{"id":24541,"date":"2011-06-08T14:32:50","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T14:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-tester.blawgcloud.com\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T15:30:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:30:43","slug":"maine-bans-texting-while-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine bans texting while driving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-863\" src=\"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/texting-while-driving-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"texting-while-driving-300x199\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/>Last Friday Maine passed a law to ban texting while driving.\u00a0 The new law, which goes into effect on September 1, 2011, prohibits reading or manually composing any written electronic message while driving.\u00a0 The penalty is a $100 fine.\u00a0 It is not a crime for which jail can be imposed.\u00a0 It is a traffic violation.<\/p>\n<p>It is interesting that the penalty is only $100 or so for an offense that clearly impairs a person\u2019s ability to drive.\u00a0 In Maine a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/maine-dui-defense\/maine-dui-penalties\/\">DUI carries a penalty<\/a> of 364 days in jail, but the level of impairment is so low that you can be convicted even if the level of alcohol or drugs in your system does not impair your driving in any way.\u00a0 So now if you are weaving down the road texting, the worst that can happen is a fine.\u00a0 But if you have a tiny bit of physical impairment from alcohol that does not appreciably affect your driving, you can go to jail for a year.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the text of the new law.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Maine bans texting while driving\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Friday Maine passed a law to ban texting while driving.\u00a0 The new law, which goes into effect on September 1, 2011, prohibits reading or manually composing any written electronic message while driving.\u00a0 The penalty is a $100 fine.\u00a0 It is not a crime for which jail can be imposed.\u00a0 It is a traffic violation. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-texting-while-driving"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Maine Bans Texting While Driving<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Maine prohibits reading or manually composing any written electronic message while driving. The penalty is a $100 fine.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Maine Bans Texting While Driving\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Maine prohibits reading or manually composing any written electronic message while driving. The penalty is a $100 fine.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Webb Law Firm\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Maine Bans Texting While Driving","description":"Maine prohibits reading or manually composing any written electronic message while driving. The penalty is a $100 fine.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Maine Bans Texting While Driving","twitter_description":"Maine prohibits reading or manually composing any written electronic message while driving. The penalty is a $100 fine.","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Webb Law Firm","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/"},"author":{"name":"Webb Law Firm","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2a779c0cfb58df839ae19364412f5dc6"},"headline":"Maine bans texting while driving","datePublished":"2011-06-08T14:32:50+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-23T19:30:43+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/"},"wordCount":351,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/texting-while-driving-300x199.jpg","articleSection":["Texting While Driving"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/","url":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/","name":"Maine Bans Texting While Driving","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/maine-bans-texting-while-driving\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/texting-while-driving-300x199.jpg","datePublished":"2011-06-08T14:32:50+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-23T19:30:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2a779c0cfb58df839ae19364412f5dc6"},"description":"Maine prohibits reading or manually composing any written electronic message while driving. 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