across the three of them carry an extra one year license suspension stacked on top and on top and on top.

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License suspensions are never run concurrently. They are always consecutive, meaning they stack. So you’re always going to be in a situation where you’re in the black hole, and we need to keep you out of the black hole, because the moment you end up in the black hole, the moment this becomes almost unattainable to get out of. So the second way you can be driving under suspension is driving under suspension, DUI related.

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Now, this doesn’t mean that your DUI at the time, that’s actually the third one. This is just your suspension is in relation to a prior DUI suspension. But let me be clear here. You could have served that entire period of a DUI suspension. So let me give you an example. Let’s say in the year 2010, you got a DUI, you pled guilty or were convicted of it, and you got a one year license suspension for a first offense DUI in 2010.

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We sit here today in 2026. So you would have served that entire year suspension by 2011, 2012, by the time the case was resolved. But if you never restored your license, say you got suspended for other reasons, say you failed to pay a traffic ticket, and you just never went and paid that little fee to restore your license.

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It might be even as simple as that. You just didn’t pay the restoration fee. You are still suspended in relation to that DUI because you didn’t restore your license, even though you served the period of the suspension. This is huge, guys, because if you don’t understand this, you’re going to be in a horrible proverbial black hole that is going to expose you over and over and over again to mandatory jail time in the state of Pennsylvania.

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So the bottom line here is, if you’re in this situation, restore your damn license. Don’t let it linger. If that’s the only thing you have to do, pay the little restoration fee and restore it. The last one, the third one is driving under suspension DUI related meaning it’s in relation, like I was just saying to a DUI offense, but you’re also DUI at the time.

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That’s a big deal because that one is really serious. And the penalties for mandatory jail time not only become significantly draconian, but you can literally go to state prison in a mandatory capacity if you have multiples of these. So this is driving under suspension in relation to a prior DUI suspension while you’re doing at the time. That actually turns into misdemeanor charges eventually, and again it turns into mandatory prison.

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That can go as far as state prison, which is multiple years. I want to cut to Tim real quick. Tim, you have something you want to add to that? Yeah. So for the DUI, the driving under suspension, DUI related while DUI, that’s a little bit of a misnomer, because the other way you can get this is if you refuse a blood draw.

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So that’s an element of the offense, which means that you they don’t even have to prove that you were DUI at the time necessarily. For this statute. You could theoretically refuse the blood draw and be found not guilty of a DUI. But all they have to prove for this specific driving under suspension is your license was suspended. It was a DUI suspension.

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You operated the vehicle and you refused the blood draw. So you can be found not guilty of the DUI and be found guilty of this driving under system. That is a very good point. I’m glad you brought that up. Thank you for doing that. Yeah, I hope you guys understand that, that you can actually be found not guilty of the underlying DUI, but still get the driving under suspension.

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Yeah. Dewey. Related. All it requires is that you refuse the blood draw. Right, exactly. Okay, good. Good stuff. And again, that one guys exposes you to misdemeanor charges, state prison time and a mandatory capacity multiple years when you get a if you comes in M-1 if it’s a third offense. Yeah I actually had a guy. Not too long ago.

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Had and I had actually, you don’t see these a lot, right? Like when you get to a third, I think it’s when you become an M-1, it’s a third offense driving under suspension, DUI related while DUI. Right? Yeah. And that carries a mandatory two years in state prison, right. Okay, so I had one of these about a year ago.

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And we actually were able to fix it and avoid the guy going to state prison completely. He actually avoided prison completely because we were able to do a high level of treatment. We engaged in DUI treatment court. Worked closely with the district attorney’s office to do that. But in any event, this guy, it was interesting because it was weird because it had been over ten years since his last DUI, but he had not restored his license, so he was still suspended, DUI related.

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And he had had prior driving under suspension DUI related while DUIs in his far past. So he had a first offense DUI, but he had a third offense driving under suspension DUI related. So on the first offense, he’s looking at three days in jail, minimum on the DUI, but he’s looking at going to state prison for two years.

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On the driving under suspension. That’s crazy. Like that to me was wild. Yeah, I mean, those people are a problem though. I mean, that that really is bad if you get because it is rare. I mean, it’s very rare out we’ve talked to about like how rare it is to have multiple DUIs. We deal with it a lot.

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But the reality is, statistically speaking, it’s something like 4% of the population or even less, that has even one DUI. So when you get into the territory of repeat DUI and also then repeat driving under suspensions while DUI, that’s a really bad. That’s why PennDOT treats them as major offenses, which we’ll talk about in just a second. The other thing that I wanted to note is that the the blood alcohol levels for this offense are significantly lower than what you would consider to be like the.

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Oh yeah, the DUI threshold. Tell us about that. Yeah. Because all that’s required like I said, they you can refuse the blood draw and then you’re almost guilty per se. Or your blood alcohol level can be. I believe it’s two. And if that’s the case. So essentially, it means any amount of alcohol in your system while your DUI suspended is going to be you’re going to get convicted of this and then any controlled substance.

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So you could actually not be d UI at the time technically under the .08 legal limit, but still be over a .02 and still get this chart. We’ve talked about that before too, that the legal limit itself is also kind of a misnomer, because that’s it’s not a legal limit. It’s it’s what begins to count as a per se to UI.

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So you can still get a DUI under a 0.08 blood alcohol level. I’ve seen it many times. And so theoretically, if you’re if you submit to the blood draw and your DUI suspended and your blood alcohol is 0.02. They’re going to charge you with the driving under suspension while DUI related, but they may also charge you with general impairment, which is and I actually I want to hammer that home because that’s a very good point that you brought up, Tim.

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You can get a DUI in Pennsylvania and you can get convicted of that DUI if you are under the legal limit of 0.08. This is kind of nuts if you think about it, because most people think, okay, I’m good to drive, I don’t feel impaired. I am probably under that legal limit. And they drive and sometimes they are.

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I will tell you, most times in my experience, they’re not. It doesn’t take a lot to get over a 0.08. We’re literally talking like a beer or maybe less. But that said, if you are under that legal limit, say you’re .075, okay. The DA’s office could still choose if you’re pulled over and you come into contact police to charge you with a DUI under the theory of general impairment.

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And guys, what this is defined as and what this means is they have to then go into court and prove that you were impaired to a degree, that you cannot safely operate a motor vehicle at the time that you were doing. So, even if they don’t have a back over the legal limit. Now, that is a challenging thing sometimes to prove for them, which is why they don’t always win these, but they do sometimes win these.

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Maybe there’s bad driving, maybe there’s a vehicle accident, maybe there’s, you know, you know, you forgot to turn your lights on because you were, you know, not thinking straight. These are the types of things that they bring in as extra pieces of evidence to convict you of that DUI, even though you’re under the legal limit, which is wild, but it happens every day across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

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So please be aware that the best way to protect yourself here, guys, is get an Uber. Don’t drive if you’ve been drinking because again, you can get a DUI even if you feel fine and are under the legal limit. All right. Boom. I’m going to finish it there on that front. I’m going to pivot now into habitual offenders.

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This is something that does tie in the whole driving under suspension thing. I will say guys across the board and Justin, I’m going to cut to you here to kind of jump into this. I think you’re a good kind of expert resident on this, but habitual offenders generally, I don’t see it a lot, but and I actually don’t see it even in situations where I should see it, you know, like they don’t always charge it.

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And Tim, when we were talking before the meeting, you had mentioned that a lot of times the district attorney’s office will use it as a bargaining chip. And I want to talk about that a little bit. And I know you’ve had some cases, a prosecutor where you did that. But, Justin, tell us a little bit about what it means to be a habitual offender and how that how you could qualify as that and then what the fallout is.

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Absolutely. So, essentially there’s two statutes in PA that address that under the vehicle Code 1542 and 6503.1. Essentially the easiest way to put it is within a five year period, if you have three convictions for certain offenses, then you are considered considered a habitual offender. And if you reach that status and essentially are convicted of the habitual offender statute, it results in a five year suspension of your driver’s license.

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And essentially there’s and Justin, I’m going to cut you off. But you if you’re convicted of habitual offender, you get a five year license suspension on top of your current suspension because they stack. Yes. Whatever the suspensions are, that’s in addition to that. Yeah. So half a decade is just like, latched on to you. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

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And then, essentially after that, if you are convicted of one of the offenses. Within five years from the date of any previous offense. So that’s what the statute says. That’s how PennDOT calculates the relevant five year period. So say you are convicted of that. You receive that five year suspension. And then, you know, two years later, you’re convicted of another major offense that triggers the statute.

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It’s in whatever, you know, suspension is related to that offense you receive, and then you receive an additional two year suspension under the habitual offender statute. So you can go all the way up to seven years for one of these. Is that the way in that. So it’ll be five years for the first three. And then if you get another one under the major violations, it’s an additional two years.

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An additional two years. They can keep stacking that on if you keep committing offenses. Right. But at that point is that even if they don’t charge you with habitual, even if you get like a fourth qualifying habitual offense, they just hit you with two years. That is not clear in the statute, but I would assume so. Yeah.

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Based on how the statutes written, it doesn’t specifically say that, but it does again, say that the next conviction of a habitual offender, violation is an additional two years. And essentially in the statute it lays out what the offenses are. You have. Yeah. I want to touch on that. If you could run through what qualifies because again, you said earlier, we need three of these to then get charged with a habitual offender, which is its own crime.

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Yes. Right. Just to be clear about this, being a habitual offender, guys, is not like just a label you get and then you get the suspension. What Justin is talking about, it’s an actual crime. And I think you gave the statute number, which doesn’t really matter, but it’s it’s actual crime that you can be convicted of. And if you are, you get that five year suspension.

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But what, three what three potluck offenses can you possibly have to qualify. Yeah. So and I didn’t see this earlier. But the habitual offender charge will say is a misdemeanor. The second degree it gets charged under 6503.1. But you need three convictions, of any combination. So it doesn’t have to be three of the same one. It could be three.

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Any three of these. So you have DUI, whether that’s alcohol or drugs. Driving under suspension do UI related while DUI, the 1543 B 1.1 vehicular manslaughter. Voluntary or involuntary. We don’t usually see that a ton. But then you also have accidents involving death or personal injury, accidents involving damage to an attended vehicle or property. So there is a distinction, there are two separate accidents involving damage, one for attended a vehicle or property and one for unattended.

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So it’s only for the attended, meaning there was essentially a person there or person in the vehicle or on the property. And Justin, this is what we call in layman’s terms, hit and run. Yes. Right. So a lot of times people will call me and say, hey, I got charged with hit and run, and I know that means what the statutes called, again, as Justin said, was accident involving damage to attended vehicle or property or unattended vehicle or property.

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So usually this is parked cars if it’s unattended, which is a summary of fence. Carries points but no suspension. Correct. This one doesn’t qualify under one of these individual offenders. Unattended. Unattended. But it could also be things like a sign on the road or a telephone pole or a mailbox. Yeah. I guess unless someone is, like, sitting on the mailbox.

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Yeah, yeah, the property one I think is, you know, they include that, Right. So, I’d be curious to see, like what? What what happened if it was, like a house and there was someone in the house? I, I would say that probably be appendix right, because I’ve seen that before. When I was clerking down in Franklin County.

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Before I had passed the bar. We actually were dealing with a civil case. The judge that I was working for where a guy was coming down, kind of like a big, steep hill and a, you know, a tractor trailer, 18 Wheeler, and, did not follow the, the speed limit. And his brakes ended up going out, and he actually drove through a woman’s house.

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So I think that would probably qualify. Well, it’s also the difference between a parked car and a car that somebody driving, for sure. Yeah. And I was going to get to that in a moment, but we were just kind of bantering about, you know, what, if someone’s in the house, but they were cross in the other wing of the house, right.

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Is that still attended? Do they have to be in the room? I don’t know, I that would be an interesting that would be an interesting fact, legal fact pattern. Usually they’re not going to cite you with any of that though. They’ll just cite you with like reckless endangerment or something instead. Right. Because it’s more serious stuff has happened there.

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Yeah for sure. So there’s those. And then you have serious traffic offenses, reckless driving, racing on highways, things such as that, fleeing or eluding. So if you run from the cops. And my understanding is so there’s a misdemeanor and a felony for that. I believe it’s either. So it’s not clear in the statute, but, it’s also not specified.

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So could be both. I do want to actually touch on that real quick, because the fleeing and eluding I’ve always found interesting because there’s I think there’s three qualifying factors that can make it a felony. Yeah. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s, if you’re DUI at the time, it’s a felony when you’re fleeing.

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If you cross state lines, that’s a felony. And if you flee at a high speed and high speed is fine. Not defined. So the only guy I’ve ever known not to flee at high speed is O.J. Simpson. We’ve all we’ve all seen that in the white Bronco. Well, he would have got a misdemeanor there. Well, I think it is high speed, but part of, I believe, the the definition.

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Excuse me. Do you think O.J. was high speed? Well, not not necessarily high speed, but I believe in I don’t believe it’s in the statute, but I think it’s in the jury instructions that if you create like a danger to public safety, that could also bump it up. Yeah. And I had a few of those where maybe they’re not necessarily driving 80, 90 miles an hour, but they’re driving through like a crowded neighborhood.

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There’s, you know, kids on the sidewalk, right? Running stop signs. Right? It’s like a neighborhood area in the wrong way. Actually, it’s factually specific, right? But yeah, it is also a bargaining chip, though. Like that is something where sometimes if you have a lower speed, but you’re looking at the circumstances factually, that you might be able to work with the police or the Da to maybe bump what would maybe be a felony to a misdemeanor.

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Yeah. Something like I feel like that’s something that we well, I know I dealt with a ton of those at the DA’s office. I’ve had a few flings here and there. Since being back here. But, that was something we used to do all the time. Yeah. Actually, remember when I, I had with you, actually. But in any event.

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Okay, so let’s get back to this. So you’re going through the offenses here that qualify. So yeah. Just to recap, DUI, alcohol or drugs, driving under suspension, DUI related. While DUI, vehicular manslaughter, accidents involving death or personal injury, accidents involving damage to an attended vehicle or property. Reckless driving, racing on highways. Other serious traffic offenses which are defined in the statute.

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Fleeing or eluding. Failure to stop and yield after an accident. So essentially leaving the scene of an accident. And then felonies involving the use of a motor vehicle. Again, that is not specifically defined. Some of the ones I was thinking of could potintially be. Well, obviously, I think fleeing is already in there. But, maybe I guess it could be if you.

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What is it? Receiving stolen property. A vehicle if you’re driving it at the time. Yeah. I’m also thinking, what about, possession with intint to deliver when you have the drugs. And I don’t think that’s what that means. No, but what it means is, like, if you are if there’s an accident involving serious bodily injury and you flee the scene, that offense is a felony.

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Three. Same thing with, like, an accident involving death or serious bodily injury while you’re unlicensed. That’s a felony offense. So those kinds of felonies, it’s vehicular felonies. Yes. It’s a specific visual offender. And you can actually in the little cheat sheet that we have, you can see all the habitual offender once. So like, for instance. Causing accident related to injury or death while not licensed.

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It’s a felony three for serious bodily injury or death. That’s that’s a habitual offender offense. Homicide by vehicle. Yeah, yeah. Oh, one thing I did want to include in there. And again, this is also in the statute, one of those three convictions or all three. They include a r d acceptance of one or more of those offenses. Okay.

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Yeah. Okay. So even if you do ar.d if you have a DUI, a fleeing and you left the scene of the accident if there was an accident. If you enter A or D on all those technically that could count as put you into that. This is like this is a sneaky one. Guys like the habitual offender offense is sneaky because I feel like a lot of people and I would venture to say even a lot of lawyers don’t catch this unless you’re really dealing with somebody who knows it, is savvy, does it regularly, and is looking at it because you could find yourself to be a habitual offender and not even realize your habitual

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offender, right? Absolutely. I in fact, I’m thinking of all the ones I probably had on almost every single one of them. I think my clients have said I didn’t even realize I was a offender, you know, and we go back to their record and I go, yeah, it’s right here. It’s right here. There’s the three. It’s quality, I think, like, they don’t realize that they hit the standard, but like they do know they’re a habitual offender.

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Okay. You know what I mean. Factually. They know that. They don’t know that it’s another charge that they’re going to get slapped with. But they do know that they’re they’re in a way. I mean, if they had counsel, their council should have disclosed to them and told them, like, hey, just FYI, when you plead guilty or get convicted of this third one, you are moving forward considered individual offender by law.

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Well, and they get noticed from PennDOT too. I mean, they get a lot of suspension either way. So like they get they get noticed saying your license is revoked for five years. How many people tell you I never get anything from Pentagon? I didn’t get that piece of mail. You know, that’s pretty much everybody. So especially when it’s like, well, you know, I used to they sent it to my old address and it’s like, well, how long did you live there?

00:22:43:15 – 00:23:00:22

It’s like five years ago. Did you ever update your address? No. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like well and guys please. And this public service announcement, when you move update your address with PennDOT, you’re required to do it. It’s actually a crime if you don’t do it. I very rarely see that cited. It’s a summary of fence I actually had you had to dealt with somebody.

00:23:00:25 – 00:23:34:12

But but if you don’t do it you’re not going to get the letters. So that’s on you, you know, and you can’t go into court and cry about it because you didn’t handle your life responsibly. Take care of your own business, you know. So all right. Well, Justin, that was a good rendition of that. Appreciate that. So definitely, guys, something to watch out for the habitual offender thing again, I think it’s kind of like a sneaky arrow out there in the quiver of the government that, you know, you might not realize you have, but if you do, it can crush you, and it can put you in this black hole that you might

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not otherwise have been in or close to getting out of. Because guys, five years, man, half a decade. If you get this, you’re in the black hole immediately. So if you aren’t already. So. All right. Well, good. I want to talk a little bit about a recent law that went into effect in Pennsylvania here called Paul Miller’s Law.

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This is essentially the law that requires that you are not allowed to have a cell phone device in your hand while you are driving, regardless of really what you’re doing on it. I actually had some cases that came down the pipe right before this went into effect. It went into effect June 6th of 2026 is when it went into effect.

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Police officers could start siting for it and actually issuing charges and citations. But, I had a case just before June 6th that was. And the old statute they used to cite under was texting while driving, essentially. But they actually had to prove that you were attempting to actually send a text message, not just that you were looking up something on the internet, you know, on your cell phone.

00:24:39:24 – 00:24:55:06

Now, under Paul Miller’s law, it doesn’t matter. You can be taking a photo of yourself. You can be smiling and checking your teeth out to make sure there’s no food stuck in your teeth. And you are going to be cited with this. If the police officer sees that phone in your hand, there is no excuse to have it.

00:24:55:06 – 00:25:11:26

I think other than dialing 911, I think that is the one of the only exceptions. But, I’d like to jump Justin back over to you here, because I know you did this outline and touched on this a little bit. Tell us a little bit about Paul Miller’s law, what it carries, what you need to be careful with.

00:25:12:00 – 00:25:30:28

And I think, like I said, I think there is one exception or two exceptions. Maybe I’d like to know what those are. Two. Absolutely. So, I’ve only seen this site at one time. And it was actually sided with a driving under suspension, and the guy was about a year away from getting his license restored was about ten months.

00:25:30:28 – 00:25:50:02

And, we’re in front of one of the MDGs who I would say is a little bit tougher, especially on the driving offenses. Luckily, we had a good officer, and the guy kind of took a lot of steps to come up with a plan to not drive and, you know, get to work, etc. so we were able to get the driving under suspension, amended to a driving without a license.

00:25:50:02 – 00:26:14:07

So we didn’t get another year. But the judge did say, essentially, I’ll accept this, but you’re pleading to the, Paul Miller’s Law offense. So for noncommercial drivers, if you are convicted, it does not carry any points, and it actually is not recorded on your drive or record under PennDOT current guidelines. So you’re basically we’re talking about a fine, fine.

00:26:14:08 – 00:26:34:09

Right. You’re not gonna your insurance probably won’t go up. I mean it could maybe but they’d have to be aware of it somehow. And if it’s not going on your record, I’m not sure how the insurance company would ever find out unless they checked the dockets. Yeah, I’m sure something will change with that. Yeah, I can’t imagine, because it does put you from a liability standpoint, kind of at risk with the insurance company.

00:26:34:09 – 00:26:54:12

So you better believe they’re going to be lobbying to try to figure out how to get their hands on this information and trying to raise your rates so and so, like one of the questions, can you legally touch your phone at a red light in Pennsylvania? Generally, no. There are a couple of exceptions for GPS and navigation.

00:26:54:14 – 00:27:14:26

Hands free GPS use is allowed. And that’s kind of distinguished from like covered handheld use. I would say if you have your phone in one of those, you know, holders, you have your GPS on there, like, you know, a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers do. Right? You’re fine. You’re holding it in your hand. Yeah, I guess that would kind of put them out of business if it didn’t allow that.

00:27:14:26 – 00:27:30:10

Right. But yeah, I mean, you’re right. I mean, a lot of we all use our phones for GPS nowadays, right? I mean, gone are the day of the old folks out there like me. Well, remember Tom, Tom and Garmin and I have I have a Garmin that I use. You still use it? Yeah. You’re so you’re an old folk.

00:27:30:13 – 00:27:53:01

But in any event. Yeah. I mean, you guys all remember this. I used to make a, I used to make money, like reselling tom toms when I was like a teenager, like on Craigslist and stuff. But that’s aside the point. But, yeah, I mean, what’s important here is if you have it in your hand, right, so you can use GPS, but it’s got to be kind of want to mount, you know, you know, up there you can’t be messing with it and you can’t be messed with it.

00:27:53:01 – 00:28:22:19

You can’t you can’t plan around that would be considered. Your hand is utilizing it. Yeah. Wasn’t there wasn’t there a reason we touched on it in a recent video? Wasn’t there a lady with, like, out on arm? Yeah, we talked about that. So mind me of that one. That was the officer thought that he saw her using a phone and I from everything, I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but from everything I saw, I mean, it’s very possible she was using a phone, but this, this video, she confronted him later about it and then showed him that she didn’t have a hand.

00:28:22:20 – 00:28:42:27

But she also from from what I saw. And again, I don’t know how true this is, but she did have videos on her social media showing her like using her arms, that she was very capable of interacting with things. So like. And then from what I understand, she took some of those videos down after the incident. So I do think she was probably caught.

00:28:42:27 – 00:28:55:27

And then she kind of threw it in the officer’s face and he backed down in the video, she said, which hand was I holding it in? And he committed to the right hand. Right. And that was what he messed up on. But see, and this is this brings up a really good point. And it’s in the outline here.

00:28:55:27 – 00:29:16:14

But we can just kind of jump to it. Is that based on the current understanding of this law, this is what’s called a reasonable suspicion offense, which means that when they pull you over, they do not need to have probable cause, they need the lower bar. They need an articulate suspicion that you’re in commission of this offense, and they are likely justified in continuing to investigate.

00:29:16:14 – 00:29:35:28

Where is the phone? Where is your phone currently? And and so here’s an example. Right. If you’re driving in your car right. And the officer can see you doing this and your your driving is not great, but he sees you keep doing this, he can potintially initiate a traffic stop on you because he because what are you looking at?

00:29:36:00 – 00:30:00:08

Who’s engaging cellphone. You’re potintially engaging with your cell phone. And if they pull you over and see that your cell phones on your lap, you’re you’re caught. I mean, like, that’s that’s going to be the end of it. And again, we’ve preached about this on our DUI episode on all their episodes. If they get reasonable suspicion to stop you for any offense, including Paul Miller’s Law, a lot of times, guys, it’s going to lead to something else.

00:30:00:10 – 00:30:28:27

They’re going to be looking out. Now I smell alcohol or it smells like marijuana or, you know, get out of the car and let’s talk a little bit. And, you know, these things are going to develop into other scenarios. Reasonable suspicion is built into the statute because there are exceptions. So if the officer sees you holding the phone and he’s going to initiate that stop and he’s going to ask you why you’re using the phone, because if you’re currently on the phone with 911 dispatch, then you’re good.

00:30:28:28 – 00:30:46:02

He’s not going to cite you. So if he’s asking you, what are you doing with your phone? And your answer is not I’m on 911, then you’ve he’s got you on the offense and you gotta if you’re going to say, I’m on the phone with 901, they can verify that. They’re going to verify that. Yeah. And they’re going to check your phone record.

00:30:46:03 – 00:31:05:19

They’re gonna call into 901. Which guys they have obviously the ability to do that in their cruiser to touch base with dispatch. This also dovetails with another citation which is not in the outline but is very common. And it’s the one earbud prohibition you’re not allowed to drive with headphones or earbuds in. And that includes one earbud. You.

00:31:05:20 – 00:31:31:19

So if an officer sees you with an earbud in, they can pull you over. If they see you with headphones on, they can pull you over. There are exceptions to that, but generally it’s like a headset for hands free communication. Or truckers can use communication devices like radios and things that are attached to their head. But if you’re driving with your Apple EarPods and that’s an offense under the motor vehicle code, and it’s a reasonable suspicion offense, which means they can pull you over and investigate.

00:31:31:20 – 00:31:47:26

Yeah, I, I remember I was actually I’m glad you brought that up because I was wondering about that. And it’s not something I’ve looked into recently, but I remember being like a teenager and riding around with my Walkman and having my headphones on because my radio was broken and like, or like I didn’t have like a CD player or something in my car.

00:31:47:26 – 00:32:04:01

This is back in like the early 90s. But or no, not the early 90s, early 2000. I was I was a child in the early 90s. I was not driving, but any event, I remember doing that and my parents would always be like, dude, that’s illegal. Like, my dad was a defense attorney, you know, he knew that stuff.

00:32:04:01 – 00:32:19:10

And he’s like, you can’t do that. Stop doing it. And I’d still do it. I didn’t know if that transferred over to the I pod thing. Yeah. Or not the iPod, the earbuds because they’re one they’re so small. They’re kind of hard to see. But the bright white I mean I see people doing it all the time of them are black.

00:32:19:12 – 00:32:34:16

I mean, there’s there’s black ones out there or even there’s all sorts of different colors. I see drivers doing it all the time. I mean, honestly, I do even oncoming drivers. I can see like if you stop that intersection and they’re making a turn through a stop sign, you can clearly see they got earbuds in. Yeah. So like, an officer could stop you.

00:32:34:18 – 00:32:52:26

Let me ask you, have you seen anyone actually get sighted with that? I haven’t I have, but generally the reason that we’re bringing this up and talking about the reasonable suspicion thing is because it’s like window tint, because all they have to do to initiate a stop to investigate for window tint is they can’t see through the driver compartment.

00:32:52:26 – 00:33:15:12

If the windows on your side, your front side doors, windows are so tinted that they cannot clearly see into the vehicle, they can stop you and they do not have to slap a tint meter on the windows. They can conduct an investigation because they’re allowed to take a closer look at the windows. And then once the right side of your car, whatever they see is potintially fair game.

00:33:15:14 – 00:33:36:16

So in theory, this is another way for officers to get into your car. The Paul Miller’s Law and also the earbud thing, that’s why I’m bringing it up is because it’s it is kind of like window tint. People don’t think about the window tint or this being on the same level, but if they see you with an earbud in, they now have reasonable suspicion and they can conduct follow on investigation potintially.

00:33:36:16 – 00:33:59:13

And if they’re doing that and they smell alcohol or marijuana or something, guess what. Now it’s just matured into a DUI stop. Yeah, I do want to. You talked about ten. So I want to hit on it here. Because I think it’s a great spot to put it. So Pennsylvania requires the, the law is that you must have 70% of light be able to pass through the vehicle’s window.

00:33:59:19 – 00:34:18:01

Now, that might sound like. Oh, so I can have 30% tint on my window. And that might seem kind of dark to you, but here’s what I did, guys, because I actually have seen this a bunch and I wanted to see how this actually looked. So I got legal tint installed on my vehicle for the purpose of just seeing if it was effective.

00:34:18:02 – 00:34:41:14

Like, you know, what does it look like? And you know what? I could barely tell. I even had ten on my damn window like it was. It was that much light that was coming through to the point that I actually had it taken off because it was pointless. So really, the real rule around tint in Pennsylvania, guys, is you basically might as well not have tint on your front windows because you’re inviting the police officer to stop your vehicle.

00:34:41:19 – 00:34:59:06

And as we keep saying, that leads to other things, right? And down the rabbit hole we go, there’s two different citations. We get this a lot from people where their first off, they can pull you over for tint and not cite you for tint. If they pull you over for tint and they hit you with DUI, or they find a gun in the car or something, they do not have to cite you with tint.

00:34:59:07 – 00:35:18:07

So a lot of people get really upset about that. Oh, you put me for tint and you didn’t cite me for ten. Yeah. Look, my kids dismissed. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. But there’s also two different tint citations. The there’s one which does require them to have a meter reading because that’s, that’s they have to be able to show the light transference in order to sustain that statute.

00:35:18:07 – 00:35:35:19

But the other one is improper sun screening, improper some screening and unsafe equipment, I think are the two and one of those, the other one does not require a tint reading. It just requires that they can’t see through the window. Or they they think they can’t see through the window, and they can cite you with it. Yeah.

00:35:35:20 – 00:35:54:04

And then I don’t think you can have any tint on your windshield. No, you can’t unless you have a prescription. Well, okay. Let me talk about that. I have my my best friend is an eye doctor, Ryan Yealy Yealy Eye Care here in York. Awesome guy. Super good doctor. Ryan, I love you. I know you watch our podcast.

00:35:54:04 – 00:36:17:26

00:36:17:26 – 00:36:52:20

00:36:52:29 – 00:37:13:08

Anybody who needs a good idea or go see Ryan Yealy on East Market Street here in York. Does he do tint prescriptions Yealy Eye Care. Well, I’ve talked to him about this, because he’s my buddy, and we talk about all this stuff. Right? And, he gets people coming into his eye office all the time asking for these, windshield tint prescriptions, and he never writes them.

00:37:13:08 – 00:37:29:25

Yeah, I don’t know how true it is, because it’s all people literally come in and just try to get him just to get the tint But what he’s told me is the cops don’t care even if you got the prescription. Yeah. I don’t think that gets you. I don’t think it does either. It might mitigate. So they’re kind of pointless.

00:37:29:26 – 00:37:47:02

Well, and the other thing too, which is why he doesn’t write them. The other thing to remember too, is that even if that was legitimate, it would be like the old style windshields where there’s a strip at the top of tint to sort of protect you from the sun. People tint their entire windshield, which is not permissible, and it’s not safe.

00:37:47:05 – 00:38:13:04

I mean, you’re, you’re you are affecting your ability to see at night if you tint your windshield and and I’ve seen this, officers really don’t like windshield tint. I think the ones that care about the safety of the thing more than just trying to get in your car there a lot more upset about the windshield tint than they are about the driver’s side passenger side window tint, because that’s actually a huge safety hazard, because it dims your ability to see through your own headlights.

00:38:13:06 – 00:38:32:13

Your your visibility forward at night is is greatly diminished by windshield tint. Yeah. No, it’s dude, it’s totally unsafe. Yeah. Like it’s it’s dangerous. It’s a hazard. You’re putting yourself and others at risk because you’re doing it. And you, if the cop sees your windshield tenant, you are getting pulled over. Yeah, absolutely. We’re getting a lot of, like, headlight tint now.

00:38:32:17 – 00:38:51:12

License. That’s another thing. The license plate tint is also illegal. And they are they have had several iterations of that statute and they are actually working on one now, which I think is going to basically all but exclude any kind of covering on your license plate. It’s funny because we have a staff member here who has a covering on license plate that’s going to end up becoming illegal.

00:38:51:13 – 00:39:08:13

I’ve talked to that person about it, but, she works with us, so we’d help her. Yeah, but in any event. All right, Justin, I want to. We hijacked you there, buddy. Oh. You’re good. I want to come back to you here, man. You were telling us about, Paul Miller’s law and kind of what qualifies and stuff.

00:39:08:13 – 00:39:33:02

And you were about to tell us about, the exception. Yeah, exception. So I’m going to go back to you for that. So really, the the only two exceptions while while moving are, well, it’s really only one it’s an emergency call. So if you have to call 901 that’s permitted. Hands free calls are permitted when used consistintly with the law whatever that means.

00:39:33:02 – 00:39:59:14

Basically if you have the ability to make a call from your like steering wheel, you know, they most newer cars have the buttons and everything like that voice command voice come in that that’s that’s fine. Parked versus stop. So there’s a difference between being legally parked and stopped at, like, a stoplight or a stop sign. If you’re temporarily stopped and traffic, that does not mean you’re legally parked.

00:39:59:17 – 00:40:18:04

You should not be on your phone. Yeah. If you think you’re parked when you’re stopped in traffic, reassess your definition of part, the amount of vendors that are caused by that. Oh, right. You know what I mean. Like, like one person jumps the gun because the person in front of them should be going through the intersection, but they’re looking down at their phone.

00:40:18:05 – 00:40:33:05

Yeah. I mean, that happens all the time. Yeah. Speaking of fender benders, you know, the one I hate is when you’re merging off of a highway onto a road and you’re behind someone and they don’t know how to deal. Well, and they’re. You think they’re going to go because they start going, but then they slam their brakes on.

00:40:33:05 – 00:40:52:18

And by that time, you’re already looking behind you. Yeah. Like and because everybody thinks yields are stop signs apparently like I don’t get it. Yeah I stand it. Yeah. And and then you want to be like dude, why did you stop? The same thing is true at roundabouts. There’s there’s some roundabouts near me that I go through. And without fail, people will stop at the yield every time.

00:40:52:18 – 00:41:21:28

They don’t get how to go through these intersections. Yeah. And the reason I brought this even up, guys, is I’ve run into this so many times, and I’ve seen clients run into this, and I’m actually getting accidents that I just when you’re merging onto a roadway from a highway or really anywhere, and you think the guy in front of you is going, give it one more look to make sure before you turn your head, accelerate just to double check the thinking they’re going the interchange on from 30 to 83 north is really bad like that.

00:41:22:00 – 00:41:41:26

That is not long enough. And when you have trucks coming through there, people get stupid on that ramp. A lot of times you almost have to. You can’t even really be looking out for that car. Almost. You have to just find an opening and seize it immediately. Because because the person in front of you is going to sit there on the on ramp and everybody’s going to get jammed up behind you.

00:41:41:28 – 00:41:55:29

Yeah, that’s a bad one. And there’s a light right there too. So. Well, is that the one on the light at the Round the clock diner? Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Yeah. But once you’re through that light, you go on to the on ramp, and then once the on ramp actually touches 83, it. I mean, you have basically like 20 yards.

00:41:56:01 – 00:42:17:08

Yeah. To very, very short. It’s bad. And people will just like creep up all the way to where it just almost meets the actual lane and stop there going 30 or 40 miles an hour. The speed limit there is 55. So like if you’re not even up to speed to merge, they’re almost always are going to end up stopping like there’s been so many times, especially because we both usually take that way to get on and go home.

00:42:17:10 – 00:42:36:02

And there’s people literally like 2 or 3 cars will be stopped, like all the way up where the the lane essentially meets the, excuse me, the merge lane turns into the actual lane of 83, and then they just stop. Yeah. I’m like, what are we doing here? I almost got that going around them. Like I’m not stopping or waiting for them to go.

00:42:36:07 – 00:42:51:06

I’m merging on because there’s I used to have used to hate that on ramp with my mother. It’s almost like you just have to get away from these people because they are a damn hazard on the water, you know? Well, you mean you gotta get up to speed to you? I mean, your options are you either speed up or slow down.

00:42:51:06 – 00:43:07:11

Those are your options. You can’t just creep onto 83 going 30 miles an hour and get in the lane like you’re you’re screwing everyone up. If you do that, you got to get up to speed and merge, or you have to be going slower than the vehicles. But if you’re doing that, that’s a problem. I can’t believe they haven’t done something about that intersection.

00:43:07:11 – 00:43:20:04

I don’t know what they would do because there’s the exit for George Streets right there. Yeah, I don’t know what you would do either. It’s that intersection has been the same since I’ve been driving, and I was, you know, when I was 16 years old, I actually got into an accident right there. Yeah, it’s. I was 16 years old.

00:43:20:05 – 00:43:35:14

The only I remembered something that would fix it is if they just took that exit away. And you had to go up to a, George Street. Oh, and turn right over the hill and get on by the rudders, or people would freak out. Yeah, I mean, that would be that, because then how do you get there from 30 it takes and that would also jam up the Susquehanna.

00:43:35:16 – 00:44:00:00

Is it Susquehanna trail there? No, it’s a it’s George George. But I mean, as we know 30 already is a complete mess. Well, and that’s because the lights are timed wacky there. You ever notice that the lights on 30. They’re timed. It seems like to the preference of West. I’m sorry eastbound traffic I know noticed that. So during rush hour, especially in the afternoon, traffic eastbound is flowing fine.

00:44:00:02 – 00:44:22:11

But the traffic going in towards York, the west westbound is jammed up through three lights because the lights are timed for the eastbound traffic. But there’s way more westbound traffic at that time of day. And I think that screws it up, because now instead of having a couple of vehicles trickling on to 83 north on that on ramp, you end up with the entire lights worth of jammed up traffic going on to the on ramp.

00:44:22:14 – 00:44:41:00

The other thing they could probably do is they’d have to redo that road and connect it to 83 sooner. So like the the curve would almost have to be sharper. They would have to. Yeah. Because there’s an on ramp or an off ramp they’re coming on to. Yeah. What is your let me ask you guys about this one.

00:44:41:00 – 00:45:01:18

So that same area. But say when you’re traveling and guys for those of you that are from York, if you’re not from York, please forgive this part of the episode. But for those of you that are from New York. This will help. This is important to you because you do this a lot. When you are traveling. I 83 North and you get off on route 30 to travel east.

00:45:01:20 – 00:45:20:17

Okay. Yeah. So that’s the Arsenal Boulevard that is. Yeah. So I you so I live in Dallas Town, right. So I travel that way a lot and I, my one son did some baseball training out behind kind of near where the incinerator is. Yeah. So I would frequently get off there and I’d have to get all the way over into the turning lane.

00:45:20:18 – 00:45:40:01

Yeah, that’s 3 or 4 lanes of traffic within 100ft. Yeah. Like it’s so quick. And you got trucks flying through there. And I would sometimes sit at that on ramp for like five minutes. Like better off. Just get going into the turn lane, making the right into sheets on tornado and then and then going straight. Yeah. And I have done that.

00:45:40:02 – 00:45:55:08

Yeah. But dude, that one scared me a lot because I’d have to, like, thread that needle and like cut four lanes of traffic. I see people doing that. And you always kind of I admire the moxie for people that are just cutting across four lanes of traffic like, whoa, man off a 30 at a to go to the prison.

00:45:55:08 – 00:46:12:07

Was that Mount Zion? Yeah. I mean, if there’s traffic actually coming that way to get, you have to go across three lanes to get from 30 to Mount Zion or to. Yeah. What is that? That’s, industrial park or is that industrial or whatever? No, it’s Concord Road. Concord. Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s the same rulers of prisons on.

00:46:12:08 – 00:46:37:10

Yeah, there’s a few funeral sections like that around here that. Yeah, like they’re just old. Like there. Any of you that watch our podcast that work for PennDOT or who? I guess that’s who deals with the roads, right? Yeah. PennDOT. Please talk to someone about that intersection of route 30 and I-83. It’s scary. It is bad. Scary from the I mean, like, I don’t know what what else they could do to fix it aside from expanding the road like that would be.

00:46:37:10 – 00:46:56:10

The other thing is add another lane on 30 and 83. But like that would that would require eminent domain. Yeah that would. Yeah. And other diner getting taken by. Well and good luck. Sadly good luck taking that guy’s diner. I know that guy. Yeah, well, it’s been there forever. Yeah. It’s like the one. That’s what they did up in in Harrisburg off of Paxton Street.

00:46:56:12 – 00:47:18:25

Well, that’s a bunch of car dealerships and stuff. But there was other stuff. A diner that they were fighting for. Oh, yeah, you’re right. You got about people in Pennsylvania, me included, love their dad. But I’ll. I’ll tell you what. You know, when you go see the Capital Beltway, like, I was in law school when they were working on 83 North and they were expanding that they would have that road down to one lane every day.

00:47:19:02 – 00:47:34:25

And it was miserable. I but I remember driving on that road when it was done and being like, oh, this is nice. Yes, this is real nice. And they’re doing the same thing, going kind of like east and west now. And it’s the same deal. They took a bunch of businesses and stuff. They’re changing like the interchange and stuff like that.

00:47:34:25 – 00:47:53:19

And it sucks going across the bridge and all that is garbage. But once it’s done, everybody’s going to be like this. Nice. I kind of wonder. I, the guy that owns the diner around the clock diner there, I work out with him at my gym, and I’m going to ask him if you’ve ever, he’s ever been approached about any changes to that intersection and his property.

00:47:53:19 – 00:48:07:28

That’d be interesting. I’m holding it up. Yeah, I’m going to ask him. So if I get in a car accident, I need to see that. And I don’t think you watch. There’s no West. But he might I but, I’m gonna ask him because I’d be interested to know if he’s ever been approached, about that, but, I mean, good for him.

00:48:07:29 – 00:48:25:02

I mean, if he mean, if he. Well, I mean, if it’s eminent domain. Well, they haven’t they take sucks, but but I, I wonder if he’s actually just been approached about it. Possibly. I think the like people just need to drive a little better, a little. You have to drive a little more aggressively at that. And there’s so many more cars in New York County now that’s the other problem.

00:48:25:04 – 00:48:40:18

And there was I mean, I remember going down route 30 as a teenager, middle of the night. And you could those lights, by the way, they blink their yellow blinkers in at like 3 a.m.. And I used to, you know, go see my girlfriend across town or something. And route 30 used to be my that was an old haunt for me.

00:48:40:18 – 00:49:01:20

I used to drive up and down there all the time and, you could literally it was like you were on a freeway 3 a.m.. There was nothing on there you could speed on that, you know, pretty horribly on route 30. But now even that time of night, there’s cars everywhere. There’s so many cars now that trucks and the intersections have not kept up with the amount of it just haven’t.

00:49:01:24 – 00:49:21:14

The only thing I miss about Covid is being able to drive so easily everywhere. That was weird. That was kind of cool though. When I first started at the DA’s office, it was. I mean, it wasn’t even directly after Covid. It was still like maybe another year after, really, everything came back to some sense of normalcy. And I remember, especially in the morning, coming from Harrisburg down to York, there was like no traffic.

00:49:21:17 – 00:49:41:07

There’d be a little bit going towards, you know, Harrisburg. Most people are going to work up that rather than going down this way. And then I remember like leaving at 430, 5:00 from the DA’s office. There was like no traffic going north. And then a couple months go by and all of a sudden, like, even now, like, I feel like it just keeps getting there’s more and more traffic every single day, but is what it is.

00:49:41:10 – 00:49:55:21

All right. Well, for those of you that haven’t logged off of our podcast, if you’re not from York and or find all of this discussion irrelevant, or maybe those that you have joined if you are from York. We’re going to keep on track and here and get back to more interesting topics that might reach a lot of you.

00:49:55:22 – 00:50:19:13

So, did you want to touch Justin on some of the kind of ways we can defend this? Paul Miller’s Law a little bit, because there is some defense questions here that I think are pretty pertinent. Absolutely. Yeah. So did the officer actually observe the conduct that is prohibited by the statute, meaning, again, you know, having your phone in your hand, using it for, GPS talking on the phone, texting.

00:50:19:17 – 00:50:37:24

Well, actually we should there’s a distinction. This is not the texting statute, right? There is a texting statute. Right? I talked about that. Yeah. And again, this just you can’t have your phone in your hand. Was the vehicle isn’t that I mean, that isn’t that really just the word of the cop? But that’s why I said it’s a reasonable suspicion.

00:50:37:25 – 00:50:55:17

Yeah. I mean, you got a cop. He’s got to get under oath. He’s got to tell the truth. Right? And I know there’s a lot of people out there that comment on our website says, oh, call cops, lie all the time and things like that. And okay, so that’s your opinion. But at the end of the day, they get they get sworn in and they’re going to get up there and they’re going to say, yeah, I saw them and this is what he was doing.

00:50:55:18 – 00:51:13:10

And I can tell you probably 100 out of 100 times you’re getting convicted. I saw what appeared to be a phone. Now, if they get up to your car and it’s not a phone, maybe it’s your eyeglass case or something. First off, I mean, you know, that’s kind of you’re putting a target on your back that. But if they do come up, I mean, they may cite you, but that’s something we can work with.

00:51:13:10 – 00:51:34:14

That’s I think that’s the point of Justin’s questions here is like, were they actually on their phone? Can we negotiate or drop this citation maybe, maybe on something else? Or maybe they can, like their eyes, pay the court costs for wasting everybody’s time and having the citation, but like, they don’t get a fine and all that. Right. And that’s, that does actually bring it to where we would get involved.

00:51:34:19 – 00:51:51:04

Right. And how we would fix this. And you’re right, there’s certain rules in the rules of criminal procedure that allow us to avoid convictions for this in the right circumstances, but you got to negotiate that with a cop. They’re not going to do it because you show up and you’re a pretty face. I mean, they’re gonna want to talk about this and you might have to do a class.

00:51:51:04 – 00:52:10:08

And and if you get charged with a more significant crime, then these questions maybe go into whether or not there’s a suppression issue. But again, I mean, my understanding of the law, and it’s a relatively new law, which means there could be case law that develops on this. My reading of it, my understanding is it’s reasonable suspicion, which is a lower threshold than probable cause.

00:52:10:11 – 00:52:26:10

So, you know, think like some of the cases on this, like Commonwealth versus Sands and some others. I mean, they just have to be able to articulate they saw an object in your hand and they believed it was a phone. And they came up to your car to investigate that further. Yeah. And then guess what else happened.

00:52:26:11 – 00:52:49:00

Yeah. Now you got do and you had a gun in plain view or whatever. Yeah. So. All right. You had an interesting statistic on here, Justin. I’ll let you read it off about the real world enforcement. Yeah. So the Pennsylvania State Police did a three day enforcement operation where they were, you know, specifically on the lookout for people on their phones and, you know, people having their phones in their hands.

00:52:49:02 – 00:53:09:01

And during those three days, they issued 694 citations for Paul Miller’s Law during three days, over three days. And then, you know, think about all the people they didn’t even see. Right, right. You know. Yeah. So and I mean, like you said earlier, you know, we all use our phones for everything these days. I know I use mine for GPS.

00:53:09:04 – 00:53:26:20

I will say I am getting a lot more familiar with York County now. And I do know how to get a lot of places that, you know, a year ago I didn’t. So it has become a little bit easier. But again, we just talked, you know, 30 is a mess half the time. There’s, you know, accidents in other places.

00:53:26:20 – 00:53:43:13

So construction. Construction? Yeah. Even if you know where you’re going. Sometimes you have to find an alternate route. So again, you got to stay off your phone. And then just to kind of, again go back a little bit to, you know, some of those questions, you know, was the vehicle moving? Was the driver stopped in traffic?

00:53:43:13 – 00:54:07:28

Were they legally parked? Was the device being used for an exempt purpose? What other facts, if any, justify the stop? What did the officer observe before? You know, potintially expanding an investigation? There’s a number of things that go into it. And I do think that there’s going to be some wiggle room for people if they get sided with this, and they are stopped at, like a red light versus driving.

00:54:07:29 – 00:54:41:17

Right? There’s probably a little bit more wiggle room. And again, depending on the officer and the situation, you know, there’s there’s numerous ways to work these out, just like all the other citations we deal with. So, you know, you get cited contact an attorney. Yeah, I see a lot of reels on like, Instagram and stuff. I don’t know if you guys see them to where they’re they’re kind of making light of these rules, and they’re talking about how, like, there’s all this public awareness of distracted driving today, but then they, they’ll cut to like flashback to the 90s and it shows you like a CD in your mouth and you’re flipping through your

00:54:41:17 – 00:55:02:05

CD thing, putting the CD in, or you got like a burger in your hand and you’re like, drip and catch up on yourself. It’s like distracted driving has always been a thing. Yeah, but I mean, the law is named after someone who was killed because of a texting driver or a driver on their phone. And this person is by no means the only one.

00:55:02:07 – 00:55:24:10

So like, this really has become a lightning rod in society right now, because the idea that you’re driving home from school, picking your kids up and all your, your, your life, your family’s life is snuffed out because somebody is on their phone. Yeah, that’s really, really distasteful. Like, there’s a reason this law exists and it’s a big reason.

00:55:24:10 – 00:55:46:20

It’s like impaired driving. Yeah. I mean, it’s huge. And I mean, we all do this when you’re driving on the highway. Just take a look around you. I would my money on the fact that you will see at least one, probably two people going like this. And they’re terrible, like driving with their knees. You know, the left lane doing 12 miles under the speed limit.

00:55:46:21 – 00:56:09:25

Yeah. And you can even see them when you’re behind them, even if you can’t see them on their phone, you see the car going, doing one of these. Yeah. I’ve just seen drifting around. And you’re especially at night like you are behind a vehicle that’s all over the road in and out of its lane. I actually just saw this a few months ago where, like, he legit almost went off the road, at a stretch of road there, and you’re behind this person and you’re like, is this guy drunk off his mind?

00:56:09:25 – 00:56:23:04

Out of his mind? That’s your initial thought. But then you’re like, no, he’s probably just on his cell phone. But then you’re like, I gotta get around this guy. So you pass him to get nowhere near him. Right. You want to be you want to be away from this motorist because they’re clearly a hazard. And then as you’re looking at them, you can see they’re looking at their cell phone.

00:56:23:04 – 00:56:45:25

Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s almost always now I mean what used to be. Oh that’s a drunk driver. It’s now a dude on a cell. That’s a person on the phone. And it is. I hate even saying this, but it is probably the majority of drivers when you’re driving around that are literally on their cell phone. And this law, part of me wishes it was it carried more serious penalties.

00:56:45:25 – 00:57:12:13

Because I will tell you guys, from being a dad, having children who are growing up are not driving yet but are going to drive soon. This scares the hell out of me. Yeah, like seeing these drivers on the road. I worry about this so much and I do talk to my kids about it. Like because my some of my kids who are older have cell phones already and like how important it is that you can’t be on it when you’re driving because and we I even point out other people to them, like, see, there’s that guy.

00:57:12:13 – 00:57:26:25

See that guy? This is what you can’t. This is why it’s dangerous. Because I want them to see that. But it’s not. Even the thing that sucks about this is it’s not even just, you know, it’s all the other hazards that are trying to take you out on the road, and that’s you. And that was one of those double edged sword.

00:57:26:25 – 00:57:43:11

I used to love riding my motorcycle because I could not engage in that kind of distraction. Like in my car. I’ve used my phone, you know, looking at looking at it, if I get a text real quick, I just flip my phone over, see who it is to see if it’s not work or an emergency or something. But that is prohibited.

00:57:43:12 – 00:58:07:10

Like, you can’t do that. And even that creates an opportunity for serious distractions and road conditions change rapidly. I think that I watched a video about this recently. Another thing that’s affecting the way people drive is the size of vehicles has changed. Most people aren’t buying sedans anymore. Most people are buying trucks or crossover SUVs or three larger SUVs, right.

00:58:07:17 – 00:58:26:12

So when you’re in a larger vehicle, you don’t perceive speed and other things as much as someone in a smaller vehicle would perceive them. Oh, that’s absolutely true. And so is out there who’s ever driven a small car. I mean, if you’re even remotely near my age or really any of these guys ages, I know when I got my first car, it was a stick shift.

00:58:26:12 – 00:58:44:25

It was a little Honda Civic. I could feel speed in that car. You knew if you were a book in like 85, 90 miles an hour, you knew it well. Damn car was about to fall apart, right? An hour. But like, yeah, I mean, yeah, like you feel it. So people are engaging in worse habits because they’re in a tank and they don’t perceive how fast they’re going.

00:58:44:29 – 00:59:03:17

They feel safer, they feel safer. So they don’t have a problem looking at their phone. They don’t have a problem with any of that because it’s like, get over it. They’re also driving a, you know, five ton missile road or whatever it weighs, you know, which is why crashes are a lot more of a problem. They’re a lot more deadly because the vehicles are all bigger.

00:59:03:18 – 00:59:22:08

Yeah, yeah. And I was actually just having this discussion with my wife. Who, who you guys all know, and we were just talking as we were talking about getting a new vehicle and everything, and we were saying, hey, you know, this might be the vehicle that we give to our, our first child who’s going to drive because he’s 14 now and, you know, 15 next year.

00:59:22:08 – 00:59:41:01

And getting to that point. Right. And we were having the debate of should we get him a big car or a big vehicle for safety reasons? Because I want him to be insulated from impact. Right. Or, you know, we’re also saying, okay, first card, we want to really want to spend that amount of money, you know, in dodging.

00:59:41:04 – 00:59:58:22

Yeah. When he’s probably going to bang it up, you know, and kind of try to learn from it, you know. And if he learns on a big vehicle, he’ll be a better he could theoretically be a better driver because they’re harder to pass. They are stuff. But again, you get down to that scenario where like, do you want to spend the money on a brand new driver, right.

00:59:58:23 – 01:00:17:06

And I my son is very mature and I trust him a lot. I love you, Lincoln. You’re a great, wonderful person. But, he still he’s going to be 16 and he’s going to be a brand new motorist. Right. And he still scares the hell out of me because he’s he’s young, you know. So I don’t know if I’d ever want to do that.

01:00:17:06 – 01:00:35:20

So we’re still actually debating that right now whether we want to do that. We actually figured out a way to avoid buying that vehicle for another year. So. Yeah. Well, and based on our experiences and stuff, I’ve talked about this with officers and other people, and I’m curious to know what you guys think. So I mean, this statistic goes to like how many people are using their phones.

01:00:35:20 – 01:00:58:10

But but if you had to guess because I don’t think there are figures that exist. How many drivers on the road in Pennsylvania? Do you suppose there are that are just unlicensed for one reason or another? Like what would you guess the percentage is? Judging by the people that have commented on our last week’s TikTok. Yeah, and Instagram it seems like the majority, but it’s not.

01:00:58:12 – 01:01:13:24

It’s not. Dude, I got so many comments that were like, oh, I’ve been driving for 50 years and I don’t even have a license. I did, yeah, I’ve tried to like put my finger on it just to get a sense of like all the motorists around me. How many of them do you suppose are unlicensed? I’d bet you it’s like 1 in 5.

01:01:13:26 – 01:01:28:29

I was going to say 20%. I bet you it’s 20%. I think that’s probably first that we should. You know what? We’re gonna get some more police officers on our episode, and let’s ask them that question. When we when we some guys who are actually on the beat running patrol. Yeah. Are we talking just straight up never had a license?

01:01:28:29 – 01:01:46:14

I’m saying for any reason. Unlicensed for any reason. You never had it or never had it, I think. I think probably 15, 20 years ago, there was a lot more people, especially before all the automated plate readers and all that kind of stuff. There’s probably a lot more people that just straight up never got a driver’s license for whatever reason.

01:01:46:17 – 01:02:08:24

But now again, we’re seeing so many more people get suspensions and have to deal with suspensions because of all the technology that’s available to police. Right? So they’re better able to, you know, enforce, which might mean there’s more people that are suspended out there. Right. Then there were, you know, and also probably if you never had a license and you get your license suspended, PennDOT assigns you a driver’s license number.

01:02:08:26 – 01:02:21:22

Yeah, because they have to have a way to track the suspension. That’s hilarious. We see that for out of state people a lot. I actually get that question from my clients from like Maryland or other states. When do I have a license in Pennsylvania? Yeah, they get the letter they gave you one just to take it away. So they did.

01:02:21:24 – 01:02:39:05

You actually didn’t even have it for a split second. But but you have a number. Yeah. No, I think I would say 20% is probably a fair number. Yeah. I mean it’s, you know, even just think about the people we talk to on a daily basis, but also like the quality of driver that I see on the road, like he wonder, like are some of these people really likes it.

01:02:39:06 – 01:03:00:00

Yeah. I just wonder though is our opinion of this skewed? I’m sure it is. I’m sure it is. Like our reality is we see people in our office almost every single working day that have a driving under suspension ticket. You know what I think Tim just said? The quality of driving out there is is greatly. Yeah. Declined. I mean, how hard is it to get a damn license now?

01:03:00:01 – 01:03:18:14

It doesn’t even seem that hard. Like they don’t even make you do driver’s ed. You. Were you telling me you didn’t do drivers? I did drivers, I had to do it in high school when I was there. And I’m not even that much older than you. I think I had I started driving when I was like 413, I think my dad, I went to Central York High School here in York County, and it was a requirement to graduate.

01:03:18:16 – 01:03:36:10

Yeah. That you had to do it. Yeah. Yeah. No, you didn’t actually have to have a license, but you had to do the class which included on road. Like driving. Like driving, like at least in a parking lot. Yeah. Because I remember we. I’d go out there with the guy. His first name was Bob. He was just a legend.

01:03:36:12 – 01:03:54:20

Yeah, it was bad. He was. He was a legend at Central York. He also the gym teacher. Some of you, if any of you graduated with me, were out there from Central High School. You know him? Deal. Maybe I forget his last name. Lease Bob Lee’s. That’s what it was. And, like, dude, that dude, all he taught was driver’s ed and dude, he would go.

01:03:54:22 – 01:04:09:05

And everybody in that high school had to go out into the parking lot and sit there, and he would just bark at you out. You didn’t figured out how he had the brakes on his side. He did. Yeah. Had the brakes and the steering wheel. He never had that like. Yeah, we didn’t have that. Yeah. Well you said the gym teacher, the gym.

01:04:09:06 – 01:04:30:17

One of the gym teachers at my high school was the driver’s ed teacher. Same. Oh, like a double. Yeah. And then I, not related to just people getting licensed. My one younger cousin, he didn’t get his license until he was. Oh, I think he was 20. And I remember right after he got his license. He’s a big fliers fan, and I’m a fliers fan.

01:04:30:17 – 01:04:43:08

So we were going down to Philly for fliers game, and he’s like, I’ll drive. And I’m like, yeah, whatever. Not even thinking about it. I can’t believe I made it down to Philly. That was like the scariest thing I ever said. Like, when I think of new drivers, I just think of him and I’m like, it’s so scary to me.

01:04:43:12 – 01:05:06:23

It’s so scary. I drive separate. How about that? When you’re young too, you have a skewed sense of danger. You definitely do. That’s it’s proven. There’s stats about that. I mean, I, I look at I even think about myself at that age to now your sense of danger. You you literally it is absolutely true. You feel invincible, especially as a male at 16, 17, 18.

01:05:06:24 – 01:05:22:20

Like, I literally felt like nothing could follow my words. Some of the stories of like, like from sports teams in back in high school, what we were all doing when we got our licenses, it was just which kind of makes you think, like you’re giving these guys that feel invincible and are totally inexperienced and don’t have a mature brain.

01:05:22:22 – 01:05:40:12

Yeah, a missile to drive down the road. It’s freaking scary. I was. I’ll just keep this brief. One time I was driving my car. After I got after I had my license and got my first car. And, we were messing around after some kind of practice at the school, and I was driving through the parking lot, but I was given a buddy a ride home.

01:05:40:19 – 01:06:01:10

But I was like, doing that thing where, like, I was kind of creeping the car so that he couldn’t get into it. And at one point he actually managed to get my door open. And so I just kind of kept like creeping the car forward as he’s trying to get in the car and as he’s trying to get in the car, the door actually hit like a, like a concrete bollard or something and shut on him.

01:06:01:14 – 01:06:18:14

Oh, and like, so like none of us were thinking at all about like, he could, he could lose his footing and get sucked under the car and run over. It’s because he was a 16 year old brain. Exactly. Yeah. What happens if he gets pinned or wedged between the the concrete bollard and my door? My car? Like he could die?

01:06:18:18 – 01:06:34:22

Capitated just, like, totally not thinking about any of it. And I look back on that one incident, and I have friends who did more stupid things. We were talking about a guy who fell out of a truck. One of my friends at college, he he tried to do that thing in movies where he actually jumped from one truck to another while it was moving.

01:06:34:24 – 01:06:55:10

You’re not moving the same speed as the truck. So when you jump from one moving vehicle to another you basically are staying put. So the vehicles keep going. So he, he just jumped and fell and whacked his head on the ground and, and got seriously injured from that. Like the stuff that we’re doing is like, yeah, no, I’ll tell you another story and then we should probably wrap this episode.

01:06:55:13 – 01:07:20:18

We have so much more to talk about, but we’ll go into next week. So I think about a time with my sister, Joy. Love you. Joy. She I was she was probably like 17 or 16 years old at the time. And I was in college, and I remember my parents went away for the weekend, and my parents had specifically said, to me, they said, hey, listen, you know, we’re a little worried.

01:07:20:19 – 01:07:38:06

Joy is going to throw a banger at the house. Like, just keep an eye on the place, you know, if anything goes down. Help us out. And I, I’m five years older than Joy, so, I was more mature at the time, of course. And my parents specifically asked me, so. Yeah, sure. No problem. I think they might have been throwing me like 20 bucks just to keep an eye on the place.

01:07:38:06 – 01:07:56:12

But anyways, Joy throws a banger. I go over to the house and I’m like, you know, strong college guy. And and at that time I lifted weights and probably was a lot more chap and maybe slightly more intimidating, but, I was shutting that shit down. Like I was like, dude, I’m going in there and I’m just closing this shop up.

01:07:56:12 – 01:08:22:17

So I did that and I was like, everybody’s got to leave, you know? And I was at crap older brother to Joy at the time. But I remember at the time, Joy jumped in her car and was like acting all Radic and stuff and I. How did this work? I opened the door to the passenger side of her vehicle to try to get her, like to get out of her car so she wouldn’t like leave.

01:08:22:19 – 01:08:41:11

And she floored it as I was like in the doorway and I jumped on the vehicle because I otherwise I would have gotten run over. Yeah. And I’m literally hanging on the outside of the vehicle while she’s driving like 40 miles an hour up a residential street the whole way up the road. She’s yelling at me, I’m yelling at her, and thank God I didn’t fall off the vehicle.

01:08:41:11 – 01:08:57:16

She’ll remember the story if she listens to this podcast, because that scared the daylights out of me. Like I was so scared. And I think back to that, how that was, that could have been very deadly. Yeah. I mean, we’ve prosecuted cases where people are getting charged with aggravated assault because of that or homicide by vehicle. Yeah, like those types of things.

01:08:57:16 – 01:09:14:25

And, you know, sometimes they do it for TikTok videos and things like that. Other times they do it because it’s a emotional circumstance. Right. And but those things happen so quickly. So guys, if you’re out there and you’re young driver or your parents of young drivers, you know, please, you know, just think about this, talk to your kids.

01:09:14:28 – 01:09:33:24

I actually would pray every day for every day. Yeah, I would love to do an episode. And if there are parents out there who have young drivers that would want to come on to our episode, we could do like a little panel of a few drivers and we could have a conversation with these kids. I would love to actually get some perspectives from them about how things are right now.

01:09:33:26 – 01:09:48:26

When you’re 16, 17 and you’re out there driving, and we can we can weigh in on that, you know, and try to give some guidance to. So if you are a parent of one of those drivers and you would be interested in then possibly coming on our show, reach out to me, comment and maybe we can link up and come up with a little panel.

01:09:48:26 – 01:10:05:23

I think that’d be kind of interesting and fun perspective to get. So. All right, well, guys, again, we’re well over an hour here and we went through like two topics. So, next week we’re going to get back into more of this. There’s a lot more traffic stuff to talk about. Thanks for watching, guys. Check us out on all the socials.

01:10:05:25 – 01:10:10:17

We’ll see you next week. Now we defend podcast here at Kearney Law Piece. We’ll get there eventually.