On Monday, April 21st, Rapid City council members voted unanimously to approve a city-wide texting ordinance. This approval makes texting behind the wheel a primary offense, meaning officers do not have to have another reason to pull you over.
Mayor Sam Kooiker will sign the ordinance on Saturday. It will go into effect on May 16th which is 45 days before the state-wide texting while driving ban.
Source: KOTA Territory News
For those of us driving on Ellsworth AFB (or any military installation), hopefully we have already established the safe habit of not driving while texting or doing other things on our cell phones. Soon we will have to carry that habit out into the local community.
On Tuesday of this week, Rapid City Police Chief, Steve Allender, called the recently passed state law on texting while driving “toothless” and proposed his draft of a tougher ordinance to the city’s Legal and Finance Committee that would make texting while driving in Rapid City a primary offense.
South Dakota state lawmakers approved a measure that takes effect on July 1, 2014 to ban texting statewide with a $100 fine, but as a secondary offense. Last month, Box Elder enacted a distracted driving ordinance, but police can only enforce it as a secondary offense.
Unlike a primary offense, in which police can pull someone over specifically for…
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