Yesterday the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 123 which would allow municipalities to ban cell phone usage in school zones.
Anchorage Sen. Kevin Meyer said it was a suggestion from a volunteer crossing guard.
Meyer: “This was a difficult bill for me to bring forward because I typically don’t like to try to legislate how people live their lives or how they drive their cars or how they do and I think sometimes we as government try to do that too much. But in this case we’re not the ones setting the law, it just enables the local municipalities to determine.”
Committee members want the bill to clarify whether the prohibition applies to parents who use phones to contact their children while waiting in an idling or parked car.
The bill will now go to the Judiciary Committee with the suggestion that it is amended to only apply to moving vehicles.
We spoke with Pegge Erkeneff with the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District about the bill.
Erkeneff: “The school district is in favor of anything that helps student safety. So if this is proven to be able to help student safety in our parking lots, especially the beginning of school, drop off times, and pick up times the school district is definitely in support of that.”
SB 123 passed through the Senate two weeks ago.