Loading your audio article
As a new law cracking down on handheld cellphone use while driving is set to go into effect, new statistics released by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts show distracted driving continues to be a disproportionate problem in Luzerne County.
Luzerne County ranked sixth in the state for distracted driving offenses — using headphones or texting while driving, as well as using a handheld device while driving a commercial vehicle — reported between 2020 and 2024, outdoing larger counties including Lehigh, Lancaster and even Philadelphia.
Local law enforcement say the issue is pervasive on the roads of Luzerne County.
“It’s an issue for all departments. A lot of our accidents are caused by distracted driving,” Kingston Police Chief Richard Kotchik said. “It’s very hard to control, that’s the problem.”
Part of the solution, advocates hope, is a new law taking effect June 5 that will ban handheld cellphone use for anyone behind the wheel.
Scranton resident Eileen Miller — whose son, Paul Miller Jr., became the namesake for the new law after being killed by a distracted driver in 2010 — said the law’s implementation has been a long time coming.
“I’m a little sad it took this long to get where it is, but we’re finally at this point so it’s kind of a full-circle moment for me,” Miller said. “This will absolutely save lives. There is no doubt that getting that phone out of their hands will save lives.”
By the numbers
The numbers released by the court system show police in Luzerne County filed distracted driving-related charges 457 times in the five-year period from 2020-2024, ranking it sixth in the state — with 4.44% of more than 10,000 total cases statewide.
Lackawanna County reported 238 cases, while Schuylkill County reported 96.
According to the courts, people in their 20s are the most common offenders and the violations tend to peak between 10 a.m. and noon. Nearly three-quarters of all offenders were men.
The statistics offer some hints of incongruity, however.
Luzerne County District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce noted after reviewing the numbers that Philadelphia County, with a population of roughly 1.5 million, did not even rank in the top 10 with its 281 citations during the five-year period.
Noting that Philadelphia may have “a lot of other things to worry about,” Sanguedolce said factors at play for Luzerne County could include the convergence of several interstate highways, lack of widespread access to mass transit and the fact that distracted driving was previously a secondary offense, meaning the police need to observe another primary violation prior to initiating a stop.
“You basically need some other traffic stop or a car accident to determine if a person was driving distracted,” he said. “So I think that plays into why Luzerne County seems to be so high up among other counties.”
New law on June 5
The new statute taking effect June 5, Paul Miller’s Law, was inspired by its namesake’s death in Monroe County on July 5, 2010.
Eileen Miller said her son had stayed over for the night following a party in Bethlehem and was driving back to Scranton for a shift at a Gerrity’s Supermarket when the driver of a tractor trailer swerved across the median on state Route 33 and crashed into him head-on.
It later surfaced that the truck driver had been trying to get a phone that was under his seat, she said.
“When (the truck driver) went to get the phone, he looked up and that’s when he saw the car crushed in front of his tractor trailer,” Miller said, noting that several other people were also seriously injured in the crash. “He was reaching for his phone.”
She described the heartache of the state police coming to her door with the news, then of going to see her son’s body in a morgue.
“It was the longest, deepest, darkest walk of my life,” Miller said. “They just had him on a slab and I could see just his face. He had been dragged down the highway, so he was so beat up.”
She said she made a promise to her son on the spot.
“I made a vow to him then that I would fight for change,” Miller said. “He was so bad that I couldn’t even recognize him, and I made a vow that I would fight for change.”
What followed was a years-long ordeal to make it happen.
The truck driver, New Jersey resident Jaswinder Singh, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to serve up to three years in prison. Miller said she spoke to him after his release and that she eventually was able to forgive him.
“After I met with him, I realized he was remorseful. He told me he had a very hard time,” Miller said. “That was probably a big healing moment for me, when I realized he was human. The intent that day was not for him to go and kill my son.”
But Miller said she continued her quest to bring about change in the law, attending summits and contacting lawmakers. Eventually, she found a sympathetic ear in state Sen. Rosemary M. Brown, R-40, Middle Smithfield Twp., who ultimately sponsored the legislation that became Paul Miller’s Law.
“I went to other representatives and they would not touch it,” Miller said. “They would not touch it and they wouldn’t help me.”
The legislation eventually found bipartisan — although not universal — support in Harrisburg, with state Sen. Marty Flynn, D-22, Dunmore, signing on as a co-sponsor.
“In 2022, there were more deaths due to distracted driving than there were as a result of impaired driving,” Flynn said in a statement when the bill cleared the Senate last year. “By addressing the dangers of distracted driving and improving law enforcement practices, we are taking decisive action to save lives and make our communities safer.”
State Sen. Lisa Baker, R-20, Lehman Twp., also supported the legislation, saying that paying attention to the road is a fundamental part of driving essential to ensuring everyone’s safety.
“Anyone who is distracted is at risk of losing control over their vehicle and is unable to properly respond to the sudden unanticipated situation — whether a person, animal, errant driver, or debris and other hazards in the roadway,” Baker said in a statement last week. “After talking to Paul and Eileen Miller, parents who lost a son to a distracted driver, I was deeply impressed by how painful and senseless such a loss is. The problem is easily preventable. If something absolutely requires attention, pull over and make a complete stop first. That is why I voted to support this legislation.”
Miller said she too hopes the law inspired by her son’s death will improve safety on the roads.
“Everybody knows that being on your phone you can kill people,” Miller said. “Everybody knows that, but yet everybody does it every single day. They don’t ever think it’s ever going to be them. They don’t think it’s going to be them that kills somebody else or it’s going to be them that kills themselves.”
Details of the new law
The new law, which Gov. Josh Shapiro signed last summer, prohibits any driver from using a mobile device while driving a vehicle in the state, even while temporarily stopped at a red light or stop sign. In addition to holding a mobile device, it will also be illegal for drivers to support a device with another part of their bodies or to take or place phone calls by pressing more than a single button.
Drivers will be permitted to use mobile devices if they safely pull over and stop along the side of the road, and they can still use their phones to call 911. The law also allows drivers to use hands-free technology to make calls, use GPS and to listen to music on their devices.
Written warnings will be issued for the first year, after which time violators can expect a $50 fine, plus court costs.
Sanguedolce noted that the law provides for an enhanced sentence of up to an additional five years in prison for distracted drivers who are convicted of vehicular homicide.
“I think it’s a really good thing,” Sanguedolce said. “When you hear that noise you find yourself wanting to look, and I can’t tell you the number of people that have had close calls or been in accidents saying, ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I was looking at my phone.’ And you don’t realize how far your car travels in the two or three seconds that you’re reading or writing a text. So I think it’s a welcome change and it’s a long overdue change in the law. Hopefully it will keep a lot more people safe and help avoid otherwise preventable accidents.”
Under the new law, using a cellphone or similar device while driving constitutes a primary offense, meaning the police can conduct a traffic stop for that violation alone.
“Traffic stops often lead to (discovery of) other violations of law,” Sanguedolce said. “So I think it’s something that will deter people from driving distracted. It may also allow the police to find other violations that could be dangerous and could be illegal activity.”
Kotchik, the Kingston police chief, said the police get warrants to search drivers’ phones in cases involving serious crashes, but that the police do not have the time or the resources to search every cellphone possibly connected to a minor traffic violation.
“If they do have a phone in their hand and you do find a violation, well how do you prove they were texting?” he said. “What am I going to do, get a search warrant for their phone over a traffic citation? The law is definitely not in our favor for this.”
He said the total ban on handheld devices will make it easier for police to enforce the state’s anti-texting law, which went into effect in 2012.
“It will make our job easier because we can stop them specifically for that violation,” Kotchik said. “It gives us a lot more leeway. It actually makes the law a lot better for us, because we can actually prosecute some of the people that are doing this.”
